EmulationStation localization (translation)

waal · 16 Aug 2017, 02:10

Yes, I'm interested.

hiulit · 16 Aug 2017, 09:29

Yes, I'm interested and I'm willing to help with translations (Catalan and Spanish)

Zigurana · 17 Aug 2017, 06:54

Yes, I am interested, can help with Dutch (NL) translations.
Note that I think this should be limited to EmulationStation only, not the scripts. I see this mostly as an accessibility improvement for my kids.

A12C4 · 18 Aug 2017, 14:46

@buzz It's hard to say if this poll is trully reflecting the reality, since people reading a topic called "localization" are more likely to be interested by localization, but I would say it's hard to contest there is a need with 8 Yes - 1 No

BuZz · 19 Aug 2017, 16:16

@sx-111 No - that's not what I am saying.

cyperghost · 19 Aug 2017, 22:17

I'm not against a translation but not convinced.
The UI of ES itself is self explaining ... And I think lots of translation will end in an english/american slang and a literally translation can sound "antique"

Zigurana · 20 Aug 2017, 09:53

@cyperghost
I don't agree. The quality of the translations us only as good as the person doing the translation, true. But remember that most will be done from someone's second language (EN) back to their native tongue.

The ES interface is about as intuitive as an airplane cockpit, it's just that we have gotten used to it by now, and we have seen all features being added one by one, so it was a gradual process.

For someone who is new to it, well, not so much.

cyperghost · 20 Aug 2017, 10:13

@zigurana I'm with you - I know that you want it as easy as possible for your kids and that's a nice trait :)

Of course the (human)translator got a huge influcence about the quality in translation but obvious the confusion about some setting is not the missing translation it is rather the missing info what each feature does exactly and how they confluence each other. All in all you need english to read the wiki here :)

Therefore I stay to

I'm not against a translation but not convinced.

If you compare ES like an aeroplane cockpit then compare Airbus with Boeing :)
Both planes are great in design and fly behaviour but Airbus is knowen to got the better computer-aided systems so the pilot can just concentrate on the route and not on the plane. Boeing gives the pilot more freedom in fly behaviour ...

Airbus = RecalBox and Boeing = RetroPie ...

rtissera · 22 Aug 2017, 11:36

This post is deleted!

rtissera · 22 Aug 2017, 11:38

Yes, I'm interested and I'm willing to help with translations

EctoOne · 22 Aug 2017, 12:32

@cyperghost said in EmulationStation localization (translation):

I'm not against a translation but not convinced.
The UI of ES itself is self explaining ... And I think lots of translation will end in an english/american slang and a literally translation can sound "antique"

I'm also not very convinced. I personally barely use the UI anymore. It was a one-time setup for me and then I spend a lot of time with the scraper. That was it. Nowadays I just start games.
I do offer my help tho to do a German translation when the time comes. Even if I probably won't use it myself.

StephanePare · 23 Aug 2017, 01:08

I think it's needed because there's a whole host of people who don't understand English at all and this would open RetroPie to millions of people. Even if all it did was allow some people to properly configure things properly when they first open their system, it would still be worth it. Beyond that, lots of us make these things for families or loved ones with no understanding of the English language, and those will simply be more at ease seeing familiar words on screen even if the UI to choose the games is simple enough to not need to read the UI.

Really, to those saying it's not worth it, where's the last open source project you saw whose managers thought it's not even worth it to translate it?

Personally, i'm not just volunteering to translate ES into French, but the entire wiki as well, plus building an image where french is enabled by default end to end.

BuZz · 23 Aug 2017, 01:17

@stephanepare Sounds like recalbox may be more suitable for what you want. The goals of RetroPie (well - mine at least), are not to make it into some "out of the box" consumer device/software (although it already is to a certain degree).

I think a translated wiki would create more problems than it solves as it would no doubt get out of date/sync with the main documentation.

Hex · 23 Aug 2017, 01:52

I agree with @BuZz here. Having more than one documentation is not ideal. It will certainly get outdated soon.

I also believe that localization will fall behind if a dev needs to add a feature and we dont have translators for all languages supported at hand.

If you can guarantee that your support for translation will always be present within 24 hours then possibly this could be acceptable.

jdrassa · 23 Aug 2017, 02:51

@Hex regarding EmulationStation specifically, I don't think it would be a big deal if the localization falls behind. For users that don't know English, a partially translated application would still be better then no translation.

darknior · 23 Aug 2017, 08:20

@BuZz i'm agree with you for the WIKI, so many work to translate it and maintain it like the US one. Not a good idea :( ... I write this and however i LOVE french lol

@jdrassa I'm agree with you. It is really important to have a french version, almost for children that not starting to learn English before 12 years old ... and not really understand it fine :(
A partially translated application would still be better then no translation.

fluffypillow · 23 Aug 2017, 21:03

I can help with a Hungarian translation as a native speaker; the wiki translation is probably an overkill though, for the reasons @Hex mentioned, and also because to my experience, such documentations tend to be either full of foreign technical words, or their awfully literal translations (eg. translating "interface" literally as "human face between multiple layers of things" - from the official manual of some Cisco router).

On the other hand, after the initial setup ES2 is seen by more people (eg. friends, kids) and more often than the RetroPie setup menu. Those who want to know what letters to press on the controller config screen or see their favorite games may not necessary be the same people who formatted the SD card, put BIOS to the right place or set the correct shader files in some config file.

meleu · 23 Aug 2017, 21:37

Hi all.

To me the OP is very clear: this is a poll about EmuationStation localization (translation).

Nothing more, nothing less. Can we be on this topic? :-)

My answer: Yes, I'm interested and I'm willing to help with translations (Brazilian Portuguese).

Actually I'm happy that @Robotechvfx has a friend able to help with Brazilian Portuguese. As I'm used to spend my "RetroPie time" helping others here in the forums, or fixing/adding features to my scripts, but I would like to help with that if someone starts it.

I agree that the main target audience here would be children (at least on my arcade build where many of my kid's friends come to play).

Hex · 24 Aug 2017, 05:21

For the record I am willing to help with translations to Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati, Bengali and other Indian languages as needed (If no one else volunteers.)

cyperghost · 24 Aug 2017, 20:28

@meleu

I agree that the main target audience here would be children (at least on my arcade build where many of my kid's friends come to play).

Yes that's the reason I also told to @Ziguranam, that for kids it would be very helpfull. But I'm still sceptic for translation and the approach being more "userfriendly" in total. But well... The approach of doing this isn't hard. How many expressions are there needed to be translated? 30 words? 50? 100? It's just a small amount, that can be done in a reasonable time ;)