<div dir="ltr">Hi Anthony,<div>We had the same conflict with the Hebrew translation.</div><div>Our problem is slightly different, in Hebrew there are differences when addressing a male or a female.</div><div><br></div><div>
The first approach we tried is using a muscular plural form, I didn't like that approach die to implied schizophrenia, if the user is all alone in the room, how can one assume he might be many instead of one...</div>
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Not ideal.</div><div><br></div><div>The rules of the Hebrew academy suggest that when the gender of the addressee is unknown you should relate to him as a male.</div><div><br></div><div>I decided to take a different approach, making the translations genderless, in English it's something like: Opening file and Closing (Instead of Open file and Close).</div>
<div><br></div><div>Kind regards,</div><div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:large"><font color="#990000">Yaron</font><font color="#330000"> Shahrabani</font></span><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px">
<div><font color="#666666"><span style="font-size:x-small"><font color="#FF0000"><</font></span>Hebrew translator<span style="font-size:x-small"><font color="#FF0000">></font></span></font></div></blockquote></div>
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<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 1:35 PM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:goof@coppernet.zm" target="_blank">goof@coppernet.zm</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Times New Roman"><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3">Hello fellow translators,</font><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'"><br></div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">
I have hit what I might call a big problem with my language, Bemba. In this language, the way we address a young person is different to the the way we address an older person in speech and writing.</div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3">When I started to translate Ubuntu from English to Bemba, I assumed that the computer is telling the user what it can do and so is in a way talking to the person first. Because of this, I chose to use the </font><font face="'Times New Roman'">respectful</font><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3"> alternative to addressing a human user. This way the computer will always sound like it is not being rude to the user. This approach has presented a small problem with some people who have reviewed some of my translations. They are of the opinion that I should always assume that the user is telling the computer to do something, thus the instruction should be like a human talking to someone they supervise in order for them do have something done for them. The respectful manner should only be used by the computer when it displays something as a reaction to the user input.</font></div>
<div><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3"><br></font></div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">An example is 'Open File'. The question is: In this case, is the menu item in the computer application telling the human that it able to open a file or it is the human who is telling the computer to open the file? I ask this because depending on which is which, my translations approach will have a whole new twist and I would have to re-check my approach.</div>
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'"><br></div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Please advise if any of you have such a language challenge and what side you have taken: Is it the human that tell the computer what to do such that its responses are only when a dialogue box opens or it is the computer that tells the human what it can do and so seems to 'speak' first and advises the human of what it is able to do?</div>
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'"><br></div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Many thanks for any help.</div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">
<br></div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'">Anthony</div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman'"><br></div></div></div><br>--<br>
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