How to deal with other languages

[+bobkeenan]

Later this year we will be doing a vacation that will bring is through England, Nederland, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, and France. And we are going to geocache EVERYWHERE we go leaving lots of geoncoins! We are native english speakers with a pitiful bit of German and French.

 

Some cache owners are nice and have descriptions and hints in their native tongue AND english. But most do not.

 

I was wonder what other traveling geocachers do. The only thing that I can think of is to research each cache before going, translate it on the internet, and copy that info to smart device.

 

Other ideas???

Edited February 5, 2016 by bobkeenan

[+ChileHead]

I was in England, France, Germany and Italy this summer with a pitiful bit of German and French, also native English speakers.

 

Because geocaching was not the primary reason for trip, I only loaded up my GPS with traditional caches. In most cases, I didn't need the cache description in English (though many had it anyway.) If I needed a hint, I could try and translate the hint while out, but usually didn't bother.

[+on4bam]

Later this year we will be doing a vacation that will bring is through England, Nederland, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, and France. And we are going to geocache EVERYWHERE we go leaving lots of geoncoins! We are native english speakers with a pitiful bit of German and French.

 

Some cache owners are nice and have descriptions and hints in their native tongue AND english. But most do not.

 

I was wonder what other traveling geocachers do. The only thing that I can think of is to research each cache before going, translate it on the internet, and copy that info to smart device.

 

Living in Belgium is an advantage We have 3 official languages (Dutch, French, German) and as English is everywhere in music, movies and television here that helps us a great deal. However that leaves a lot of other languages that are not as straightforward.

When we travel to Norway I do look at most caches before we leave and translate online as needed but as a GSAK user I also use a macro (TranslanteCaches.gsk) that will translate the listing and add this text to the database as a note. When exporting caches (from GSAK) this note is added as the first log and can be read in the "logs" section of my Oregon 600. I also use GDAK on my Android tablet and as I copy the GSAK databases to GDAK I can also read the notes there in he logs section.

 

The best part of GSAK + macro is that it can automatically translate a (large) selection of caches without opening each listing one by one.

 

BTW, having a translation doesn't restrict us to traditionals as we prefer non-trads anyway.

Edited February 5, 2016 by on4bam

[+hzoi]

I geocached in Germany for a couple years from 2007 to 2009 with only basic fluency in German and traveled extensively in Europe during that time. I used Google Translate to get the basics of what I needed to know for caches and copied and pasted that onto a sheet or two of paper and took that with me when we went caching. (Since Google Translate didn't work as well back then, I actually got better at German as I went, figuring out where the software went wrong and translating more of the cache descriptions myself. But that was a long term solution.)

 

On my last visit to Germany, I had a GPSr that supported paperless caching, so I used Google Translate when needed and edited the cache descriptions in GSAK myself before exporting them to my GPSr.

 

These days, I'd try a GSAK macro to do all that for me, but I'd go through the descriptions to make sure they made sense.

[+Gill & Tony]

I'm in the same situation. I'm planning a 6 week European tour and have caches written in French, German, Dutch, Croatian, Slovenian and Hungarian.

 

My solution involves a GSAK macro which translates the Long and Short Descriptions plus the Hint. Both the original and translated versions are stored in the GSAK database and when I write the cache to my GPSr it sends the translated version.

 

There are some problems. Google Translate translates everything including URL's so links to pictures and other web pages may get broken. Also, the translation occasionally isn't any easier to understand in English. GT does make a complete hash of it sometimes. However, the translated text is available as a custom field and I've often copied it into notepad, cleaned it up and saved it back into GSAK.

 

Also, when there really is an English version it is usually a long way down the description and does sometimes get corrupted by GT thinking it is German or whatever. To solve that, I take the original text into Notepad, strip out the non-English stuff and save that into the translated text field. That way I just get the original English text.

 

Even using GSAK it isn't a click and forget exercise - there's a fair bit of work needed - but I'd hate to try a few hundred caches without it.

[+MtnMutt-ProDuckShins]

Bob, most computers such as Mac has translators on them, you can even get one for your smartphone. Free wifi in Europe is everywhere. Below is part of your statement in Russian..

 

Более поздно этот год мы будем делать каникулу которая принесет через Англия, Nederland, Германия, Словакия, Венгрия, Чешская Республика, и франция. И мы идем к geocache ВЕЗДЕ мы идем выйти серии

 

Just explore and you will be amazed at the help you can get from the locals who like to help.

[+londontavern]

Other than my gps I use an android phone loaded with c.geo loaded with the gpx file for the caches also Google translate with the downloaded languages for where we're going. This gives you the offline option of viewing a cache page and having c.geo interact with Google translate to translate any selected section of the cache page. Including description, hints, and in particular the logs as sometimes they in languages outside of the country.

For example when in Spain I have Spanish,Catalunian (a local but widely used dialect) and German. They've helped me out many times.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

For example when in Spain I have Spanish,Catalunian (a local but widely used dialect) and German. They've helped me out many times.

 

Some people are probably wondering about why you're including German. From my experience geocachers from Germany travel everywhere. I've got a cache on my watch list that is in Cuba and 90% of the logs on it are in German (and, no, I haven't seen any logs that appear to have been posted from an arm chair).

[+londontavern]

Yep! pretty much anywhere in Europe or around the mediteranian having access to Google Translate - German Langauge is always helpful. And its always good to meet fellow cachers from Germany especially when your in the middle of a troublesome search or even better to do a local series with them. Hopefully that doesn't sound too condescending, I certainly don't mean to, I just find them really friendly and helpful.

Edited February 23, 2016 by londontavern

[cezanne]

I have Spanish,Catalunian (a local but widely used dialect)

 

Catalan is a language and not a dialect.

Edited February 23, 2016 by cezanne

[+bflentje]

I have Spanish,Catalunian (a local but widely used dialect)

 

Catalan is a language and not a dialect.

 

Why do you always insist on splitting hairs...

 

di·a·lect

ˈdīəˌlekt/Submit

noun

a particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group.

 

Catalan and Spanish are from the same family of language. They’re both romance languages. They share vocabularies, grammatical structures, some expressions, etc.

[+on4bam]

I have Spanish,Catalunian (a local but widely used dialect)

 

Catalan is a language and not a dialect.

 

Why do you always insist on splitting hairs...

 

di·a·lect

ˈdīəˌlekt/Submit

noun

a particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group.

 

Catalan and Spanish are from the same family of language. They’re both romance languages. They share vocabularies, grammatical structures, some expressions, etc.

 

Would you consider Swedish a Norwegian dialect or vice versa?

[cezanne]

 

di·a·lect

ˈdīəˌlekt/Submit

noun

a particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group.

 

Catalan and Spanish are from the same family of language. They’re both romance languages. They share vocabularies, grammatical structures, some expressions, etc.

 

Romanian, Italian, French, Portuguese are from the same family of language too, but there are very large differences between these languages.

Catalan is definitely not a dialect of Spanish but an independent language that in some respects shares more with French than with Spanish.

 

There are indeed various dialects of the language that is commonly called Catalan (which is not only spoken in Catalonia - the version spoken in Valencia is known as Valencian). Likewise there are different German dialects, but German and Dutch are separate languages (both belonging to the same family).

 

Catalan has its own grammar and own vocabulary. It's not like Austrian and German German.

Edited February 23, 2016 by cezanne

[+bflentje]

I have Spanish,Catalunian (a local but widely used dialect)

 

Catalan is a language and not a dialect.

 

Why do you always insist on splitting hairs...

 

di·a·lect

ˈdīəˌlekt/Submit

noun

a particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group.

 

Catalan and Spanish are from the same family of language. They’re both romance languages. They share vocabularies, grammatical structures, some expressions, etc.

 

Would you consider Swedish a Norwegian dialect or vice versa?

 

I don't have an opinion but if I did, I wouldn't be sitting here being negative all the time.

[+bflentje]

 

di·a·lect

ˈdīəˌlekt/Submit

noun

a particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group.

 

Catalan and Spanish are from the same family of language. They’re both romance languages. They share vocabularies, grammatical structures, some expressions, etc.

 

Romanian, Italian, French, Portuguese are from the same family of language too, but there are very large differences between these languages.

Catalan is definitely not a dialect of Spanish but an independent language that in some respects shares more with French than with Spanish.

 

There are indeed various dialects of the language that is commonly called Catalan (which is not only spoken in Catalonia - the version spoken in Valencia is known as Valencian). Likewise there are different German dialects, but German and Dutch are separate languages (both belonging to the same family).

 

Catalan has its own grammar and own vocabulary. It's not like Austrian and German German.

 

Irrelevant to the topic.

[+on4bam]

I don't have an opinion but if I did, I wouldn't be sitting here being negative all the time.

 

I guess you do but find it a bit hard to admit

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I have Spanish,Catalunian (a local but widely used dialect)

 

Catalan is a language and not a dialect.

 

Why do you always insist on splitting hairs...

 

 

I dare you to go to Barcelona and tell a local that the Catalan is merely a dialect of Spanish.

 

Although I'm not using it, the Locale string that I used for a file extension when storing the translations in a repository only uses the language characters but typically it would include a language and a territory. These are based upon two standards (ISO 369) for a two character language code and ISO-3166 for a two character "country" code. For example, es_ES is the location for Spanish as spoken in Spain while es_MX is for Spanish as spoken in Mexico. Catalan has an official language code as "ca", and thus, according to the standard, is considered a language. ca_ES would be Catalan as spoken in Spain.

 

Locale strings are useful as many programming languages have built in tools (or libraries availble) that use Locale strings for translation. There is a project called ICU that has a real nice demonstration of all the "official" locale strings here: http://demo.icu-project.org/icu-bin/locexp/locexp

 

 

 

[+bflentje]

I have Spanish,Catalunian (a local but widely used dialect)

 

Catalan is a language and not a dialect.

 

Why do you always insist on splitting hairs...

 

 

I dare you to go to Barcelona and tell a local that the Catalan is merely a dialect of Spanish.

 

Although I'm not using it, the Locale string that I used for a file extension when storing the translations in a repository only uses the language characters but typically it would include a language and a territory. These are based upon two standards (ISO 369) for a two character language code and ISO-3166 for a two character "country" code. For example, es_ES is the location for Spanish as spoken in Spain while es_MX is for Spanish as spoken in Mexico. Catalan has an official language code as "ca", and thus, according to the standard, is considered a language. ca_ES would be Catalan as spoken in Spain.

 

Locale strings are useful as many programming languages have built in tools (or libraries availble) that use Locale strings for translation. There is a project called ICU that has a real nice demonstration of all the "official" locale strings here: http://demo.icu-project.org/icu-bin/locexp/locexp

 

I wouldn't. And I don't care. I am just growing tired of certain forum posters having to debate the most insignificant things just so they can hear themselves talk (type).