[Community Support Request] German, French and maybe Spanish

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

we have added a lot of new content to the mod for the upcoming release.
But the translations have not been keeping up with that progress.

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Historically this mod had always supported 3 main languages: English, French, German
(The mother languages of the team members that had participated.)

Other languages like e.g. Russian are also already in discussion or even in preparation.
(But for Russian there are currently still technical obstacles - unlike the already supported languages.)

The already supported languages can be handled by pure XML work - no technical obstacles.
All it would need is somebody motivated to invest the time and effort.

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English is in good hands:
@Kendon is working on it.

German is otherwise the most important to me personally - it is also still a bit better maintained.
(It was maintained until the last public release. So it is mostly about updating the new Colopedia texts only.)

French would be cool to have again, but there would be quite some effort to be invested again.
(It was maintained until the end of RaR but not afterwards. Since then a lot of new content was added.)

Spanish would be cool as well, but basically the complete mod lacks Spanish translation so far.
(It was never properly maintained since we started modding with TAC.)

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Comment on Russian:

Russian is already discussed separately and mostly an issue of offering support for Russian character sets.
(Thus I am not going to repeat discussions about Russian here although we have team members volunteering to translate into Russian.)

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Current Status of supported languages:
(It is all XML work.)

German needs to be updated again although we even have several German team member.
But the German modders are currently all busy with graphics, events and programming.

French however is completely abandoned since the days of RaR since there is no French team member on board anymore.
Which is a pitty since it had taken incredible efforts in RaR to fully translate the mod into French.

Spanish has never been maintained since we have not had a native Spanish speaker on board for long enough.
But Spanish translation could also help us to reach many more players.

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Requirements:

1) Ideally a Native Speaker of the corresponding language for the translation.
2) Good knowledge of English to understand the texts to be translated.
3) Good knowledge of XML and thus able to work independently.
4) Willingness to work with tools like GIT to synchronize texts with repository.
5) Motivation and endurance to actually keep working - i.e. not quitting after just one week

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What do we offer in exchange?

1) Getting to know the team and getting insider informations on our plans
2) Early access to internal releases (e.g. to play updates earlier than others)
3) Participation in mod decisons, feature discussions and balancing
4) Chance to learn how to become a modder yourself if you are interested

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Summary:

Is there somebody interested to support with updating German Colopedia texts ? (For German it is just Colopedia stuff, rest is up to date.)
Is there somebody interested to support with updating French Colopedia texts and other texts ? (There is also ingame text to be updated.)
Is there somebody interested to support with updating Spanish Colopedia texts and other texts ? (There is also ingame text to be updated.)

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Comment on German:

German is the most important to me besides English. Simply because I am German myself.
(It is also less effort to update compared to the other non-English languages. As I said, it is just Colopedia texts.)

But currently I would rather keep working on game content than invest the little time I have into Colopedia.
(If necessary however I would also start updating German Colopedia texts at some point in the future.)

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Comment on Release:

The only language that is "mandatory" for the upcoming release is English to me.
(But as I said, it is already in good hands with @Kendon.)

Still it would be nice to support the other languages properly.
(But if the other languages are not translated, we will release anyways.)

 

[Mr. ZorG]

1. Since at the moment we do not have a proper division into translation languages (separate folders for each language), translators will need to coordinate files for translation. it's a small inconvenience.
2. There are problems not only in Russian. we have a global problem with special characters that are also present in other languages.

in summary, I can say that this topic is a bit premature, but looks good for attracting new supporters. In any case, we are always glad to any help)

 

[raystuttgart]

in summary, I can say that this topic is a bit premature

Why is it "premature" ?

I would e.g. really like to see the German texts being updated again.
(And at least for German it is realistic because it is just about writing missing Colopedia entries.)

TAC / RaR even had full French translation and I would like to have this again as well.
(It had been created by our former team member @Marla_Singer.)

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Otherwise I agree, it is not the highest priority.
Missing translations will also not block a release.

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translators will need to coordinate files for translation.

There should not be too many issues however if GIT is used properly.
(Because each language has its own specific tags / lines and GIT can merge such things.)

Otherwise modders like @devolution and myself could also not have worked on source code in parallel.
It is really just an issue of properly using the GIT client and properly working with PULL / COMMIT / PUSH.

But yes, if we e.g. find people wanting to support translations then a bit of coordination may be necessary.

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we have a global problem with special characters that are also present in other languages.

The languages I have mentioned are German, French and Spanish.

They are technically already fully supported by the base game and of course also the mod.
For those it is just pure XML work - and otherwise no technical limitation with special characters.

Also having additional supporters work on translations, does not mean we would neglect other topics.
There is no conflict in having e.g. German being updated by a supporter and anything else any other team member does.

So what should speak against it, if we find volunteers from community to support us?
(No programmer or graphical modder would need to invest much effort other than maybe explain how GIT works.)

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Summary:

Wanting to get some of our translations done again is not premature.

If we could find support for this it would be great and the mod could really benefit from it.
(If not, then we will of course release anyways as planned and hope that it may get done in the future.)

Thanks a lot in advance to anybody willing to help.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

@raystuttgart , you saw one part of my idea but missed the other.
yes, in a work chat we can agree on which file one person can use and the rest do not need to modify it yet. but if we had a division by language into separate folders, then such a problem would not exist at all.

in my opinion, we have a problem with the desire to release something new, but at the same time forget about the existing problems. for example, special characters, this problem affects not only Russian, but also German, French (maybe some others, but I'm not familiar with them). in my opinion, it is important to deal with these problems, otherwise they begin to accumulate, like a small lump of snow rolling down the mountain turns into an avalanche.

 

[raystuttgart]

for example, special characters, this problem affects not only Russian, but also German, French

I am not sure what you are talking about considering e.g. German and French.
(But of course I know the issues we have with e.g. Russian and other non Latin languages.)

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There is NO problem with special charaters in German or French or Spanish.
(The mod already fully 100% supports all special characters that German or French or Spanish have.)

Trust me, I would know about such problems, because I have been writing German texts and tested them ingame.
Also I know that the French special characters also all work perfectly fine.

 

[raystuttgart]

it is important to deal with these problems,

I agree, but that does not conflict with the idea to have somebody write e.g. German Colopedia texts.

... but at the same time forget about the existing problems.

I have not forgotten them, but we also can not solve every problem that requires a programmer at once.
Our resources for programming are currently extremely limited as you know.

But French / German / Spanish translations is not a programming topic, thus any supporter from community could help.
Having somebody from community work on translations in XML does not block other topics that require programmers.

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It would only conflict if e.g. I myself or one of the other modders would do it, but not if a supporter from community does it.
So to prevent that one of the modders already working on graphics or code needs to invest his effort I ask community.

So I want to speed up stuff and not slow it down.
And to do so I ask for additional support.

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Also as I said explicitly:
Missing translations will NOT block the release - it would just be cool to simply start translating again.
(Having e.g. German Colopedia texts for the next release is just a "nice to have" for me.)

 

[ConjurerDragon]

1. Since at the moment we do not have a proper division into translation languages (separate folders for each language), translators will need to coordinate files for translation. it's a small inconvenience.
2. There are problems not only in Russian. we have a global problem with special characters that are also present in other languages.
...

So e,g. in german the special characters ä, ö, ü, ß, Ä, Ö, Ü are out and the standard would be like in crosswords Anger --> Aerger instead of Ärger?

 

[raystuttgart]

So e,g. in german the special characters ä, ö, ü, ß, Ä, Ö, Ü are out and the standard would be like in crosswords Anger --> Aerger instead of Ärger?

There is no problem with German special characters in our mod. There is nothing to worry about.
(We can easily use all the special characters of the German language in text withouth issues.)

There is also no problem for any other language that uses latin fonts, since we switched to UTF8.
(This was a change that had been implemented by @Nightinggale already quite some time ago.)

We currently just have issues to support e.g. Russian or other languages with non-latin character sets.
(Other problematic candidates would e.g. be Japanese, Chinese or Korean or ...)

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Or in other words in WTP there is no problem to write "Ärger" or "Spaß" in German texts in XML.
(But it used to be an issue in the past and HTML encoding had to be used - but again that is years ago now.)

And also e.g. all French or Spanish accents can be used without having to encode.
(As long as you use normal UTF8 characters everything is fine.)

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I had also already answered here:

There is NO problem with special charaters in German or French or Spanish.
(The mod already fully 100% supports all special characters that German or French or Spanish have.)

 

[ElCid0204]

here is also no problem for any other language that uses latin fonts, since we switched to UTF8.

This sounds great, since I plan to make a Hungarian translation.
There is a specific problem with Hungarian characters: Most of the special characters are in Latin1 code, but two (ő & ű) are not included in Latin1, only in Latin2.
Do you guys know, if I can use these two spec. characters?

 

[raystuttgart]

(ő & ű)

use these: ö and ü
(They are definitely supported.)

 

[ElCid0204]

use these: ö and ü
(They are definitely supported.)

If the ő & ű will not be supported, then I'm gonna use ô & û, which are supported for sure.
Thanks for you reply and keep up the good work!

 

[ProctorSilex]

Hello, I'm bilingual in French and English. I'd be interested in having a crack at the French translation. I've done Fr to En translation before, though not the other way round -- but I'm sure I'd get the hang of it.

 

[Kendon]

Hello, I'm bilingual in French and English. I'd be interested in having a crack at the French translation. I've done Fr to En translation before, though not the other way round -- but I'm sure I'd get the hang of it.

The English is complete and ready to be translated. I might start with the Diplomacy document. You'll get a sense of style and the different personalities of the game characters.

It's a big job, but if you remember the advice on how to eat an elephant -- one bite at a time -- it will get done.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

in my opinion, it is worth starting to translate from units, professions, buildings and the interface. this is the first thing the player encounters. from small to big.and so on...

 

[ProctorSilex]

Where can I find all the latest English documents?

 

[Kendon]

Where can I find all the latest English documents?

Try this link: https://github.com/We-the-People-civ4col-mod/Mod/tree/New_Hope/Assets/XML/Text

New_Hope is the branch now in development, getting very close to being released. Don't make changes directly to the We the People mod. Open your own GitHub account and fork to it from We the People. Once you have your own account you can work with your changes till you get them right and then contribute to We the People.

In order to fork or contribute I believe you need moderator permission from @Nightinggale or @raystuttgart.

 

[Nightinggale]

Hello, I'm bilingual in French and English. I'd be interested in having a crack at the French translation. I've done Fr to En translation before, though not the other way round -- but I'm sure I'd get the hang of it.

Kendon already answered most of the initial questions so I won't repeat what he wrote. As for gaining access, coordinating to avoid two people from working on the same file at the same time (hence overwriting each other) and similar, I highly recommend you to join discord.

[We the People]Discord chat

We have an official discord channel: click here to join This is not a forum replacement bur rather an addition. The discussions here mostly benefit the way they are in threads, which makes it easy to review what was said for the past weeks. Live chats works much faster, which while beneficial...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[Mr. ZorG]

I would suggest Slack. since now I am actively engaged in translation, and there is no possibility to turn on Discord.

 

[Fürstbischof]

Still it would be nice to support the other languages properly.
(But if the other languages are not translated, we will release anyways.)

Given the earlier lack of interest in translating WTP to French, German, Italian and Spanish I had decided last spring on a full translation in paralell to fill the existing gaps. Lack of time shelved this plan till December. Since then I've started on the new content.

My commit planned for last sunday failed since I couldn't fix my smartgit issues. Seeing the changes mounting in the meantime was a major setback. My commits will come piecemeal...

 

[Fürstbischof]

in my opinion, it is worth starting to translate from units, professions, buildings and the interface. this is the first thing the player encounters. from small to big.and so on...

Just the other way around, as Kendon already said. Avoid picking the low hanging fruits, otherwise you won't know how challenging it is to translate or revise the translated texts. This typically leads to an aborted attempt...