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Multilingual caches


Guest Gustaf

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Guest Gustaf

A a nice feature to add would be an option to write a cache description in more than one language and put them on different web pages. A small link at the top of the page would say: Auf Deutsch, or whatever.

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Guest Snowtrail

And possibly translate the "Congrats, you found it!" page in Spanish to print out.

 

As if you don't have enough to do already Jeremy...

 

Or if you're interested, I could get a co-worker to translate it if you want to put it on the website along with the English version.

 

[This message has been edited by Snowtrail (edited 02 October 2001).]

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Guest athiker

The Spanish Translation is done and you can get it here;Spanish Translation

It is in word format. If you need it in text email me and I will get it to you.

Jeremy let me know if there are any other translations you need done and I will see what I can do. And If you want this to d/l direct from the site please feel free to snag it.

 

------------------

athiker

40.195466

-077.193928

 

 

[This message has been edited by athiker (edited 02 October 2001).]

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To come back to the original posting that started this thread a long time ago (2 years).

 

cache descriptions in more then one language.

 

For 2 years now we are fiddling here in my country with the problem of Dutch and/or English (and maybe German?) cache descriptions on gc.com.

 

And I come to the conclusion that there is only one good solution: have a master page for the cache description and secundairy page(s) for other languages.

So viewing the primairy page it is only one mouseclick away to view the same in a different language (with the logs of course) .

 

Some arguments:

1. there is a limited amount of text possible on the cache description page. Every added language description diminishes this 'usefull' space. Simple drive-in/through caches are no problem but complex multicaches, puzzle caches and/or stories about the surroundings, history etc. etc. become severely limited in content.

2. you need to have a short hint. Even a short hint becomes a long job deciphering when it repeats in 3 languages.

3. many placers of caches are just able to fill in the 'new cache submit' forms of gc.com but do not ask them to do their own text layout. Luckily approvers fashion cache descriptions (al least here in my country) to readable text. So the 'make your own webpages with information in another language' and link to them is too difficult for many.

4. there will come a time when there will be a need for cache descriptions in non-latin notations (chinees, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic, Russia). Then mono-lingual texts will be much easier to cope with (fonts!) then multi-lingual text for the viewer.

A different question is: can the database of gc.com contain unicode text? And search and sort according to local language rules ? (ü < u ?)

Maybe the computers need another 20 years of evolution before they are really multi-lingual. At least we have now multimedia....

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Multilingual support would indeed be a nice feature. Although, here in Finland it works nicely: to my knowledge only less than ten of the cache pages are in Finnish only, the rest are bilingual or in English only. We've had quite a few foreign cachers here, who undoubtedly have benefitted from the English cache pages. I like to travel, and it's great to see English descriptions on foreign caches in countries I don't understand the native language.

 

With only two languages used even the multicache or complicated puzzle cache pages haven't IMO grown too big here. I understand that with 3 languages that might happen, and a separate page for different languages wouldn't hurt anyone.

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And I come to the conclusion that there is only one good solution: have a master page for the cache description and secundairy page(s) for other languages.

So viewing the primairy page it is only one mouseclick away to view the same in a different language (with the  logs of course) .

 

That would certainly be the nicest solution, but so far neither someone at gc.com nor at nc.com showed interest to establish such a possibility. There might be a small chance that thisn feature will be offered within the opencaching project, but there was less enthusiasm there than I had hoped to in advance.

 

1. there is a limited amount of text possible on the cache description page. Every added language description diminishes  this 'usefull' space. Simple drive-in/through caches are no problem but complex multicaches, puzzle caches and/or stories about the surroundings, history etc. etc. become severely limited in content.

 

That's not true. There is a limit only for the length of the hint section and for the length of the log entries (which I do not like at all). There is no limit for the length of the cache description and complex multicaches are well possible.

Have a look at my caches or, for example, at the cache Sveti Duh by Gert which is offered in even 3 languages.

 

2. you need to have a short hint. Even a short hint becomes a long job deciphering when it repeats in 3 languages.

 

But who wants to decipher the hint in 3 languages? By enclosing some text into [ ..]

it will stay unencrypted. So write [E:] to start the English hint etc We are routinely doing that in Austria where the majority of the caches is described in both English and German, the next largest group are those described only in English and only a very small portion is described only in German.

 

3. many placers of caches are just able to  fill in the 'new cache submit' forms of gc.com but do not ask them to do their own text layout. Luckily approvers fashion cache descriptions (al least here in my country) to readable text. So the 'make your own webpages with  information in another language' and link to them is too difficult for many.

 

If am able to set up html pages, but I do not wish to offer my caches at a private site. All available language versions should be offered via the cache data base.

 

4. there will come a time when there will be a need for cache descriptions in non-latin notations (chinees, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic, Russia).

 

I am not so sure, and in particular it will not be a big issue in Europe (Scandinavia, The Netherlands etc).

 

A different question is: can the database of gc.com contain unicode text? And search and sort according to local language rules ? (ü < u ?)

 

I have not looked into the sorting issue, but that does not seem that important to me. Even now many cache names contains German umlauts, French accents etc.

Moreover, the idea behind offering a multilingual support is that more people offer also an English description. So the problem with special characters was there before. Adding English text will not cause any additional problems.

 

Maybe the computers need another 20 years of evolution before they are really multi-lingual.

 

The computers do not need to be multilingual to achieve that more cachers add English cache descripitions.

 

Cezanne

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Will we require other boards such as THIS ONE to put up English translations as well then? This opens up some very opinionated arguments. Enough of the politically correct crap. People should drop the airs and quit pretending to get all insulted when no one caters to them in their native language of Macawallamatabatuvian.

 

The coords are all I need anyhow.

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In my cache descriptions English is the default language. However, I have added an additional Finnish description to them, because most hunters for my caches are Finnish speaking Finns. There's nothing intetionally PC or insult-avoiding there, TEAM 360. I just believe some of my compatriots appreciate their native language in caches they seek in their home country.

 

If we had this separate-page-for-different-languages feature Gustaf suggested, I'd probably put additional German and Swedish descriptions to my caches as well. Not to be politically correct, just friendly and helpful for the possible foreign hunters. You may not benefit from it, but it won't hurt you in any way either.

The coords are all I need anyhow.
Heh, I'd like to see you finding e.g. this cache with the coords and only the native language. ;)

 

Edit: typo

Edited by Divine
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Will we require other boards such as THIS ONE   to put up English translations as well then? 

 

I guess you misunderstood something. The idea behind asking for a better support for multilingual cache descriptions has nothing to do with putting up any kind of requirements or with poiltical correctness.

 

The idea is to make life easier for cachers who are able and willing to offer their cache descriptions in several languages. With the current situation some cachers hesitate to add more languages because the cache descriptions become long and hard to read. In the Netherlands, there are for example quite a number of cachers available only in Dutch although the cache owners are fluent in English and often als in German. There would certainly exist more caches with bilingual or trilingual descriptions if there existed a possibility for separating the language versions and displaying them separately.

 

I am offering all my caches in English and German because not all my fellow cachers use English every day (my cache descriptions are typically long and complex). I do not like to double the length of my cache descriptions, but currently there is unfortunately no other way.

 

The problem seems to be that geocaching is dominated by people from countries in which English is the native language. For cachers in continental Europe where there are many different languages and many cachers that speak at least two languages, there exist other needs than, for example, in North America.

 

I do not understand who will have any disadvantage if some cachers offer their caches in several languages (in particular, in English if the language of the country is not English).

 

The coords are all I need anyhow.

 

If you do not know German, you would have almost no chance to find any of my caches only with the German version. Translation programs like babelfish just lead to garbage. Many of the caches I found in Denmark, I could not have found without an English version. And with Hungarian or Finnish caches, I would even give up remembering their names for longer than a few minutes .....

 

Cezanne

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If you do not know German, you would have almost no chance to find any of my caches only with the German version.

Après-Travail

by cezanne [profile]

 

N 47° 06.660 E 015° 28.798

 

Numbers look the same to me. Perhaps you doubt my cache-finding abilities, Grasshopper? ;)

Edited by TEAM 360
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It appears that you did not get at all my point. I was not talking about a translation software, but about providing a simple form of support for cachers who speak more than one language and would like to provide a multilingual version of their caches. It would be very easy to provide such a support since it is only required that there are separate forms where the cachers can fill in their language versions. There would be almost no increase as the storage requirements are concerned and the bandwidth consumption would even decrease since each cacher would view (and certainly print) only the language version he is interested into. At present all language versions have to be combined in a single form and everyone is forced to download, view and print all language versions which can be quite an overhead for long and complex caches descriptions.

 

As your suggestion of Babelfish is regarded: First, it works only for some language pairs, and second it typically produces garbarge. Automatic translation might be a rough help in some cases, but typically the result does not suffice to find a cache.

 

Cezanne

Edited by cezanne
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Après-Travail

by cezanne [profile]

 

N 47° 06.660 E 015° 28.798

 

Numbers look the same to me. Perhaps you doubt my cache-finding abilities, Grasshopper? ;)

First, you have chosen my only cache which is a single stage one, but even for that cache I doubt that you will be able to find the cache without understanding the text (you can of course cheat because the cache has an English version). The reason why someone not understanding the language will have problems is the following:

The coordinates are not the coordinates of the cache which is however close by. No puzzle needs to be solved, but you have to proceed in a certain way from the given coordinates (where the reception is acceptable) to the hiding location (where the reception is bad). It would not have made any sense to classify that cache is a multi-cache.

 

I agree that there are single stage caches that can be found without understanding the language (I have found one myself), but even that can be hard in some cases (for example, I know caches where the chances to find it without using the hint are almost zero).

 

Cezanne

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I understand what you are talking about, though. You want to click on a button and have it translated into another language for the user. While this might be a helpful feature, it would never come out smooth. All language programs just look for the main words, chop it all up and it would sound like garbage anyhow. Whenever I see a finished translation, the only thing it's good for is a laugh.

This idea for translating was proposed over 2 years ago. It just isn't going to happen.

No, I do not want to press a button to obtain a translation. I wish to provide several language versions myself and would like to avoid that everyone has to download, view, print and possibly store all language versions although he needs only one.

Have for example a look at the cache Sveti Duh by Gert. It is a very nice idea to offer that cache also in Slovenian as it is located half in Slovenia and half in Austria, but it would be more convenient for almost all cachers just to choose one of the three languages offered and go ahead with a description which has only about one third of the length it is has at the moment. If you look at my multi-caches (which typically have a quite long description), you might also agree that it would be nice to be able to choose whether someone would like to view my German or my English version.

 

Did I finally succeed in explaining the point? I did not expect this task to be that hard.

 

Cezanne

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Thank you for clearing up the issue via private email. I think what you are proposing is actually a great idea, and should be implemented on GC.com. I can't imagine it would be all that difficult to incorporate into the website, either. It would really help those who want to include a second or third language in their cache description.

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I understand what you are talking about, though. You want to click on a button and have it translated into another language for the user. While this might be a helpful feature, it would never come out smooth. All language programs just look for the main words, chop it all up and it would sound like garbage anyhow. Whenever I see a finished translation, the only thing it's good for is a laugh.

This idea for translating was proposed over 2 years ago. It just isn't going to happen.

Well Cezanne put it very clearly, and IMO the original 2-years-old suggestion by Gustaf was quite simple to understand too, but I want just stress that either I was not talking about any automated translation feature. When I said I'd be happy to provide English, Finnish, German and Swedish cache descriptions to all my caches I meant I'd write them all myself. (You may laugh at them too, of course. :huh: )

 

So what we're asking is just a means to write our multilingual cache pages so that the different languages print on different pages. Capisce?

 

Edit: Oops, seems you got it already. ;)

Edited by Divine
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Yea, I "got it". No probs. It took a couple of private emails, but we got it straightened out. No need to put a horse's head in my bed or black flowers on my doorstep... ;)

It would be a great idea, as I said before, maybe suggesting it in the "Geocaching.com" thread would get TPTB attention?

Edited by TEAM 360
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Yea, I "got it". No probs. It took a couple of private emails, but we got it straightened out. No need to put a horse's head in my bed or black flowers on my doorstep...  :P
LOL...I think in our world it'd be more like the torn antenna of your GPSr in your bed or Magellan brochures on your doorstep. :huh:
It would be a great idea, as I said before, maybe suggesting it in the "Geocaching.com" thread would get TPTB attention?
That's what I thought too when I first saw this thread. Well, it was started two years ago... world was different back those days... ;) If no one comments it soon here or starts the thread there, I'll start it at gc.com forum.

 

EDIT: Just started this topic again as a feature request in the Gc.com discussion forum, where it hopefully gets more attention from the administration. If you have something to contribute to the topic, please post it there. Thanks. ;)

Edited by Divine
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