[Mobius]

Everything here is promising and damn cool.

I'd like to know if you are interested on adding translated strings.tbl to your Dowload list when the mod will be ready for a release. If you're using the same strings.tbl used in FS2 there shouldn't be problems.

If an Italian or Spanish(there's a French translation as well, I think...and others will follow) wants to DL Diaspora and have a fully translated interface all he needs is a link to a VP file that, once downloaded, is to be placed in the folder. After the release there could be full translations of scripts and tech descriptions as well.

What do you think about it? It'll make Diaspora a pretty "universal" mod that pays a lot of attention on its players. Obviously the Diaspora team won't be responsible for issues caused by the translations.

So far there could be:

Spanish - Alex Navarro
Italian - Mobius, 134th Barracudas

I guess there will be a Finnish translation too(giving the number of talented Finnish members of the community).

What do you think? 


EDIT: 134th Barracudas now added! 

[karajorma]

Translating strings.tbl into Italian and Spanish is a good idea for a HLP wide project as far as I'm concerned. That way all mods can benefit from it. I'm more than happy to include it when/if it gets made.

As for translating tstrings.tbl, I've actually been the big one pushing for BtRL to be translated in the past (even going so far as to generate a Tstrings.tbl for BtRL and changing all the missions to use it). So far that has come to nothing but I'll definitely be doing it again as it is very little effort for me (I hacked together a Java tool for it last time in a few hours. I'll have to see if I still have it).

[Shade]

I'm all for this. Translations = good.

[Mobius]

Good to know. I'm slowing taking care of the strings.tbl, I guess it'll be ready before the release of Diaspora.

I also volunteer to translate al missions and tech descriptions as soon as Diaspora gets released(I don't pretend to get the files before the release, of course). I'm progressively becoming a true BSG fan and I know how to translate a BSG mod in Italian.

For example, in the Italian version "Adama" is "Adamo", battlestar is "base stellare"(which means "stellar base") and "Starbuck" is "Scorpion". I'll make the translation fit perfectly so that Italian fans(and there are many of them) will not notice differences.

I'm all for this. Translations = good.

Thanks. I'll contact Alex Navarro to tell him about this proposal.

[Herra Tohtori]

I guess there will be a Finnish translation too(giving the number of talented Finnish members of the community).

Actually, I seriously doubt that prospect for a couple of reasons:

Finnish people know English very well and are conditioned to at least listen to it in most TV and movies, they are all subtitled to Finnish... and we actually study it in school longer than Swedish (or Finnish, whichever happens to be the second domestic language). Games, though - if not meant for wide audience including children - are very rarely translated to Finnish, which means there is rather limited gaming (and actually computer in general) terminology in Finnish, most terms are anglicisms or loan words from English. Moreover, Finnish terms usually sound plain dumb or clumsy... So English is the expected norm that most Finnish people expect and accept in games. Also the limited vocabulary means that it would be very difficult to translate FreeSpace related things to Finnish in a way that wouldn't be completely laughable.

Besides, with the Finnish language it would be more than likely that at some point you would run out of character room on HUD or interface while struggling with overly long words...

Also, to my knowledge there hasn't been any intention to do this in past years to translate anything FreeSpace to Finnish, and there has been a lot of Finnish fans around for a long time. I'll take my hat off if someone actually manages to make a credible Finnish translation of FS2/any total conversion, but I don't really see that happening, either motive-wise or even possibility-wise. And call me old-fashioned, but we might be better off without one... "aliavaruuskäytävä" sounds more like an underpass to go under the space, rather than "subspace corridor", and although there would be much hilarity in translating a lot of the comm messages to Finnish, I think it would only have novel value for most Finnish players and then they would switch back to English version (kinda like I did with GIMP, the Finnish translation was just messing things up for me...).

Personally I think that the only motive for translating the game to Finnish would be if someone made a Star Wreck mod of TBP. That could definitely not be left in English, not at all...

[karajorma]

I also volunteer to translate al missions and tech descriptions as soon as Diaspora gets released(I don't pretend to get the files before the release, of course). I'm progressively becoming a true BSG fan and I know how to translate a BSG mod in Italian.

If we decide to get a translation before the mod releases we wouldn't have to give you all the files anyway. Just a single text file.

[Herra Tohtori]

"All through the winter of '08 we had translators working, in awesome-proof conditions, to try and produce a German, Italian, version of the Diaspora. They worked on one word each for greater safety. One of them saw two words of the lines and spent several weeks in hospital. But apart from that things went pretty quickly, and we soon had the Diaspora by January, in a form which our developers couldn't understand but which the Germans, the French, the Italians and the Spanish could."

-Book of Diaspora, chapter three, verses 8-10

 


Sorry, couldn't avoid it...

[captain-custard]

will there be different keyboard mappings availible available , so that ctrl-a is ctrl-a and not ctrl-q as in the case for a azerty keybard etc;
and when in multilayer messages then i can think less ,i have to think in qwerty while typing in azerty , i have no idea how people with a dvorak keyboard cope !!!

[Herra Tohtori]

will there be different keyboard mappings availible available , so that ctrl-a is ctrl-a and not ctrl-q as in the case for a azerty keybard etc;
and when in multilayer messages then i can think less ,i have to think in qwerty while typing in azerty , i have no idea how people with a dvorak keyboard cope !!!

For now, FS2_Open only uses US 104-keyboard layout 8if I recall correctly). Additional layout support will only be possible after new pilot code comes into picture, and that definitely won't be in the 3.6.10 (relevant for immediate future). So no, in immediate future there's not going to be additional layouts supported... sad as it may be.

[Mobius]

@Herra Tohtori: Italian and Spanish internet users speak English as well. It doesn't mean someone shouldn't work a bit to make the mod even more enjoyable for them.

A translated strings.tbl for Diaspora means a translated strings.tbl for ALL mods and campaigns. With a few hours of work you create something universal for the FreeSpace community that will boost FS' popularity.

And there are long words in Italian as well, they could even be longer than their Finnish counterparts. The problems about Italian are two: 1) Long words  and 2) Additional words.

"Skip Training" became "Salta l'Addestramento". I changed it into "Salta" and nothing else simply because there wasn't enough space. And this is only an example.

"Secondary friendly hits" ---> "Colpi dell'arma secondaria che hanno colpito degli alleati"(appropriate translation) ---> "Fuoco amico con arma secondaria" (effective and grammatically correct short version).

No matter of how long the proper translation should be it's always possible to find a shorter, effective and grammatically correct solution.

The translation isn't going to drain all your spare time. It's easy and fluid. Diaspora will be released in several parts so translating each part won't be a dramatic task. To be honest I thought you were available to create the Finnish version(Herra Tohtori > Lobo)

[shiv]

I'm volunteering to translate Diaspora into polish language. FS2 was polonized so Diaspora could be also polonized. The only problem are polish sybmols like "ą", "ę", "ż", "ź" and other like those, but I could use instead of them just standard symbols.

[Mobius]

I'm using e'/a'/o'/u' instead of è, é, à, ò, ù without problems. I guess you can do that as well.

There's a fully translated Polish inferface, right? I think I saw a few screenshots somewhere. In that case, your job is halfway done!

[shiv]

Here's polish FreeSpace shot:

You can see there polish symbols... I really don't know how CD Projekt (translation company) menaged to add those symbols into FreeSpace 2.

[karajorma]

Adding the correct fonts as an add on pack would be pretty trivial, I'd imagine.

[Mobius]

Well, that interface doesn't use a modified strings.tbl only. Polish members must have created a new interface because, for example, "Auto namierz." and "Auto szybk." are the result of changes made to the interface art and not the table.

In my translation they remain "Auto target" and "Auto speed".

I'm not thinking of making changes to the interface. Not yet. Editing the strings.tbl is so far the most effective solution.

Adding the correct fonts as an add on pack would be pretty trivial, I'd imagine.

I completely forgot about the new fonts...anyway "Auto target" and "Auto speed" are part of the interface art, I guess, so a translation would require additional stuff. I'd exclude that for now...

[KaraBulut]

Translation is a good idea and make the game appealing even more.

But devs don't know all the languages in the world and it takes a lot of effort to translate so volunteers is a must.

[aRaven]

Will the translators be part of the game?

[karajorma]

Assuming we can find someone to translate the words that's easy. Translating the voice acting is a whole different kettle of fish.

[Mobius]

Err...I think voices should be and remain in English...

[Mongoose]

It's not even that they should...it's the fact that your chances of finding enough people to do a full alternate-language dub are slim to none.