My name is Laura Arjona and
my name is Francesca Ciceri
And this is the localization workshop
Localization or translation. We say localization because its the process
that envolve a bit more than translation. Maybe you also need
to change date formats or the text orientation, or to have a
software in your own language. Ok?
For this to be done the software needs to be prepared and this process
of preparing the software is internalization. Is a software engineering process
to make a program ready for translation. So people not beeing programers can
translate the software.
And debian is very well internationalized so we have lots of things we can translate
without even touching a line of code.
The debian installer, the debconf templates that Miriam talked a bit ago,
the descriptions of the packages, when you search for package website or the
software center or in synaptics or anything, the manuals documentation
of debian I mean, and of course the information that the Debian Project
produces, the website, the press releases, the debian project news, wiki, everything
So for many people the most important thing is the debian installer.
That you can install debian, many people dont know english or they dont want to use
english, so its nice that debian installer is in their own language and thanks for
Christian Perrier and all the people in the different language teams,
we have the installer in many languages and we are still improving that, ok ?
No? Yeah! this is your turn ...
Thank you, ok! Then there are debconf template, Miriam told about debconf
messages in the previous talk, and they are messages sent by the system when you
are installing a new package and they just need ask on a prompt to the user
about configuring the package and so.
And there are translatable files, po files and you can use different tools to
translate them, as the translation is done is submitted directly to the bug tracking
system - the BTS to the relevant package. And there are stats ...
We will do it ...
My laptop is dying ... You have to support it ...
Wait a minute we have a backup laptop...
I'm back ...
And here are the stats for the translation of debconf messages from the different
teams, you can see that Spanish is at 95 % so you're not doing perfectly, but
you're doing well, better than Italian at least, and Catalan is 45% , you need to
work more , really really. Ok
You can also translate or help translating the descriptions of the packages. And this
is an interface very, very easy, you just have the description in english and
here's a text box where you put the same description in your language, and press a
button, submit and that's all. Later another person can review it, and improve
it, but its very easy, you don't have to do anything, just go to one webpage, read
and translate to your language.
There's other documents that we use to translate...
The release notes and the installation guide which we translate them obviously
with each new release,and there are other manuals that are not as much updated, so
the as the translation is done there's not much to do.
And this kind of documentation is managed by the debian documentation project that
has a specific workflow and a specific repository, all this kind of translations:
the debconf messages, the website, the documentation have their own workflow.
They are managed sometimes by different teams besides the local language team.
And finally the website, I said before that the installer was very important but
the debian website is very important too, because people need to go there to
download debian and if they cannot understand the website probably they
will manage to download the iso file and install it. Also the website is something
that's all the time producing new content and updating content, so there is always
work to be done in the website translation team. And is also quite easy, just like
someone said before, just read and send emails, this is the same.
The most important thing is to understand the philosophy, its a team work, your
work needs to be reviewed by other people and you need to review the translations
that other people do, if you do like that everything goes very well.
And we have also a robot (a bot) that understand emails the similar way
sent to the bug tracking system for the translations we just sent that read the
subject with the file that you want to translate and what you going to do with
that. The robot understands that and generate the pages with the statistics
and the situation of each file so everybody knows in each situation is the
translation. As you understand as it works its very easy to continue work that was
done by other people. From the beginning can be very strange but it works very well
And there is obviously different tools for the different kind of translation you're
going to do. For the debconf messages you can use some specific po editors, but I
actually use a text editor, which is really good as well i mean basically its a text
file, so you can edit it with any text editor. For the website we have again a
text editor, but you need to have at least a personal checkout of a repository of
this site to build a page and check that everything is ok (and I told also your part)
About consistency in translation, well it used to be at least at the Italian team
we try to be consistent having a glossary and keeping track of what is the
translation specific for. But its really dependent of the team. I have no idea
about the Spanish and the Catalan teams.
Normally each team has some rules or you can ask for example with Spanish we have
informal you and formal you, so when you need to translate you have to know that in
debian we treat the you instead
This kind of rules are normally discussed in the mailing lists and sometimes a file
is written with all the rules or the most important and its uploaded to the website
somewhere. So if you have that you can do things, ask the mailing list or just read
and try to follow the same style that you
are already reading in your own language If you come from another project maybe the
other project has another kind of rules, so If you are translating for debian ask first
for those rules, if you don't agree with the rules you can discuss about the rules
too in the mailing list and well good luck...
Probably you would think that all this translation is very complicated
we are talking about debconf, po, mailing with some strange subjetcs
in fact everything has the same philosophy you just ask:" I want to translate this and
then you send your translation as proposal, other people comment about the translation
Then you send the final or the one you think its the final one and when everybody
agrees to the translation somebody uploads it to the website or BTS or to anyplace
Its the same philosophy ask for reservation I want to translate this, you translate
at home. Then you send your proposal, comments after that you send a last chance
for comments, your final version and after that you or a person with permission uploads
the file to the correct repository and we keep the difficult bureaucracy as debian
is a very big project if you don't follow some protocols at the end people work
double so it's better to follow the protocols and everything goes very well
And you have to keep in mind we are a team maybe other people have to finish your work
because you start and later you don't finish so if you follow the protocols other
people can finish your work and you can finish the work of other people pretty well
That's what I say... but anyway you don't need to know everything you don't need to
do everything, debian is very big, you just have to focus in something and try to do that
Choose the part where you feel comfortable even in translation there are many different
kind of things, people from the old school like people knowing po files, gettext and
translate the documentation of debconf templates, the new people, people coming
from the web world can use the DDTS the package descriptions because they just
have to go to the website and fill in a form or translate the wiki pages, its just an
edit in the page, creating a new page in your language and put the same content in
your language, its very easy, or the website its also edited in a text file its very easy
And this is my favorite, the super lazy mode you just read what others people do and give
your opinion, so you know your language so even you don't need to know English
You just read what other people translate and you say here's a typo, its not
understandable, this grammar is wrong and that's all that kind of work its needed too
Even you only know English you are important for the translation teams because the people
native english are very useful for reviewing then work, the descriptions that
non native English debian developers write or for example the content for the website
that is written by the Spanish people or French people or Chinese People, if somebody
know English very well just read that and try to improve it, and this is very very
welcome, so you can not escape, you know one language at least you cannot escape the
translation teams.
And some tips, better contribute with something than not contribute with anything
Even a typo, if you don't want to be a translator for debian you can start in a
translation team and later you can find another thing to do, but start from our part
And say hello to the list, because we use the mailing for communication so first say
hello and keep in mind that we are a team, somebody is reading the list, don't worry
Sometimes I think when you are new in a team it's kind of Olympic shooting, you receive
many many mails in the list, 'I want to translate this, this is wrong ...'
and you just don't know what to do, you just introduce yourself and say I want
collaborate and that's all, please help me, No you don't have to do that, you
just have to focus on a small thing, focus there and shoot, and when you finish repeat
It like shooting ...
And again trust in the community if you don't say anything:'I don't know how to
translate this, or this translation is too big, I regret that I send this reservation
I don't want to translate it anymore, if you don't say we cannot guess it
so say Hello
If you became a translator you'll be famous
Translations are credited from the very beginning, you will see it in the statistics
page the name of the person asking a reservation "I want to do that it's
written there", if you don't want you just use a nickname or something, no problem
And you will be proud to be a debian contributor with a very new hot debian
contributors, and you also can be proud of
being a non uploading debian developer, not only being a translator you can be a full
member of the debian project, also there are good things you can improve for other things
different than debian, you improve or mother language and English too, and this is a good
thing for getting a new job for example, if you speak very well people think you are an
elegant person, you make debian very friendly because it's in your language
your mother can use it and your son or your daughter can use it because ok now in the
school they teach english but if its in his or her mother language it's better and
imagine your six/seven years old kid installing debian and saying to their/his
friends I'm installing my operating system and i can understand because it's in my
language.
And also if you become a translator or convince somebody to become a translator
the debian community will be much bigger and more diverse because just for the language
diversity and the geographic diversity it will much more diverse than only english
speaking community and i think that's all. That's only the theory part and now we are
going to translate
OK the idea basically is that now you are locked in this room with us and you are
forced to translate something. Are you up to do this? Yes you are! Trust me !
We want to try to do a couple of brief translations in Spanish or in Catalan or
in both, I don't now, it depends of how many of you speak Spanish or Catalan here ...
I don't speak either so I'm OK, and we doing this for a webpage debian.org and for a
debconf template of gobby because is one of Spanish with less work , I mean there
are only four strings. So if you have installed or want to do it, gobby 0.4
whatever i have the four one. You can connect to gobby.debian.org and you can see the
document we are trying to translate, so if you want to do it we can do it together ...
Ah Ah lots of people here!
While you install it, I'll try to show you where are the debconf messages to translate
I will take as an example the Spanish because we are going to do one of this...
This is the address, this is a page with statistics about the translations of debconf
messages for the Spanish team, and has you can see here are important links specially
this one with hints for translators, I invite to read it when you try to do it
alone ate home, and here there are ... this one, because apparently the Spanish
team is doing really a good job translating