quote:
Originally posted by Chrono
Well thats basically what patchou said 
And is kinda obvious, if is isnt your mother language, you will not be able to tranlate it 100% well, mainly because it isnt an easy job 
its not just translating stuff, you need the words to fit in the space you have, so many times you will have to change words and phrases a bit, and if you dont know enough, well...
And if I may add... it's not only that, but translating a computer program is much more difficult then translating a letter or whatever. You need to know every bit, every angle, every setting of the program inside out and outside in.
Plus you need to know what the actual OFFICIAL STANDARIZED technical words are for certain items in the language you're going to translate.
There are extremely many (unspoken) rules you must follow when translating a program. In a text, at school, in a letter, etc you have some freedom of word choice, in a computer program you don't! Every word, even how small it is, can change the whole meaning of the option or change/blur the perception of the user of that option.
And that is only the translating part. As Chrono said, there are also many technical issues you must follow and do. Checking available spaces, keep every name/option/term consistent, making it look good, handling the ampersands, understanding WHY certain error messages are shown instead of simply translation them literally, etc.. etc...
If you want to do a proper job (and start from scratch and never translated something like this before), you're busy every day, non-stop, for weeks to come.
(oh and dispite what many people believe, dividing the work among many people is not a good thing for the translation; there will be far too many inconsistancies, not to mention all the style changes)
Translating a computer program can absolutely NOT be compared to translating anything else.
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