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Please, CZ TOPIC


Spy.Dr_CZ

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Hi guys, I'm glad I found this thread. Well, I'm a little bit new to the hobby - the Boy Scouts of America merit badge "Geocaching" forced me to go and find how to geocache. Yes I'm a Boy Scout leader and avid orienteering enthusiast, but with the newly created merit badge, I just became hooked. The problem with a Czech topic, I see, will be the language barrier, so called. Look at that guy (from U.S.) who probably did not fully get the creation of humorous term "káčer" (Mallard Duck Male). Well, I also didn't get it till signing into www.geocaching.cz

You can see us at Facebook Troop 18 College Point

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Perhaps then an English-language forum for CZ might be an option? Geocaching.cz is very difficult to navigate if you're not a native speaker. Even for expats who have lived here for quite some time, the language is still really hard, and Google translations are never quite right. Good enough sometimes, but disastrous at others, especially on multi-caches, mystery clues, puzzles, etc.

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katie&andy: You probably do not know that your innocent suggestion started an emotional debate at Geocaching.cz (link to the thread) :rolleyes: . Please help us to close the discussion and tell us what would be a help to you: A dedicated English language forum here at Groundspeak forums? Or an English language thread at Geocaching.cz? Or more cache listings translated to English? My guess is that the last option is true, although this one will be quite difficult to arrange <_< .

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Oh my goodness! I certainly didn't mean to stir up such controversy. I'll try to be as clear as possible with what I think might work best, as well as the reasons for that, and hope that you can accurately convey that in Czech to the folks participating in the geocaching.cz thread.

 

First off, my Czech is very poor (I am really just a beginner), so I will admit that I could not get through the entire thread, just the first 4 pages or so...and that took me quite a long time with GoogleTranslate and a dictionary -- and there were still plenty of misunderstandings/mistranslations! That said, I don't know how much use anything in English on the geocaching.cz site would be. Of course it would be helpful (if the people who need it knew it existed or stumbled upon it), but since the bulk of the site is in Czech, there would still be significant difficulty. I'm guessing that the English speakers -- which, I urge everyone to remember, does not only mean native speakers but also other foreigners who speak English as a second/third/fourth language -- who have strong enough Czech to participate are probably already on the geocaching.cz forum, and I don't know how many "new" users (or converts from the international forum) there would be. It's only natural that the .cz local website would operate chiefly in Czech, and I think it's wonderful that geocaching.cz has such an active and vibrant community. Sadly, though, having now read some of the posts there, I'm not certain how welcome I'd feel given the intense degree of several inflammatory remarks. (Perhaps, though, that too is a misunderstanding and some things were lost in translation. I'll assume the best.)

 

When Spy.Dr_CZ made the initial post regarding the creation of a Czech Republic country forum here, he was directed to geocaching.cz, which is almost entirely in Czech. As a user of the international site, my subsequent suggestion was in regards to a forum that would be here. I envisioned something as simple as a few threads where people could develop a list of links to GCs with English directions or help one another figure out translations. **Alternatively, a "select language(s)" option when creating a new GC as well as a language filter for searching would be an awesome addition to the site overall, especially for people like us who travel often.**

 

Of course having more cache listings translated into English would be ideal, but it is unreasonable to expect anyone to do extra work to accomplish such a goal, and automated translations of pages don't make much sense -- firstly, because individuals can already attempt to do so through free online translators; secondly, and more importantly, because such translations are often inaccurate, particularly with clues that involve a bit of nuance. There are already some cache listings that are bilingual (Czech/English), but there is currently no way to find these besides blindly clicking through the listings and getting lucky every now and then. Of course, savvy users can get a bit more creative, e.g. clicking to see the profile of someone who has created one bilingual GC and see if they have made any others, but such efforts can be time consuming and often fruitless. I saw one suggestion that it would be "allowed" to send the final coordinates to a non-Czech GCer for Czech-language caches, and while it's nice that folks at least want to help in some way, that sort of takes the fun out of finding it.

 

Particularly with regards to Prague, there are thousands of foreigners who live here (the majority of whom speak English as a first or second language) as well as many tourists from all over the world who visit throughout the year. I think for those people (English-speaking and interested in GCing), it is likely that they are already active on geocaching.com/Groundspeak or would go here to get involved, so a solution here would probably be best.

 

Many thanks to those involved in genuine efforts to come up with ideas on this one :)

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Thanks for your input. Recreating the whole web page is out of question. The best answer I came to, which helps English speaking cachers, is to ask the owners of a cache if they will be willing to translate clues to some form of English in case translators would not satisfy you. I have not been in the Czech Republic for so long time, even I have some problems with specific technical terms, so I'm not of too much help here. But Mr."kulhal", as I deducted, is perhaps willing to do it.

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Hi, thanks for your answer. Don't worry, you would be most welcome to any Czech geocaching forum. Yes, some posts in the above referenced thread were a little bit ...ehm... how to be polite... narrow-minded? ... but I can assure you that Czech geocaching community is very friendly and open.

 

But back to the topic: Yes, bilingual cache listings would be the best. I search for caches abroad often, and I know how painful it is to dig through a cache listing that is only French, German, Dutch, Hungarian... or in any other language that I do not speak. I will remind my Czech colleagues that English translation of the listing does have a value, especially in Prague and other areas visited by people from abroad. I will actually start from myself: Most of my caches are at least partially translated to English, but I will translate the remaining ones as well.

 

Starting an English section at geocaching.cz is not very practical in my opinion. The main reason is that the demand from the English speaking cachers has been very limited so far. I suggest we continue to use this "All nations" section of the official forums. Although it doesn't seem so, it is being watched by quite a few Czech cachers. You can be sure that your question will be always answered here. Later on, if we see that English "traffic" is increasing, we can either ask Groundspeak for a dedicated Czech section here, or create the English section at geocaching.cz.

 

And in the meantime - please enjoy caching in Czech Republic, do not forget to visit areas beyond Prague boundaries ;) and do not hesitate to contact me or the Czech geocaching community through this forum or directly.

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Thanks so much, Kulhal :) Now that the weather is getting nicer, we are definitely looking forward to venturing out of the city, and I see that some of your GCs are within a short drive from us.

 

I doubt my Czech will ever be strong enough to write translations, but once I have some time to really dig through the GCs here, I hope to post a solid list of those in English (or with at least some English) that others can add to along the way. At least it will be a starting point :)

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If you find any cache in our country, which you would like to find and which doesn't have an english translation, don't hesitate and contact the author, or ask at our forum, I am sure that knowing that our cache is interesting for foreigners will make us create the english translation :) We ourselves have several mystery caches in Pilzen without translation, because we think that no foreigner would want to solve them.. but maybe we are wrong ;)

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