Zorin OS forum and differing languages etiquette

[freshjeff]

@zabadabadoo

I have no idea what is being discussed in this Z17.3 thread of late, seems to have become a German language thread. I personally think it would be beneficial to all, if non-English posts were translated by the poster to English language, that way more members would feel encouraged to contribute and not skip over. There are now too many posts to be translated by anyone.

While this is probably not the best thread for this. I completely agree with you. Take this from someone that does not live in a native-english country, the chances are that the forpli dude or whatever their name was, is likely underage and does not speak english well.

I understand that, but the chances are high that they know of google translate. While i as a normal user around here can not make demands, i reacommend this person to use google translate so that the rest of us will not be skipping their posts. The first few times i saw the german posts, i didn't mind - but they don't even make any effort to even attempt to communicate in english. At that point i just skip the german posts.

Throwback to 2011 when i was 14 years old. At the age where i started speaking it (quite bad pronounciation) but they were still attempts and i was able to get the word across.

Please don't take this post the wrong way, I'm not hating - but rather expressing how i feel about it.

[system]

Das wusste ich nicht.

[Ponce-De-Leon]

Nein, die Beiträge selbst werden nicht übersetzt. Nur die Benutzeroberfläche.

No, the Comments will not be translated. Only the User Interface.

[system]

Wenn dies ein englischsprachiges Forum ist und man alle Kommentare auf Englisch verfassen muss, dann sollte das auch so kommuniziert werden.
Es gibt in jedem Browser einen Übersetzungsdienst, damit man alles in der gewünschten Sprache lesen kann.
Das Problem scheint ja nur bei meinen Beiträgen aufzutreten, nicht bei anderen. Ich fände es netter, wenn Sie mir helfen würden, herauszufinden, warum das so ist, damit ich die Einstellungen anpassen kann.

[zenzen]

I'm not sure if there are any specific guidelines about what language we're all supposed to be using... but it should be plain obvious that when joining an ongoing conversation in one language, the expectation is for you to make the extra effort to keep the conversation in that same language, not the other way around.

Yes, there are translator tools that we can all use. Keep in mind that we've have done this for you when you asked for our help, and took the time to be as welcoming as possible. It's now your turn to do the same.

[Ponce-De-Leon]

@Forpli4

Es gibt in jedem Browser einen Übersetzungsdienst, damit man alles in der gewünschten Sprache lesen kann.

Das könnte vielleicht das Problem sein. Wenn Sie das für einzelne Seiten abschalten können, sollten Sie das für das Zorin Forum tun. Dann gehen Sie in die Profileinstellungen und stellen die Sprache dort auf Deutsch. Dann sollten Sie eine deutsche Benutzeroberfläche haben, aber die Kommentare bleiben in der jeweils verfassten Sprache.

Mit dem Hinweis meinen wir es ja auch nicht böse mit Ihnen. Es kommt auch durchaus vor, dass hier Posts in anderen Sprachen erfolgen. Aber im allgemeinen wird hier Englisch verwendet.

This could perhaps be the problem. If you can switch this off for individual pages, you should do this for the Zorin forum. Then go to the profile settings and set the language to German. You should then have a German user interface, but the comments will remain in the language in which they were written.

We don't mean any offense by telling you this. It does happen that posts are made here in other languages. But English is generally used here.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[zenzen]

@Ponce-De-Leon

We don't mean any offense by telling you this. It does happen that posts are made here in other languages. But English is generally used here.

This

Please don't think we do this out of selfishness or laziness, either. There are a lot of people from different countries over here trying their best to keep communication going as best they can, myself included.

Plus, it's an excellent excuse to practice another language!

[aisajib]

Also, browser translators usually do a good job at translating the entire page into a single language (it also likely expects the entire page to be in a single language). Imagine if every reply was in a different language. Even if browsers don't give up first, I would.

[freshjeff]

@aisajib

Imagine if every reply was in a different language.

Well said, i for one am not born in an english-speaking country. From what i have seen so far, many of us are, and i think it is easiest for all of us to just stick with english.

Write in japanese for all i care, i just won't be translating those messages.

[0Picass0]

I'm a native-born English speaker who lives in a country where English is spoken by very few, and if I don't understand, or it's not relevant to me, then I just move on by... it's not an issue. If it's important and I still don't understand, I make a huge effort to. I do think I saw that there are Zorin forums in different languages, with people offering to translate, or am I wrong? Anyhow, we ALL speak Linux, so let's get along.

[StarTreker]

This is an predominantly English speaking forum, its obvious to anyone who looks at the forum. I speak English personally, and know a little Japanese on the side. I don't go into English speaking threads, and speak a different language.

Since I don't speak any European language other then English, I tend to skip over threads, which were not translated into English by the OP.

Additionally, if I were to go to the trouble to translate an OP's post to English, I would provide the common courtesy, to respond to their post, in the OP's language.

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[zabadabadoo]

Don't get me wrong. I have often taken a non-English post and translated it to English in order for it to be read by others that may help the poster. I have no problem with that.

This is generally an English language forum (unless advised otherwise), so it would be nice if non-English language posters would take the time and effort themselves to use an online translator of their choice and make an English translation. I think that would help them get more results as well as us understanding their issue.

The Zorin 17.3 thread started in English language, until post #39 then it flipped into German for some reason for numerous posts thereafter. The content and direction of that thread was therefore then lost to English readers. I for one could only skip over those posts, which should not be necessary if they were translated by te poster at the time of posting. That is all I wish to say.

[Forpli]

I would like to apologise for not translating my posts into English. I assumed that this would be done automatically when uploading by a translator plugin of the Discours forum software. As I had also set my browser to automatically translate all pages in English into German, I didn't realise that my posts were out of line linguistically.
I can well understand that it bothered you that many of my German posts suddenly appeared in English threads, which you couldn't read and which also led away from the actual topic.
I fully agree with you that a standardised language (English) should prevail in the forum if possible, so that it remains clear and automatic translation services of the various browsers can cope with it, as people all over the world use this forum.

I am very sorry that due to my misconception the moderators and all those who helped me with problems had additional work due to the previous translation!
I will of course translate my posts into English in the future so that everyone can read and understand them easily.
I will also make sure to open separate threads for my questions and stay more on topic.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[Aravisian]

@Forpli

I am very sorry that due to my misconception the moderators and all those who helped me with problems had additional work due to the previous translation!
I will of course translate my posts into English in the future so that everyone can read and understand them easily.
I will also make sure to open separate threads for my questions and stay more on topic.

I find it striking that after you received help on the forum, you began looking for ways to help others.

This spoke of your honor and character - in a universal language we all can understand.

To me, I find it inspiring that while some in our world fear our differences; what makes us similar and so human can never be taken away from us.

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Ich finde es auffällig, dass Sie, nachdem Sie Hilfe im Forum erhalten haben, nach Wegen gesucht haben, anderen zu helfen.

Dies sprach von deiner Ehre und deinem Charakter - in einer universellen Sprache, die wir alle verstehen können.

Für mich finde ich es inspirierend, dass, während einige in unserer Welt unsere Unterschiede fürchten; Was uns ähnlich und so menschlich macht, kann uns niemals genommen werden.

[Forpli]

Thank you, @Aravisian! Yes, I was so pleased with the help I received here in the forum that I wanted to give something back to others and tried to help other beginners with the knowledge I had already acquired here. It really hurt me when it was written about me that I wasn't making an effort. I do, and so many people here do.

[Aravisian]

@Forpli

It really hurt me when it was written about me that I wasn't making an effort

I think everyone here can relate to this feeling.
And this, too, is part of how spoken and text language both, unlike mathematics, is so imprecise and imperfect.

We as people may speak in a moments perceptions, not necessarily an equation of the whole system. In Mathematics, we would have a Hamiltonian: The total energy of a system. We must always check our results and that it aligns with the Hamiltonian.

There is no Hamiltonian in German, French, Malaysian, English... Our sentences are often too brief.
And sometimes, mine are way too long.

That is life. Mistakes are made, lessons are learned and we become better people, every day. Hopefully now on this day, seeing that many people recognized the effort you were putting in offsets how a moments words did not fully reflect the Totality of the System. English does not have a Hamiltonian.

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Ich denke, jeder hier kann sich auf dieses Gefühl beziehen.
Und auch das gehört dazu, dass gesprochene und Textsprache im Gegensatz zur Mathematik so ungenau und unvollkommen sind.

Wir als Menschen können in einem Moment Wahrnehmungen sprechen, nicht unbedingt eine Gleichung des gesamten Systems. In der Mathematik hätten wir einen Hamilton-Operator: Die Gesamtenergie eines Systems. Wir müssen immer unsere Ergebnisse überprüfen und sicherstellen, dass sie mit dem Hamilton-Operator übereinstimmen.

Es gibt keinen Hamilton-Operator in Deutsch, Französisch, Malaysisch, Englisch... Unsere Sätze sind oft zu kurz.
Und manchmal sind meine viel zu lang.

Das ist das Leben. Fehler werden gemacht, Lektionen gelernt und wir werden jeden Tag bessere Menschen. Hoffentlich jetzt an diesem Tag, zu sehen, dass viele Leute die Anstrengung erkannten, die Sie in Offsets gesteckt haben, wie ein Moment Worte spiegelten die Gesamtheit des Systems nicht vollständig wider. Englisch hat keinen Hamilton-Operator.

(I notice that the Translator I used changed Hamiltonian to Hamilton-operator - I wonder how accurate that is...)

[0Picass0]

I can only speak for translators into Spanish/English, English/Spanish, and say that translators have improved an awful lot in the last couple of years. My Spanish is good enough to have conversations, doctors appointments, etc., but when I write I use a translator to "proofread" and then I go back and change any words I'm not happy with.

Over a decade ago I saw some real "bloopers" where people had used a translator from English to Spanish, without any rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, so battered fish became fish that had been beaten, and other mistakes that I can't write here, because although they're hilarious, they're a little bit rude.

My German lessons ended in 3rd grade, but I'm available to help with Spanish (from Spain... yeah, it can be VERY different in south American countries), if anyone should need help.

[zenzen]

Hi everyone,

You'll notice that due to a recent update we now have the ability to translate posts individually. Just click on the translate button and this should provide a translation provided by Libre Translate which is a free and open source service.

This should help avoiding any more communication problems like this!

[Michel]

Dan kan ik mooi in het Nederlands praten voortaan

[Ponce-De-Leon]

As an Addition to @zenzen's Comment, this is the Icon:

Really practical new Function.