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Language In Cache Descriptions


YanniG

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Hello !

 

I am one of the most active Greek geocachers and recently we made our Greek section at the forums.

I would like to ask a simple question.

When you open the caches in Germany or another european country that has not english as its first language, you see that THE MAJORITY of the cache descriptions, even the titles are in the local language.

I have thought many times of starting some weekend trips to Germany of France or Switcherland just for geocaching, but all I find at the descriptions is the local languages that I do not speak and not willing to learn soon.

On the other hand, here in Greece I have read ALL the descriptions of the local caches and not one of them is written in Greek, all descriptions are written in english.

I would like to ask Jeremy and anyone, why is there such a difference at the descriptions?

There are international geocachers who like to travel and do not speak the local languages.

I suggest there should be a law while declaring a new cache, that you can write the descriptions at the local language, but you have to provide also an english description as mandatory.Or maybe there should be an option for this cache to be rated only for local geocachers (that I would not prefer).

 

What are the thoughts of all the friends in here?

Kindest regards,

YanniG

Athens, Greece

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When you open the caches in Germany or another european country that has not english as its first language, you see that THE MAJORITY of the cache descriptions, even the titles are in the local language.

Many caches here (in germany) only have german descriptions for a very simple reason: Many cache owners do not speak english well enough (at least thats what they feel) to make an english description. Though in western germany nowadays everyone has english classes in school, many people do not feel they are good enough in that language to use it.

 

It is even harder for many Cachers, that went to school in eastern germany before 1990: They also learned a foreign language, but it was russian, not the language of the big enemy in the west. ;-)

 

And some are just lazy, because 99% or more of the people looking for caches here are able to read german. So why bother?

 

Nils

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I have done a fair few caches in Germany, and exchanged many emails, and 9/10 the emails start "I am sorry for my bad English". They then continue with perfectly spelled, grammatically correct and well punctuated emails. More than I can say for some native speakers, including myself!

 

I do NOT expect foreign caches to have English descriptions, I feel it's my fault for not speaking their language.

 

I certainly do not feel that English should be imposed on cache descriptions.

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In the long term, I think it's in the best interest of Groundspeak to encourage native language descriptions on cache pages. Having English description is a nice bonus, but forcing people to do it is unfair - after all, cachers should try to promote the sport to the locals instead of just to the tourists.

 

If this becomes a bigger issue in the future, then providing tools (or links) to facilitate English descriptions would be nice.

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The language barrier isn't much of a barrier if you ask for help. I have in the past, and will in the future, ask for help translating cache pages. Think of it this way -- most cachers around the world are pretty decent folk, and are more than willing to lend a helping hand. You never know, your request fior assistance might end up making a new friend which might just add to your foreign expedition...

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From what I read from you my friends, it would not bother you if I changed the descriptions of my caches into Greek then ! I have installed a big number of caches here in greece and I plan to install much more in the future, so the Greek description would not bother other geocachers since there are translating pages...

But it does bother me when I want to go on geocaching to some other country lets say France, and everything is in French...

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I write my cache descriptions only in English. There are many cachers in Finland who do the same, but majority writes them in both Finnish and English. Some (mystery) caches of course are language dependent and they may be difficult to translate to several languages without giving a hint, so those caches are usually only in Finnish. If I make such a cache in future, it will also be English-only.

 

So most caches in Finland have description in English and so cachers from most parts of the World should feel welcome to seek some caches in here if they ever come to our country.

 

Oh, someone mentioned translation engines. Just a small typo or informal word (not known to the program) might mix the whole sentence. And I've never seen a translator that could do any Finnish. Usually the language is unreadable to native speakers. Go try yourself: find a Finnish-English translator and try some grammatically correct Finnish news. Here's a sample (yes, it's supposed to be English):

 

Lebanese äärijärjestö Hizbollah menacing Lithe and Denmark itsemurhaiskuilla their publish caricature prophets Muhammedista. Danish meijerijätti Arla info thursday lomauttavansa 125 intelligence caricature muslimimaissa releasing tuoteboikotin flow.
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From what I read from you my friends, it would not bother you if I changed the descriptions of my caches into Greek then ! I have installed a big number of caches here in greece and I plan to install much more in the future, so the Greek description would not bother other geocachers since there are translating pages...

But it does bother me when I want to go on geocaching to some other country lets say France, and everything is in French...

You should wait for more polarized opinions to surface before you jump to that conclusion. :D As I recall, there was a similar thread months ago, and people were complaining LOUDLY for English to be included in ALL cache descriptions.

 

I'm also bothered by the fact that I have to exchange currencies when I visit another country - far more of a problem than just cache descriptions.

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I'm a big fan of English - since it's the only language I speak, read, or write. However, I can't imagine imposing limitations on other folks by demanding that they offer descriptions in English. It's their cache, their country, and their language. Why should they be made to cater to me?

 

I'd use an online translator to try and get the gist of the description. If I failed to understand or needed clarification I'd likely ask for assistance. Surely someone in the caching community could help me.

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My thoughts:

1. The whole geocaching site is in English. So, all geocachers can read and write English, more or less.

2. The point of the game is not just to hide something, but an other geocacher to find it as well.

3. Most of us are very happy when a geocacher from an other country visits our cache.

4. Many people from USA does not speak foreign languages, but most geocachers are from USA.

5. Politeness is the first need for a healthy community.

6. Various languages in listings and forum posts is a problem for the searching system and database's structure.

 

So, my oppinion is that all descriptions must be mainly in English for all geocachers and if someone wants, can post it AND in his own language, additionally.

 

Regards,

Antonis

Edited by Antonis_GR
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I was recently told that I may have to travel from my home in the U.S. to France on a business trip. So of course the first thing I did was check out the geocaches in the area. Oh yeah - then I started checking out hotels, etc. :o

 

I was surprised to find out that almost all of the cache descriptions were written in both French and English, as were many of the logs. It sort of destroyed the prevalent U.S. stereotype of snobby French, since they seemed to be very accommodating of others by putting forth this effort.

 

It turns out that I didn't need to make the trip, but it make me feel just a little bit more welcome in a foreign land.

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I personally find it very interesting to have two languages available. In those cases the cache owner’s effort is paying dividends for me because it helps me learn the language. I love that. But I do not take it for granted and it does not need to be there.

 

If a cache owner feels comfortable to only do it in the native language then that is OK with me. Afterall, a traveler to the country has that issue with everything, ranging from newspapers to grocery stores.

 

Maybe something that Groundspeak could do to promote international collaboration is assign an icon (attribute) that a cacheowner can use to signal that s/he is interesting in having someone help with an english translation. I know I would help with some and would be proud to do so. But I would never approach someone to ask if they would like me to help them with a translation. In fact, we might find that some high school and college foreign language teachers would jump on this as an educational activity for their students.

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... I was surprised to find out that almost all of the cache descriptions were written in both French and English, as were many of the logs. ...

I found the same thing when I went to Europe. Some caches were written in just the areas dominant language, but I just used babelfish to 'translate' those. It made those caches more interesting.

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Since when is English the universal language? (yeah, I know it is for airlines for some odd reason, but we are not flying planes here, we're caching!)

If the cache owner wants to publish his or her cache with multiple languages, that's great. If not, then I don't think anyone oughta foist their non-native language on them. If you wanted to put your caches in Greek only, that would be fine. You're in Greece. People there speak Greek as a general rule. I would love to look for caches in Europe and would not be put off by a language I don't speak. Part of caching is the challenge! it's a modern world. There are resources.

 

Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world, so should, all the caches should be listed in both Chinese and the native language as well as English?)

 

Maybe all caches should be posted in Esperanto, which is truly a universal language. :o

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My thoughts:

1. The whole geocaching site is in English. So, all geocachers can read and write English, more or less.

I had to lough when I read this as your number one point. Let me tell you why: There are geocachers in Germany who do not log online. I tried to explain that there might be a part in this group who don't speak english but geocaching.com is only in english and that they are not able to log online. I was told very strictly that anybody, even a child, can learn in a minute which four or five buttons you have to push to log and grab & place a TB. And now my point of view just comes back this way ...

 

BTW, I really overthink to pull the english description for our caches at geocaching.com. Reasons for that are that any german geocacher, and >90% of finders of our caches are germans, have to print the english description too which is a waste of paper, ink and time - but you can't seperate english and german description here. (I would provide a link for the english description at another cache listing site though, because there you can seperate the languages. And no, you don't have to be logged in there to see everything as it's open.)

 

Greetings,

Tobias

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I had to lough when I read this as your number one point. Let me tell you why: There are geocachers in Germany who do not log online...

Agapite tobias,

An katalaba kala, (poy mallon den katalaba) theleis na grafeis mono sta Germanika. Kanena problhma. Den einai krima omvs ta cache soy na anakyklonvntai mono sth Germania?

Filika, Antonis

Edited by Antonis_GR
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It's a good idea to include descriptions in both the local language and in English.

 

Many people here in Western Europe speak and write English quite well. If a cache owner feels his English is not good enough, he should contact one of the 10,000 friendly geocachers who do speak English in addition to their local language, so he can get some help translating (and meet people, too).

You cannot, however, impose this on people by law.

 

In the scientific community, it's quite common to publish papers in English. No one complains about this, since you want your paper/article to be read by as many people as possible

 

I think gc.com should include the sentence "please provide a cache description in English" in the 'Hide a cache' section. It's an international world!

 

Oddities I've come across:

  • A cache in Rotterdam, NL, written in Dutch by (probably) an English or American cacher with errors every two words or so. I still can't make out what is required to find the cache, and it's only 1.5 stars or so.
  • A cache in France with a Dutch name since it was placed on vacation by a Dutch cacher. Yuck.

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Agapite tobias,

An katalaba kala, (poy mallon den katalaba) theleis na grafeis mono sta Germanika. Kanena problhma. Den einai krima omvs ta cache soy na anakyklonvntai mono sth Germania?

Filika, Antonis

No idea what you wrote - as expected. ;-) If this would have been a cache description, I would have either asked the owner for a translation or just closed it. No problem on my side and of course no offense meant or taken as I would have thought that you are either not confidend enough in your skills or just can't write/speak english.

BTW, if it turns out, that it's a Multi where I have to read signs in Greece, I would have been forced to skip it anyway as I most probably can't read them ... ;-)

 

Greetings,

Tobias

 

PS: I fully agree that, if the owner is able to provide, an english description should be available. But it don't have to be at gc.com as everybody is then forced to print everytime all language versions which is a waste of paper and ink. (I even tried to invent a translation service at geocaching.de from geocachers who speak english for those who are not - but this failed totally as there are much more geocachers who asked for a translation compared to those willing to provide them.)

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Agapite tobias,

An katalaba kala, (poy mallon den katalaba) theleis na grafeis mono sta Germanika. Kanena problhma. Den einai krima omvs ta cache soy na anakyklonvntai mono sth Germania?

Filika, Antonis

No idea what you wrote - as expected. ;-) If this would have been a cache description, I would have either asked the owner for a translation or just closed it. ...

I would have blown that one off and moved on. Not because it was in another language, but because the online translation turned out as this:

Dear Tobias, If katalaba well, (where rather katalaba) theleis grafeis only in the Germanika. No one problhma. Den einai krima omvs ta cache na anakyklonvntai mono sth Germania? Filika, Antonis
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My geocaching friends,

 

the main point that I started this topic was that all the caches here, are under the domain geocaching.com and not under geocaching.de or geocaching.fr or geocaching.it or geocaching.gr

I still have not received the opinion of Jeremy, the owner of this site.

Anyway, I have to suggest at each cache a sign of a flag, so that anyone can choose the caches that have a description language that understands.

 

My friends,

from your responses I learnt that the majority of geocachers have a good will to help you with the translation of their caches (of course if they have the knowledge), or they can direct you to a member of the local community that knows how to translate the description.

Above all it is good willing my friends.Without it we are nothing !

 

Kindest regards,

YanniG

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Agapite tobias,

An katalaba kala, (poy mallon den katalaba) theleis na grafeis mono sta Germanika. Kanena problhma. Den einai krima omvs ta cache soy na anakyklonvntai mono sth Germania?

Filika, Antonis

No idea what you wrote - as expected. ;-) If this would have been a cache description, I would have either asked the owner for a translation or just closed it. ...

I would have blown that one off and moved on. Not because it was in another language, but because the online translation turned out as this:

Dear Tobias, If katalaba well, (where rather katalaba) theleis grafeis only in the Germanika. No one problhma. Den einai krima omvs ta cache na anakyklonvntai mono sth Germania? Filika, Antonis

 

Dear friends,

 

It is exactly what I mean. I think that it would be much more polite and useful to write in English, just because all translators can handle them and everybody can read the messages. Geocaching is just a hobby and fun. Don't make it a very "complex activity".

 

P.S. Translation if my message:

Dear tobias, If I understand your message (I am not sure), you prefer writting only in German. No problem, but it is not so good caches to be recycled most in Germany? Frindly, Antonis.

Regards, Antonis :mad:

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I still have not received the opinion of Jeremy, the owner of this site.

Why should Jeremy have an opinion on this? Thanks to TPTB we all have fun geocaching. Isn't that good enough?

 

Just write your descriptions as you like it, and others will read (or not) them as they like it...

Edited by Jiheffe
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I still have not received the opinion of Jeremy, the owner of this site.

Why should Jeremy have an opinion on this?

 

Well, he obviously has:

Great idea. Oh, I have to build it now? :ph34r:

 

Seriously, once we move our entire site to the new codebase, it will be easier to switch to alternate languages. It will take a bit more to create a multilingual version though, but I'll keep it on the requirements list in future development projects.

 

Since the site has been changed a few times since 2003, I suppose they're already "workin' on it". :blink:

 

BS/2

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While I'd like cache descriptions to be in English, that's only because I'm lazy. Well, also if it's in two languages I can see how good my translation skills are. It's fairly easy to check if I'm reading the German and then read the English. Or the Spanish and English or the French and English or the Dutch and English, or... you get the idea. Unfortuately, Greek is not one of the languages that I even attempt. The alphabet is differrent and I haven't learned it. I find the same holds true for Arabic, any Asian language and Russian. And not I don't travel alot....I only wish I did. I like to check out caches from all over just because I can. I can dream, can't I?

 

Terri

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Saw this in a thread on locked listings

 

what about a locked active listing? seems weired to me.

 

happy hunting - the old fashioned way (trads only, exceptions may appear)

 

What's weirder is that it all seems gibberish, like it's written in some weird foreign language or something. Oh wait, nevermind.

 

Geocachers are some of the most creative people that I know. sanoj & cyberjunkie have found a way to deal with one of the issues mentioned in this thread. It would seem that with volunteers from different countries, it wouldn't be much effort for GC.com to provide translations of parts of the website in various languages. Using the HTTP request Accept-Language header, GC.com could deliver the page in the user's prefered language with the fall back to English if that page hasn't been translated. Pages that have a more dynamic appearance (i.e. the home pages, search results, cache pages and logs) may be difficult. And updates to pages (e.g. changes to guidelines) may be delayed on non-English pages until volunteers have translated the new content.

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I notices that the geocaching.com webpages are now in UTF-8 encoding so it should be able to show different language characters. But when I tried to put Chinese into the list all the Chinese characters were showed as question mark.

 

I think if the whole website uses UTF-8 encoding it will be i18n compatible so that every languages can be displayed.

 

I have to say that if geocaching.com can support multi-language, it will bring more and more GPS owner to join this interesting activity.

 

There are little caches nor users in China. The main reason is that GPS is still not popular in China, the second reason is the language barrier. I have introduced this website to a lot of GPS users in China but they feel difficult to enjoy because all the informations are in English only. Some geocachers in China even made their own website in Chinese. But if we can post cache in both English and Chinese description to geocaching.com, it will be better that the caches can be shared to geocachers all over the world.

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Anyway, I have to suggest at each cache a sign of a flag, so that anyone can choose the caches that have a description language that understands.

 

Seconded! Not as part of the 10 attributes, but as a separate, filterable (no, that's not a word in English) attribute - with multiple values possible, of course. Most Danish cache descriptions are bilingual (Lewa Nuva, our local reviewer, politely asks people to provide English or Danish descriptions when they're missing) and some Belgian ones I've come across are in French, Dutch and English :)

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I notices that the geocaching.com webpages are now in UTF-8 encoding so it should be able to show different language characters. But when I tried to put Chinese into the list all the Chinese characters were showed as question mark.

 

Sounds like the font being used is simply missing the Chinese characters. Non-English characters like Danish æ, ø and å and cyrillic Д, л, ь are certainly possible.

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I notices that the geocaching.com webpages are now in UTF-8 encoding so it should be able to show different language characters. But when I tried to put Chinese into the list all the Chinese characters were showed as question mark.

 

I think if the whole website uses UTF-8 encoding it will be i18n compatible so that every languages can be displayed.

 

I have to say that if geocaching.com can support multi-language, it will bring more and more GPS owner to join this interesting activity.

 

There are little caches nor users in China. The main reason is that GPS is still not popular in China, the second reason is the language barrier. I have introduced this website to a lot of GPS users in China but they feel difficult to enjoy because all the informations are in English only. Some geocachers in China even made their own website in Chinese. But if we can post cache in both English and Chinese description to geocaching.com, it will be better that the caches can be shared to geocachers all over the world.

There are ways to input Chinese characters into cache descriptions, but you'll need to use a software utility to convert them to HTML Unicode entities that'll look like & #12345;& #54321, etc. (no spaces) Cachers in Japan already do this.

 

If you are looking for Groundspeak to host such a tool, you'll have to wait until there's enough demand.

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There are ways to input Chinese characters into cache descriptions, but you'll need to use a software utility to convert them to HTML Unicode entities that'll look like & #12345;& #54321, etc. (no spaces) Cachers in Japan already do this.

 

If you are looking for Groundspeak to host such a tool, you'll have to wait until there's enough demand.

Thank you!

And I've written an instructure in chinese, so that others know how to do.

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=136680

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From what I read from you my friends, it would not bother you if I changed the descriptions of my caches into Greek then ! I have installed a big number of caches here in greece and I plan to install much more in the future, so the Greek description would not bother other geocachers since there are translating pages...

But it does bother me when I want to go on geocaching to some other country lets say France, and everything is in French...

Actually, what I believe most respondents so far have been saying is that it sure would be nice if all cache descriptions, in addition to being displayed in the native language of that country, were also displayed in English as well on the listing page. Howerver, most folks seem to be saying that they would not want to see that made mandatory, i.e., enforced by a rule. I agree: I would most like to see a cache listing page offering a full description in both the native language and in English. I specify the latter language not only because I speak it but because it is the most commonly-used and unifying language in the world: when I was in India, I discovered that the people there spoke many native languages that varied from state to state, and even within each state, but the unifying common language for all of them, and the only one which allowed many folks from different states to speak with each other, was English.

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I notices that the geocaching.com webpages are now in UTF-8 encoding so it should be able to show different language characters. But when I tried to put Chinese into the list all the Chinese characters were showed as question mark.

 

I think if the whole website uses UTF-8 encoding it will be i18n compatible so that every languages can be displayed.

 

I have to say that if geocaching.com can support multi-language, it will bring more and more GPS owner to join this interesting activity.

There are ways to input Chinese characters into cache descriptions, but you'll need to use a software utility to convert them to HTML Unicode entities that'll look like & #12345;& #54321, etc. (no spaces) Cachers in Japan already do this.

 

If you are looking for Groundspeak to host such a tool, you'll have to wait until there's enough demand.

 

Unfortunately, HTML Unicode works only with HTML support disabled.

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Ok, I can't help myself, I am going to repost what I said about this issue last week in another thread:

And Yannik, come to Italy! It's hard to find a cache description without English text here.

Oh and by the way, I find it quite silly to suggest tyat all you need is the coordinates anyway. In my experience cache descriptions often contain CRUCIAL additional information without which you will NOT find the cache. And that does not apply to puzzle or multis only.

 

Now for a repeat of my earlier message:

 

This topic also came up recently in the Geocaching mailing list we have here in Italy. Italy has a small geocaching community and a relatively high percentage of cache finds are logged by foreigners, during their holiday here.

Last week I sent out the following message to a couple of people that have logged some of my hides:

"Hello ......,

 

A while back you visited my cache ......... in Italy. I hope you had a very nice time in Italy overall. I think it is great to combine your vacation with geocaching!

Our small Italian geocaching community is very happy to make caches available not only in Italian, but in English too, so people from abroad can enjoy them as well.

We also like the idea of geocaching during our vacation abroad, but unfortunately not everyone thinks of publishing their cache not only in their local language, but also in English.

I noticed that you have created a couple of caches too, and they they only contain a description in ......

Maybe you haven't given this much thought yet, so I am sure you will be so nice as to include an English description too,

so that us Italians (and other foreigners) have some chance of geocaching on our vacation, just like you could in Italy!

And if you could get more people to make their caches a bit more 'international', that would be even more fantastic!

 

Thanks a lot and happy geocaching!"

 

So far none of them have even bothered to reply. I know that some caches can be done based only on the coordinates, but a lot of the fun is also in the provided background info, not to mention essential info included in multis or puzzle caches. I usually have a near-dead experience when I reach the end of a up-hill hike, so I am not sure I would be very relaxed if all the way up I had to be wondering if maybe some essential info in the description didn't come out right of the babelfish machine.

The average Italian is not very good at English, so if they can do it, Germans, Dutch people, Scandinavians etc. should manage as well.

Frankly I am playing with the idea of deleting logs on my caches registered by people who have hidden caches with an indigenous-language-only description. And 'playing with it' is putting it mildly smile.gif (of course after sending them the above, if I say so myself, very friendly letter, and maybe one more reminder after a couple of weeks if I get no reply.

Check out my GCX94H for an example of a multicache that caters for both Italian and English.

 

Yannik, please feel free to use this text to 'harass' geocaching tourists in Greece that can't be bothered to include English text in their caches 'back home'.

 

Katja

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Frankly I am playing with the idea of deleting logs on my caches registered by people who have hidden caches with an indigenous-language-only description. And 'playing with it' is putting it mildly smile.gif (of course after sending them the above, if I say so myself, very friendly letter, and maybe one more reminder after a couple of weeks if I get no reply.

Obs!! Bad karma. :)

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If you are not in an English speaking country, you shouldn't expect anything to be in English. That's really all there is to it.

 

The fact that most Americans only speak English is bollocks - just because American (or any other nationality, for that matter) tourists might be uneducated is not a reason why the rest of the world should cater to them in a hobby.

 

I'd actually like to see MORE indigenous language descriptions. I've been caching in Italy, and somehow, I managed. Some of the caches had English descriptions, which I considered a bonus, and certainly not necessary. If I go to Greece, I'll be expecting cache descriptions in Greek, and I'll be prepared to translate as necessary. If I go to Germany, I'll be ready for German descriptions.

 

I don't think it's too much to ask that people in foreign countries be prepared to accept the language of the realm.

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i am a native swiss german speaker. germans wont understand me nor my fellow countrymen. so german already has to be considered a foreign language. then i speak and write reasonable english. i am also quite well in reading, understanding and speaking french. writing would also be ok more or less. i understand italian as well pretty good. speaking i can make my way in italy, dont ask about writing. switzerland has a german, french, italian and even a "grischun" part. later is something that will probably be a secret for me for a life time. but its only spoken from a very small percentage. and in that language exist already some dialects. virtually its a little bit different from town to town.

 

developing my language skills has taken me many years, several girl- and other friends.. plus a lot of schooling and not to mention also a bit of money..

 

is it too much asked from anybody else to at least speak another, foreign, language? going for the mandarin, as the majority of people on the planet speaks this language..

 

i am willing to share my knowledge for lets say, 100.- USD? given the time i "wasted" on this, i dont think its a too big prize.. <_<

 

c'mon american fellows, altough you might think otherwise, the world does not revolve around you!!! get out there, learn to communicate with people that are not as sophisticated as you are! for europe, we have greek, albanian, serbian, croatian, czech, romanian, ungarian, italian, french, german, bulgarian, dutch, belgian, danish, swedish, finnish, norwegian, lithauian (?) and heck what i have left out.. its not to much asked to at least learn one more language, is it? almost forgot we also have english of course.. <_<

 

as you see, i understand already only a little of all the languages mentioned. still it does not stop me from learning at least what is closest around me. as an american you should at least be able to speak spanish. taking all this mexican and other southamerican countries into consideration, plus all the aliens you have around there. actually spanish, italian and french are very close to each other in writing..

Edited by terrible2u
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i am a native swiss german speaker. germans wont understand me nor my fellow countrymen. so german already has to be considered a foreign language. then i speak and write reasonable english. i am also quite well in reading, understanding and speaking french. writing would also be ok more or less. i understand italian as well pretty good. speaking i can make my way in italy, dont ask about writing. switzerland has a german, french, italian and even a "grischun" part. later is something that will probably be a secret for me for a life time. but its only spoken from a very small percentage. and in that language exist already some dialects. virtually its a little bit different from town to town.

 

developing my language skills has taken me many years, several girl- and other friends.. plus a lot of schooling and not to mention also a bit of money..

 

is it too much asked from anybody else to at least speak another, foreign, language? going for the mandarin, as the majority of people on the planet speaks this language..

 

i am willing to share my knowledge for lets say, 100.- USD? given the time i "wasted" on this, i dont think its a too big prize.. <_<

 

c'mon american fellows, altough you might think otherwise, the world does not revolve around you!!! get out there, learn to communicate with people that are not as sophisticated as you are! for europe, we have greek, albanian, serbian, croatian, czech, romanian, ungarian, italian, french, german, bulgarian, dutch, belgian, danish, swedish, finnish, norwegian, lithauian (?) and heck what i have left out.. its not to much asked to at least learn one more language, is it? almost forgot we also have english of course.. <_<

 

as you see, i understand already only a little of all the languages mentioned. still it does not stop me from learning at least what is closest around me. as an american you should at least be able to speak spanish. taking all this mexican and other southamerican countries into consideration, plus all the aliens you have around there. actually spanish, italian and french are very close to each other in writing..

 

For the record the OP is Greek and was complaining about having to learn German and French to geocache in other coutries in Europe where those are the dominate language.

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This is a funny thread. Bashing Americans for not speaking multiple languages becuase they don't have to...

 

The situation in Europe is different because Europeans have to learn other languages or else be bound to a particular small village all your life. The smaller the country, the more important it is that one speak other languages. Thus it is taught in grade school as a skill that everyone needs to learn. In a large country that covers an entire continent, this skill is not as important.

 

While this thread supports the stereotype that americans speak only one language, it ignores the fact that virtually all communities in the US place a very high value on foreign language education. In California, all school districts offer Spanish; many offer Chinese (Cantonese and/or Mandarin), Japanese, French, and German. The school districts I have had the pleasure to be involved with in Europe never have as large of an assortment as many districts in the US. Since this sort of decision is made locally, there is considerable variability throughout the US. So it is virtually impossible to generallize.

 

What can be generalized is that Americans as a whole don't have a lot of opportunity to practice a shool-learned language. So, for many americans this learned language skill is lost with time. This issue also exists in other large countries such as China.

 

To have geocaching play a role to give folks multiple language exposure and practice would be great and it would be a great thing if features were added to the cache page template to provide multiple language support. The types of features I could see would be descriptions in alternate languages and to have these descriptions tabbed on the screen so one can select which language to see. It would be great if in pocket queries we could control which languages are loaded (all or just a particular language).

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This is a funny thread. Bashing Americans for not speaking multiple languages becuase they don't have to...

While this thread supports the stereotype that americans speak only one language...

 

This thread started with Europeans bashing other Europeans. The stereotype of Americans not wanting to speak other languages was brought up by user sbell111, and he's from... oh, from USA <_<

 

The fact is, that English is the most spoken foreign language in the world. One recent estimate is that 1.9 billion people, nearly a third of the world's population, have a basic proficiency in English. It is spoken on every continert as official language. You can go nearly anywhere and expect to be understood if you speak just a little English. Anywhere, except a few countries in Europe, where many people still think their language is so important that they don't need to speak foreign languages.

 

OP was about problems when Europeans go to other regions in Europe and don't understand cache descriptions. The message these caches send is "you are not welcome to do caching here, these caches are not for foreigners".

 

Still, as mentioned in other threads many times, Groundspeak could show that they really want to be an international site and give us some functionality to help in this problem: Minimum would be a language code field for cache description and the ability to select by it in PQ.

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