Germans: help translating...

michael blunck · **Joined:** Wed Apr 27, 2005 7:09 am **Posts:** 4394

Eddi wrote:

even though i personally write old spelling (because that's what i learned), the official translation should definitely be new spelling.

Based on what reason?

regards
Michael

Eddi · **Joined:** Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:14 am **Posts:** 4573

you didn't honestly just ask that...

michael blunck · **Joined:** Wed Apr 27, 2005 7:09 am **Posts:** 4394

Eddi wrote:

you didn't honestly just ask that...

Well, yes.

Granted, Wikipedia isn´t the ultima ratio, but in a hurry I didn´t find a better English ressource about the "Rechtschreibreform":

Quote:

The new orthography is only obligatory in schools [emph. mb]. According to the decision of 14 July 1998, of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany[1] outside the schools everybody can write as before, because there is no law ruling orthography. The majority of people use the traditional German orthography.[...]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_spe ... rm_of_1996

And

Quote:

Eine über den schulischen Rahmen hinausgehende rechtliche Verbindlichkeit von Rechtschreibregeln existierte vor der Reform nicht und wurde mit der Reform auch nicht angestrebt, wie nicht zuletzt das Bundesverfassungsgericht in mehreren Entscheidungen erklärte.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuerungen ... der_Reform

I didn´t know that OTTD was a "school project".

And maybe we could avoid some of the more ugly constructions like "vollladen" then ...

regards
Michael

Eddi · **Joined:** Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:14 am **Posts:** 4573

no, indeed there is no law that mandates correct spelling, otherwise >70% of all people would be lawbreakers.

but there is also no reason to needlessly cling to the old rules. if you can find a representative majority of users who would prefer the old spelling, you could of course convince me.

oh, and personally, "volladen" does not look significantly better than "vollladen", i'd even say that i prefer the latter, but really "voll beladen" would be my choice, and then bug the devs enough so they make the button bigger

Roujin · **Joined:** Sun Apr 08, 2007 4:07 am **Posts:** 1884

Well, I'd be very surprised (and pleased) if there were a law enforcing spelling :lol:

You could threaten people who write very very sloppily in, say, a forum, with a charge. Wouldn't that be absolutely nice sometimes? :twisted:

Now, honestly, of course it's not enforced on the people to write like the spelling reform tells you to write. In fact, nobody even forces you to write like how they told you in school before the spelling reform. These are guidelines, and should be followed so that you have a common ground with the people you are trying to communicate with.
Back in the middle ages, they had no such guidelines and everyone (well, those who actually could write) wrote just like they wanted. It _worked_, and even today you can more or less understand the texts they wrote back then, but it certainly wasn't very nice

Now, despite not being enforced in any way, the new spelling rules will eventually spread out and become what most of the people use, simply because the young people all learn the new rules and the old people (eventually) die out.

I'd like to compare this to, say, a new version of a programming language, where some old functions have been marked as "deprecated" and are only kept for backwards compatibility and you're strongly discouraged to use them in new programs you write. I think it's pretty much the same thing..

michael blunck · **Joined:** Wed Apr 27, 2005 7:09 am **Posts:** 4394

Roujin wrote:

Back in the middle ages, they had no such guidelines and everyone (well, those who actually could write) wrote just like they wanted. It _worked_, and even today you can more or less understand the texts they wrote back then, but it certainly wasn't very nice

Well, what are you on about here? IMO, it´s totally unrelated because even before the "new orthography", there were rules/guidelines. German readers/writers were not like people "in the middle ages", without the benefits of that reform.

Quote:

Now, despite not being enforced in any way, the new spelling rules will eventually spread out and become what most of the people use, simply because the young people all learn the new rules and the old people (eventually) die out.

Well, I don´t see this happen outside schools. In fact, a couple of major newspapers and publishers have already returned to the "old" orthography and the majority of newspapers and publishing houses doesn´t apply these "rules" as a whole, but have been developing a multitude of so-called "house-rules". (Well, each to his own ...

)

Apart from that, the orthography on the language file doesn´t conform to those "rules" either.

regards
Michael

sulai · **Joined:** Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:23 pm **Posts:** 157

michael blunck wrote:

And maybe we could avoid some of the more ugly constructions like "vollladen" then ...

I personally agree with that. "Vollladen" does look strange.

dihedral · **Joined:** Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:48 pm **Posts:** 1048

may look and feel strange, but it is the correct spelling, and i do not want to have to go through all strings just to make the according to the new spelling in a few months / years time.

i would say, start going by new spelling, and slowly start converting the old stuff as it gets editid (as i plan to edit all patch settings, i can do that there fairly soon)

Eddi · **Joined:** Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:14 am **Posts:** 4573

michael blunck wrote:

Well, I don´t see this happen outside schools. In fact, a couple of major newspapers and publishers have already returned to the "old" orthography and the majority of newspapers and publishing houses doesn´t apply these "rules" as a whole, but have been developing a multitude of so-called "house-rules". (Well, each to his own ...

)

well, yes, and that is silly (imho). and furthermore, we did not agree to any "house-rules", and i don't see any authority who could do that. you have to stick to one single rule set (you were fancying consistency earlier, it does not stop at choosing one translation for "passenger wagon"), and unless anything different gets specified that everyone can agree on, this ruleset defaults to the new spelling.

Quote:

Apart from that, the orthography on the language file doesn´t conform to those "rules" either.

that's what we are trying to change here

michael blunck · **Joined:** Wed Apr 27, 2005 7:09 am **Posts:** 4394

Eddi wrote:

we did not agree to any "house-rules"

That's what we are trying to change here. :wink:

regards
Michael

Roujin · **Joined:** Sun Apr 08, 2007 4:07 am **Posts:** 1884

michael blunck wrote:

Roujin wrote:

Back in the middle ages, they had no such guidelines and everyone (well, those who actually could write) wrote just like they wanted. It _worked_, and even today you can more or less understand the texts they wrote back then, but it certainly wasn't very nice

Well, what are you on about here? IMO, it´s totally unrelated because even before the "new orthography", there were rules/guidelines. German readers/writers were not like people "in the middle ages", without the benefits of that reform.

[...]

It is related - young people don't learn the old spelling rules in school, and old people refuse to learn the new spelling rules. So, we have two groups of people following a different guideline of writing each, which is - for communication between members of each group - as good as having no guideline at all, like in the middle-ages.

Well, it's not that bad, because the spelling hasn't radically changed, only in some cases, but still - where the two spelling guidelines differ, we're basically back to the middle ages.

So you don't think it will eventually change in the society? Then it means that all the young people graduating from school will be handicapped and have to relearn how to write "properly" :rolleyes:

. Imagine that - a young guy that just graduated writes a letter of application to a company, and is rejected because they say his spelling is bad, even though he spelled everything just like they taught him in school. Just thinking about this makes me sick! :evil:

Eddi · **Joined:** Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:14 am **Posts:** 4573

michael blunck wrote:

Eddi wrote:

we did not agree to any "house-rules"

That's what we are trying to change here. :wink:

regards
Michael

no, we're actually not

sulai · **Joined:** Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:23 pm **Posts:** 157

Roujin wrote:

Quote:

PBS

what about calling them "Pfadsignal"? (path signal)
That would still be true to its meaning, and also easy to get the connection from "pfad" to "path" as it's an easy translation, compared to translating "Fahrstra[sz]e".

OK, what should we take then:
"Pfadsignal" <- I like it most
"Fahrstraßensignal" <- I still like it
"erweitertes Signal" <- that's what it is now
"PBS-Signal"

Eddi wrote:

michael blunck wrote:

Eddi wrote:

we did not agree to any "house-rules"

That's what we are trying to change here. :wink:

regards
Michael

no, we're actually not

Hm, we actually are.

I would like to propose the first house rule:

"Don't use tripple letters like in "Vollladen". Use "Volladen" instead."

Let's vote on that one.

I think Eddi and dih like "Vollladen" and michael and me like "Volladen". Are there any other voices?

planetmaker · **Posted:** Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:26 am

sulai wrote:

"Don't use tripple letters like in "Vollladen". Use "Volladen" instead."

Which as a general rule never has been good German. "Sauerstoffflasche" never has been written with two "f" alone in the last decades.

Besides that it's good practise to go by what people get taught in school, especially as it's a game which targets (also) children. Don't let their grades in German classes suffer because we were taught differently and trying to make some dubious point about "no need to follow rules".

dihedral · **Joined:** Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:48 pm **Posts:** 1048

ok - this is ther german lang file we are talking about
currently we have a new spelling for this language (and we are already past the 'transition' time)

for proper translation, we should go with that, and as long as i am a translator i will make sure i change strings to suit that new spelling

granted - i myself use ae oe ue and ss, just because i am lazy and have a en keyboard and have gotten used to that.

however, for any official writing / translation one should stick to the rules of the language: these now are the new spelling too.

vollladen is how it is written, volladen is how it used to be written, vollladen is what i will make out of any volladen i will find in the translations.

follow the rules of the language, and not the rules we come up with here!

Auge · **Posted:** Thu Sep 11, 2008 1:05 pm

Hello

I think we should follow the new orthograpy, even I don't like it too[1]. These are the "official" rules and new young players had learned these rules (or learn them actually). Maybe it is possible to avoid the tripple letters ("volladen" to "voll beladen") maybe not (if the result is to long). Especially most of the menu textes are short terms and the new orthography effects them not very often[2]. So this is IMHO not a big problem.

<ironie style="smart">Maybe we can have different german language files in the future. So I can have my "Straßenbahn" and the allemanic people and those from the adjacent areas can have their "Tram". Additional language files for saxonian, bavarian, Platt and so on. :-)

</ironie>

Also I don't think we were going back to middle ages (like Roujin said (with smileys)) with the different orthograpy. We had a few new orthographies[3] since 1902[4] and there was never a fall back into middle age. My grandfather writes a different way than (or "to"?) me and the son of my girlfriend too, but also different from my grandfather. But for all that no Middle Ages in sight. ;-)

[1] 40 years of age, learned the "old" orthography and the new looks weird at some points. ;-)

[2] I think the only exception will be the tripple letters, not the out thinned interpunction rules nor the partially cancelled "Getrennt/Zusammenschreibungen" (didn't find a matching term).
[3] 1902, 1942, end of the nineteensixties
[4] Wich was the first official ruleset.

Tschö, Auge

sulai · **Joined:** Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:23 pm **Posts:** 157

Yes, I think the new orthography is not the worst thing that can happen. Vollladen does fit on the button, and it's correct spelling, so I think its okay there.

There are still two open issues:

- "Pfadsignal" or "Fahrstraßensignal" instead of "erweitertes Signal"?
- For the difficulty settings: "Angepasst" instead of "Benutzerdefiniert" (which is too long)?

Please post your comments

planetmaker · **Posted:** Thu Sep 11, 2008 5:59 pm

sulai wrote:

- "Pfadsignal" or "Fahrstraßensignal" instead of "erweitertes Signal"?

I'm a fan of "Pfadsignal" as that in my eyes best describes the usage. "erweitertes Signal" is IMO plainly rubbish - it bears no descriptive information whatsoever.

Eddi · **Joined:** Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:14 am **Posts:** 4573

i dislike "Pfadsignal"... i'm just not really sure why... it doesn't sound right...

sulai · **Joined:** Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:23 pm **Posts:** 157

Eddi wrote:

i dislike "Pfadsignal"... i'm just not really sure why... it doesn't sound right...

What do you suggest, then?

BTW, #openttdcoop calls it "path signals".

http://www.openttdcoop.org/blog/2008/08 ... /#more-443

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