I've just watch decrypted files and saw that part of translation is already done.
As localized version are not released yet I just want to know if you're interrested in spelling mistake reports (I've seen one or two in french translation while watching).

I think it would be somewhat problematic for 2D Boy to process all requests for changes in the translation; Marius already worked on a Dutch translation, and last I heard merging just his changes into the latest development tree required a lot of merging work for him, and some e-mailing back and forth with the 2D Boy people. It worked, but it's obviously a lot of overhead.

In my opinion, a much better solution would be to set up a wiki so that everyone can contribute to the translations, without swamping 2D Boy with change requests. Of course, this would require the wiki to be set up in a structured way so that the text.xml file can be automatically extracted.

I'd be willing to set something like this up, if others agree that this a productive way to work (i.e. if it doesn't compete with any alternatives). It would be interesting to hear wat 2D Boy's point of view is and whether or not they intend to include community-contributed translations in an official release. If so, it's probably a good idea to put someone in charge of quality control for each language, because it's near impossible to assess the quality of a translation into a language you can't read.

I've been thinking about making a translation tool. It shouldn't be difficult, but it'd take a while, and I'm sure someone with more free time than me could do it faster. However, it would both speed up the translation process tremendously, and make the merging a piece of cake.

Here's a quick mock-up I made to show what I have in mind:



What do you think? Is it a waste of time?

Looks good :)

Hey guys, it might be worth creating a free svn repository with unfuddle.com so multiple people can edit the text.xml file and we can simultaneously get multiple languages into it.

Have you guys used svn before?

Would anyone like to volunteer to create/admin it? (multilingual skills a plus!) We get a lot of offers for translation volunteering via email, so we could likely get a decent number of people contributing.

I'll don't have the time to administrate it, but I think it's a good idea

Since this thread wasn't really going anywhere, I've gone ahead and set up a simple wiki real quick:
http://hell.student.utwente.nl/wog/wiki/

Everyone can edit the translation files there, and as long as you don't mess up the lay-out too much, text.xml.bin files can be automatically extracted for in-game testing here:
http://hell.student.utwente.nl/wog/download-text.php

So feel free to correct any spelling and formatting mistakes (in some of the translations text falls outside of boxes and stuff like that) and if you need any help, just send me an e-mail or a message on the forum.

You're the best ;)
I've started to take care of the French one but,my English is not perfect.
There is some sentences I'm not sure of the meaning so I'm using this topic.
like : "you can't stop progress"
(These must be the robots that built this factory. %% I thought they had all been torn apart and scrapped for parts years ago. %% Oh look! %% There's one left. %% It's so cute! %% But the pipe is right behind his head. %% Well... %% ...you can't stop progress. %% -the Sign Painter )
Did that mean that "you can't stop going ahead" (I guess) or "you can't stop (THE) progress ?"
and what about "faithfully re-imagining"
Does "re-imagining" is a synonym for "reinventing ?"

damn! was checking the french translations.. Put in some blocks people!!!  I want to edit ""Cog in the Machine"  "Un Rouage de la machine"  "

but I have to scroll all the way down and press "edit"  holy shit...


cog IN the machine > un rouage DANS la machine :D


edit: Allright, I went though quickly and editted some stuff, namely

the information superhighway translation >.>  "la superautoroute de l'information"
If you translate directly, sure it gives you that, but I believe, and correct me admins if i'm wrong that the information superhighway in the game refers to the Internet.. Which translates in french to, "l'autoroute de l'information"

Okay...dear Mr 70.55.104.112,I let you do for now ^^.
You're doing well.
There is no notification when the page is ever under modification ><.
But don't agree with some of your changes :
"Ce tuyau aspire beaucoup! C'est probablement une bonne idée de rester éloigné "
=> Better "Ce tuyau aspire beaucoup! Il vaut mieux rester éloigné"
"Je sais que dans beaucoup de dialogues préconçus, %% tu peut choisir la dernière option %% a répetition %% et avancer dans la narrative"
=> "Je sais que dans beaucoup de dialogues préconçus, %% tu peut choisir la dernière option %% a répetition %% et avancer dans la narration"

modify at will i'm done for now :D

=> Better "Ce tuyau aspire beaucoup! Il vaut mieux rester éloigné"

how about "faut" instead of vaut?   it'd make more sense  ???


I have the program "Antidote" I'll chekc around for basic spelling mistakes, eg, epilogue needs an accent aigue

Aw...good question now you're asking me...I guess the two are okay.
"Il vaut mieux" => It's better to do this
"Il faut mieux" => You should do this
No ?
Anyway a search on google give a lot of results for the two.

I don't see how to translate "challenging everything" either (Didn't noticed it playing the game,very funny,but one more time mean nothing once translated...)
"Challenge everything" => "Relève tout les défis" but "Challenging" is proper to English.

one or other is good actually :D  I just prefer "faut" hahah

I had not expected the wiki to be so popular that locking and merging would immediately be a problem. But I guess it just means a lot of improvements are being made, which is good. :) Go France! (and Canada and Belgium and a bunch of other countries I guess)

By the way, I would recommend three things:

[li] Make a seperate thread on this forum for the French translation so you can discuss French translation issues (like the Information Superhighway) without confusing the non-French speaking people here.[/li]
[li] If you want to document common policies feel free to add them to the wiki page; you can safely add text on the top of the page or between the tables, without messing up the automated text.xml generation.[/li]
[li] If you feel that editing conflicts still occur, let me know, and I'll try to either set up a different wiki or split out the page over multiple pages so contention is less of a problem.

Ok,but I wanna ask for something global and more important :
I'm asking to Kyle and Ron : do you really wanna keep "MOM" in every language ? I mean seem me strange to find "MOM" in a translated sentence :S .Wouldn't it be better if we translate MOM's name too ?
Sure in the level it will still be written "MOM"...

That is a good question. Similar issues arise with texts that are puns, English idioms or references to other things, which cannot always be translated sensibly and make little sense when translated literally. It would be nice to have a global policy on that (e.g. does World of Goo Corporation stay like that, or should it be translated?)

By the way, is the space before punctuation such as question marks and exclamation marks customary in French? If not, someone should probably fix that up too. (In Dutch and English - as far as I know - it's considered wrong or at least bad style, but this may not be true for other languages.)

This should answer to your question : http://www.la-ponctuation.com/point-interrogation.html

:O  i've never seen a space before the question mark :O

And a few people put accents on upper-case letters, but it's an obligation if you respect typography rules.
As " is not a french character, you have to use << and >> ones, with a space between them and the content.

Thanks for the wiki Soultaker ! I'll work on french translation too.

Everyone speak French here ^^
If you make change on any page,please first add "/!\ Page under modification !" or something like that to avoid misunderstood.

[quote author=Ikalou link=topic=642.msg4754#msg4754 date=1225476247]
Ok,but I wanna ask for something global and more important :
I'm asking to Kyle and Ron : do you really wanna keep "MOM" in every language ? I mean seem me strange to find "MOM" in a translated sentence :S .Wouldn't it be better if we translate MOM's name too ?
Sure in the level it will still be written "MOM"...

I suppose it depends whether MOM is an acronym of some sort. "Mind Over Matter", perhaps? Anyway, I couldn't find any other name besides MOM, so I suppose it can be translated. Unless more is revealed about MOM in chapter 6? For that, we really need input from 2DBoy.

[quote author=Ikalou link=topic=642.msg4750#msg4750 date=1225473982]
I don't see how to translate "challenging everything" either (Didn't noticed it playing the game,very funny,but one more time mean nothing once translated...)
"Challenge everything" => "Relève tout les défis" but "Challenging" is proper to English.

It's a reference, in case you haven't noticed. It's the EA slogan, "Challenge everything". 2DBoy just took them at their word, so they're "challenging everything" ;-) Doesn't EA have a slogan in French? That would be the "correct" way of translating it, I think. It would be translating the joke, rather than translating the words themselves.

French dudes, i've started a thread, go check it out :D

@Wishbone : I noticed it,that's why I say It was funny.
My problem is that there is no equivalent in French.
EA French slogan is "Relève tout les défis."
But we don't have a "ing mod" for everything.

[quote author=martinarcand1 link=topic=642.msg4775#msg4775 date=1225482409]
French dudes, i've started a thread, go check it out :D

I know, but I'm a Danish dude, not a French one, and I needed to quote those two posts. I speak very little French, so I didn't want to jump into the other thread ;)

no it's fine, keep talking here, just saying the majority of french stuff will be going on elsewhere :D

It might be best to keep "MOM" untranslated, as she is. :) Also, "World of Goo" and "World of Goo Corporation".

Will that be understood in other languages, do you think?

Sure it will.
But "MOM te regarde" ou "ordinateur de MOM" doesn't sound good.
It would be better "Ordinateur de MAMAN".
Well may I ask you : Why did you call her "MOM" ?
And one more thing,during the dialog with MOM,do we heu...I can't explain it.
Well...must speak French,Spanish,Italian,German,Russian,or something else...
Do we talk to her using the 2nd or the 5th person ?

I looked at the Italian translation, there are a few mistakes and inconsistencies, but it's mostly good. I've started writing something on the discussion page of the Italian translation of the wiki.


I believe that at "MOM" should be translated.
Why? Because MOM's messages really look like a mom's message to one of her children; so, if it doesn't get translated, that nice effect is lost.

What I'd like to know is: do you think this effect is more or less important than keeping it "MOM"?



Edit @Ikalou: I know, I'm asking Kyle :D

I think it would be best too.
But it's not our decision.

[quote author=Fede link=topic=642.msg4945#msg4945 date=1225641555]
I believe that at "MOM" should be translated.
Why? Because MOM's messages really look like a mom's message to one of her children; so, if it doesn't get translated, that nice effect is lost.

What I'd like to know is: do you think this effect is more or less important than keeping it "MOM"?

Exactly. The capitalization makes it seem like an acronym, but it's never explained what it's an acronym for. It was clearly chosen to coincide with the word "mom", as is evident in the dialog, so the meaning (mother) is important. But we haven't had any explanation of why the acronym itself is important.

I'd say it's very important that the player understands that MOM is a "mother figure". Less important that it's actually spelled "MOM". I thought maybe "MOM" would be universally understood, but maybe it's not?

It's not an acronym, but I like that it looked like one :)

Most languages have short words for "Mom", I think. Dutch has "Ma" or "Mam". As for universal understanding, I can't really judge that, since I'm one of those people who throw in English during regular conversations when the English word fits better, or I can't think of the Dutch word.

[quote author=kyle link=topic=642.msg4990#msg4990 date=1225668602]
I thought maybe "MOM" would be universally understood, but maybe it's not?

It's not an acronym, but I like that it looked like one :)


Of course if you take into consideration the current playerbase everyone understands it.

It really depends on how you want to use the translations. If you want to add a language selection page (for example for the european retail version), then I'd suggest to translate it, as you might get players who don't know a single english word. If instead players have to go and swap strings in the files we can be sure they do know enough english to understand it.

The translation should still look like an acronym if we write it in caps, I believe the word mother can be translated in 6 or less characters in any language.

[quote author=kyle link=topic=642.msg4990#msg4990 date=1225668602]
I thought maybe "MOM" would be universally understood, but maybe it's not?
I think that in an English sentence it is easily understood, even for people who barely speak English, but this might not be the case in a translated sentence. In a translated sentence you lack the English language context necessary to map the letters "MOM" to an English word for mother.

For example, would you say that in this sentence: "It's time to visit MAMAN" it is sufficiently clear that MAMAN means "mom"? Because this is more or less what it will look like to French players reading the translated text right now. (Obviously, it's hard for everyone in this discussion to objectively determine what is and what isn't clear to someone who hasn't had previous exposure to the World of Gooniverse)

[quote author=kyle link=topic=642.msg4990#msg4990 date=1225668602]
I thought maybe "MOM" would be universally understood, but maybe it's not?

Understood, maybe. Sounding natural in another language, no.

[quote author=Soultaker link=topic=642.msg5020#msg5020 date=1225719117]
translating OCD to something sensible while keeping the abbrevation was hard enough. ;)


I gave up on that. The trouble is that in Danish, lots of foreign words, particularly modern ones, don't actually get translated. We just sort of shovel them into the language. Thus, the Danish abbreviation equivalent to OCD is... OCD. And yes, it stands for "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder". We don't have our own expression for the condition. This means, however, that translating the pun is out of the question, because I can't just shove a Danish word in there, without it looking completely unnatural. Additionally, the only Danish words beginning with C that I can think of right now, are the Danish equivalents of "bicycle", "circus", "circle" and "lemon", none of which really apply. :-\