l10n_workshop_by_Francesca_Ciceri_+_Laura_Arjona English (En) subtitles

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 can also need

to change date formats or currency
formats or the text orientation to have a

software in your own language. Ok?

For this to be done the software
has 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 in 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

won't manage to download the iso file
and install it.

Also the website is something

It'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 the 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 ganeti 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
so there not many, and this is the one I

chosen because is really a little one, you
have to download from here, just the link

But we have it already on the gobby

So if you are ready

This is a PO file here

here you can see you have to fill it

Ohh I have an assistant !

Here you can put something like translation
for ganeti , Spanish translation for ...

Here goes your email, and here's the header
for the file and you don't have to do much

Beside your name and email address, the
language team and the mailing list of the

language team, the language obviously and
the encoding of the charset ...OK

If you use a PO editor, for example you
configure the editor and it will fill in all

that kind of strings for you and for all
the files that you translate, you can

choose do it yourself or using a PO editor
for example.

OK so I don't speak Spanish, how do you say
abort package removal?

I'm forbidden I cannot do ...

So obviously this is a variable so yo don't
have to translate it

you just put it as it is, but ....

"Cancelar la eliminacion ...."

You can send like that and people will say
where is the question mark, you can have

to open a question mark and close question
mark...

OK I don't have it on my keyboard so
you do it.

But as I said it's better than nothing, I
mean if you are starting we are very

welcome with starting people, If I
review , I mean I'm not going to do the

translation, I don't like PO files...OK
But if somebody comes and say I am

new in the list I want to translate this PO
file and this is my proposal, I will review

it, and I will try to say/explain the
mistakes, because is a different thing is

somebody new coming for the team, so I will
not spend time translating one PO file but

I will spend time welcoming somebody to the
team. So its better than you do something,

if it's not correct, totally correct even
if you now it's not totally correct

no matter. Of course if your are six years
translating for debian like that, we will

get angry, but for the first times really
it doesn't matter, reviewing work of other

people is a nice thing.

OK we have ten minutes to show the website

Another thing is you don't need to
translate files

even if you don't translate files
you just need to ...it's very useful that

update the translations that other people
do and I will show...

This one cd/artwork/index, you just need to
put in Spanish this thing, this part only

and remove this part, so for keeping update
that file in the website, just need to

No ..even you don't need to translate just
move this up and that's all

Because they just change the place, so its
really very very easy and with small parts

you can help.

But sometimes the updates are very small
for the Spanish team I did all the small

parts, I spend one year doing only small
things , and thats all, but anyway

So questions ?

If you have any question, you can speak
up now, or ... never .... Oh yeah

Q: Hey, so how do the book keeping work,
when you want to work on a file, you say

hey I want to work on that? That's done
via the packaging system or, how does it

work?

A: You have to send a mail to the
translation team with a special subject

we have a tag ....
you send an intent to translate (ITT)

between brackets and then the URL of the
file, and that's all , the bot then put the

name of the sender of the mail in the
statistics and so everybody can see if

somebody is already translating, they can
No I sent the ITT for, but look at the

statistics page, and try to find a file
that is ...free , and you send the ITT

mail to the list, later when you have your
translation done, you send a mail with a

request for review (RFR) and a URL, so
people comment and you attach the file

and people comment on that, normally
people will not correct directly but you

make the changes you want if you
accepted that suggestion and you send the

file again ... that's why I say proof
reading, it's the super lazy mode you even

don't need to change the file that other
people send, Just say this is not correct

I would say like that, and the other one
has to change the file, of course you can

say I don't agree with you blah blah blah
But anyway you can help just reading the

mailing list and answering the reviewers.
And here are the statistics of translations

You can order by translator, by file,
by type of files, by anything.

Really I have lots of files but it's just
a one line things.

That's why I said you can be famous
latter you can be present on the statistics

even if you do a small work.

So more questions?

And if you do want to try translating
something during this mini-debconf we can

find ... but I can find maybe tomorrow
afternoon to do some work, come to me

and we can try to do something together
its really easy, well I don't speak Spanish

but it's really easy on the procedure part

And really say Hello to the list but don't
say only I want to collaborate please

help me and that's all ...

Choose one thing and remember the Olympic
shooting, choose one thing I want to do

this and I need help to do this, and I'm sure
somebody will answer and will help you.

Ok thank you ! And sorry it was brief but
intense. Thank you !