Translating GZDoom's text content. Read if you want to help

[Graf Zahl]

Thanks. That were the ones where I didn't trust Google Translate because the results were too inconsistent.

[Captain J]

Tell me something i don't know, my friend. I only use Google Translator for last resort. I mean, when all the Translator fails me.

[Graf Zahl]

For simple phrases it is normally ok - but I use it only when I can read the target language somewhat reasonably. For longer sentences it often turns into gibberish.

[Gez]

To some extent you can check the translation with a different translator, like DeepL, but that depends on whether both translators know the language; and obviously nothing beats a translation check done by a native speaker.

[PlayerLin]

Regarding input, AFAIK Chinese IMEs depend on Pinyin, but then I ultimately have to wonder why they don't switch to that fully - in order to work they'll need to be able to understand it anyway... But I guess in the end it comes down to the simple fact that culture is important, even when impractical.

PS: I cannot say about China or other Chinese-speaking regions, they may using non-Pinyin based IMEs but I don't know.

Most Taiwanese Mandarins using Bopomofo, Cangjie, Dayi and others input methods, not Pinyin(but not mean no one use them)...as we learned Mandarin Phonetic Symbols(Zhuyin Fuhao/Zhuyin) since our young ages and so very familiar with it(Unless someone never learned at all, like he/she didn't live in Taiwan in his/her child ages, and then come back after become adults). Yes, everyone still can be learned other IMEs if he/she wants...but that one is easily if one just starting using computers.

It's not that easy to change for those who still using Bopomofo input method, maybe some will using other IMEs like Boshiamy method(shape-based IME with English-latters for input code) or other Shape-based IMEs like Cangjie, Dayi etc. for better speed or convenience, and using Bopomofo still slow even with better designed IME, and cannot input some of characters if you don't know how to pronounce it.

I tried Boshiamy method many year ago because my elder brother used it, and then gave up eventually because I didn't understand it at all so I reverted back to using Bopomofo IMEs, as it's something I'm familiar, and never try to change again...sadly.
And to me, reading Pinyins just PITA to me as hell if not something I already know about so I can't even using any Pinyin-based IMEs, so every time I saw some pinyin-s I have to google how it pronounce then translate it to what I know in my brain, I can't really read most on them on-the-fly as Pinyin was not something I learned when I were child.

[Kostov]

I got word from the Polish translator that he won't be able to touch the translation for at least 2 weeks, or even be able to finish it at all, due to personal reasons. Though I suppose it's in an acceptable state already, now that it's been added.

[Graf Zahl]

Which one? There were two persons working on this. Interestingly they stopped both at the same time.

[Kostov]

In practice both of them. One's had personal problems, other guy is taken up by university studies.

[Graf Zahl]

Too bad. It was really looking good. Hopefully one of them finds a bit of free time to fill in the gaps in Hacx and Harmony at least...

On the plus side, Finnish has seen quite a bit of work recently, the Engine Strings table is now less than 200 texts from completion.

[Graf Zahl]

I think it's time for one last status update about the translation effort:

The following languages are complete: Czech, German, Spanish, French, Korean, Portuguese and Russian.
Italian is complete except for the Strife dialogue.
Polish is a bit further on Strife but still misses Hacx and Harmony.
Finnish is almost there, it still needs the Heretic and Hexen intermission and script texts plus Chex Quest, Hacx and Harmony. The engine texts are complete, though.
Serbian has complete engine strings but is still missing most of the rest plus 30 character graphics.

These languages are sufficiently complete for making them official - Finnish and Serbian still need a bit of work, though.


Now to the other ones that don't look so good:

Hungarian is roughly 50% done. I really wish that someone could complete this - the current coverage is far to scattered and random for this to be of any real use but it's too much to go to waste.

The remaining 3 languages on the other hand can be considered non-existent. Greek has less than 60 texts translated, Esperanto and Romanian roughly 300. I'll most likely cut them out of the main text file and store them separately - the coverage is so low that it's mostly useless in its current state and only complicates updates of the Git repo.

[Kostov]

Russian HacX translation is basically done, with a few missing strings. I've put it into the spreadsheet. The Serbian game translation is about halfway done, not counting Strife.

[Graf Zahl]

I see Hacx is done except for 2 strings. For the HOIG Reznator, I'd suggest to transliterate the name to Cyrillic and not think about it further. The term is entirely made up and it is of no importance to get it "right". In the German version I even left out the "fry some butt" part because it does not translate well into something funny. For the cheat message the content does not really matter. If you have no better idea I'd just copy Doom's original text into that field.

EDIT: Took care of it. The cheat string got removed because it was crap. Something has to be put in that field, though, to make Dehacked fail to detect it, so I just added a question mark to the English version.

For the HOIG reznator I just entered that term into Google Translate and it surely gave me (almost) the same in Cyrillic letters. Good enough for me.

[Graf Zahl]

So, Russian looks to be complete. I'll edit the status post.

[Kostov]

Not entirely complete - we'd like to revise some of the Hacx and Harmony texts. Otherwise, yeah.

[Kostov]

I’ve filled in the Serbian translation with texts for Heretic and Hexen.

We’re probably gonna need to revise those as well, but at least they’re done for now.