Common words translation sheet for indie game developers.
docs.google.com
docs.google.com
"You have won..." -> "Właśnie wygrałeś..."
Wygrałeś is fine if the player's a man. Otherwise, for a woman, wygrałeś needs an A instead of the E: wygrałAś
There are lots of pitfalls like this in Slavic languages, and I imagine in many others.
Speaking as an English developer, the first time you implement a proper translation can be a painful - not to mention enlightening - experience.
I don't know - one of these days I'll finally get the guts to change my laptop's language to Polish.
Fortunately, this rule only applies to the past and future tenses, so you're safe if you can keep to present tense.
The only translations I've worked with have been Facebook-based, where, by and large, the person's gender is already known.
Elsewhere, I've seen things written in a bit of a hacky manner, e.g. the above written as: Właśnie wygrałeś/aś.
Also there are a lot more pitfalls regarding slavic languages, for example in polish, there are few plural forms (2 users, 8 users = 2 użytkownicy, 8 użytkowników, etc).
Isn't "Wygrana" just the noun, rather than a verb? So the nearest equivalent in English would be "Win!" rather than "You Won"?
When you first mentioned "asexual form," I was thinking something like "Wygrało," but "It Won!" sounds a bit impersonal to me. Not sure whether that's better or worse than assuming the reader's male.
Also there are a lot more pitfalls regarding slavic languages, for example in polish, there are few plural forms
That's an incredibly fun one. If it ends in 2, 3 or 4 and isn't 12, 13 or 14, you use the nominative plural ending, otherwise the genitive plural ending. At least... I think that's for nouns in nominative and accusative cases, right? My head quickly starts spinning when I think about these.
You can also say this using "person" - "Osobo używająca ten program - wygrałaś" ("To person, who is using this software - you have won"), "Osoba" is always female, and can mean anybody. But this is very formal and weird, too.
Wow, that's a completely new form to me! Do you know any examples of where I can find it - or even a description - as my usual online sources are failing me :)
I like your word-hack using Osoba! I'm loving learning Polish, it's a real eye-opener about how languages can work.
Heh, I was just curious as I hadn't seen that form anywhere :)
That said, the Polish Wiktionary wygrać entry (http://pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/wygra%C4%87) lists it and a couple of other new-to-me ones as "forma potencjalna", so I guess it's possible in theory, but as you say, just not used.
Americans might consider it sexist, but it's the only practical solution to the issue. So, "Właśnie wygrałeś" is actually correct.
I can't speak for proper games you run on a laptop, but I've seen that form in several places. Admittedly, it could well have stood out to me as I wondered "What on earth..."
Americans might consider it sexist, but it's the only practical solution to the issue.
Heh, on a separate but kinda-related note, I wonder how much of this is related to some of Polish's other grammatical rules? If a group of women were in a pub last night, they could say byłyśmy, but if there was a single man there, it becomes byliśmy.
It seems that there are one set of grammatical rules for women, children and animals, and another set for men. It's fascinating!
I have: 1 apple = "Mam 1 jabłko" 2-4 apples = "Mam 2-4 jabłka" 5-21 apples = "Mam 5-21 jabłek" 22-24 apples = "Mam 22-24 jabłka" 25-31 apples = "Mam 25-31 jabłek" etc.
Also "one" = "jeden", "jedno", "jednego", "jednych", "jedni", ... there's different version for almost all combinantions of plurality, grammatical case, and gender.
"I have one apple" = "Mam jedno jabłko" "I don't have apple" = "Nie mam jednego jabłka"
Nobody expects software to get it right.
Heh, this one of my favourite rules to show off with, as it appears more complicated than it is. If you're negating a sentence with this structure, you always use the genitive case, hence jednego jabłka. Or, as I was briefly annoyed to be told this lunchtime, nie ma żadnego makaronu. (Although maybe my memory's already failing me - would it be żadnych makaronów?)
Nobody expects software to get it right.
But it'd feel so good to get it right! :)
(one of these days, I will manage to decline a sentence of more than five words correctly!)
"Spaghetti with meatballs, please" -> nie ma (już) makaronu, because makaron is uncountable here.
"Do you have spaghetti or farfalle?" -> nie ma żadnego makaronu. Here makaron is countable as types of pasta.
I'would be glad to answer any questions about Polish language. My Polish is far better than my English, as you see.
In Polish every noun changes with the number in the way I've show. When you count up, you use numbers in abstract wihout the noun, so no noun to change ending.
If you mean the ranges, it's strict in Polish - 1 has one ending for noun, 2-4, 22-24, 32-34, 42-44, etc have other, and all the others have another ending. I don't know how the ranges for "few", "a couple" etcare defined in English.
I've heard that this strange system in Polish comes from the times Polish had 3 possible pluralities: singular, dual and plural, but I might be wrong about that.
If we consider ‘a couple of apples’ a genitive construction, then I guess you could probably say it's similar to два яблока (‘two apples’), where ‘яблока’ is singular genitive form.
(The example is in Russian, which seems to be like Polish in this regard.)
We can create form for submit new files or add specific people to manage single language etc.
I am you at your disposal.
Bladum
I am force to make file private due to google server limitations. Still can use it but after using gmail account.
Bladum
Because of that, almost all software that was translated to Spanish (especially mobile apps) mixes this two forms and order the user to do something ("hey you! open this file! copy this text!") instead of using the infinitive form.
This was no exception. "Share an achievement" has been translated for "comparte un logro" (although "share on facebook" and other phrases were translated correctly).
As a developer, you should provide context for the strings ("label of a button that if clicked allows the user to share an achievement" vs "label asking the user to share an achievement"). Gettext and similar translation systems provide a way to do this.
Software translations are hard. I had to set my phone to English because most translations are wrong and many are barely understandable.
I guess there are similar issues for Spanish in Spain and Spanish in Mexico.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-lite/id388918463?...
I'm paying some people to translate my Spanish/English words to French/Mandarin/German/Italian/Korean/Japanese/Russian.
If people get the proper English expressions in, I can have these people go over the sheets and try to fill in some of the blanks.
"We're sorry, but you have sent too many requests to us recently. Please try again later."
"It's a common typo by French (because in French, there is a white space before a question/exclamation mark)"
"in most Indian schools, English grammar is taught from a book that was originally authored by two Englishmen: PC Wren and H Martin. The earlier editions of the book (including the one that I own) has a space before the following punctuation marks are used: question mark, exclamation mark, dash (em dash), colon and semi-colon"
--http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4645/is-it-ever-c...
Anyway, it's just for games. For a free translation I think many indie devs would be very happy with this.
They probably mean 'Congratulazioni'
Oh and the Portuguese column is fine, but don't try it in Brazil, go for the 'Brazilian Portuguese' instead