Should we translate Computer Science terms? Share your opinions :)

Rumanti

I am a translator for Indonesian, and I came upon a lot of Computer Science terms, like “Mod(ulo)”, “Boolean”, etc. And I choose not to translate them. I choose the preserve them as-is (with a few exceptions, done after some research), as I think that they are universal, like our own names, and can not be translated, without creating new words for extra confusion. I learned a little about Computer Science just from the simple terms Scratch choose to preserve, and to use- And I hope the others will experience the same.

But Indonesian uses only Latin characters, just like English. It can not be compared to others who uses completely different characters and/or system. I would love to hear from other translators as well!

Do you translate these terms or not? Why?
If you translate them, how? Do you use a word who has a similar meaning, or do you …? Why?
What do you consider?
What do you wish to achieve from your translations? (e.g. to educate people more about computer science)

Thanks

PullJosh

I'm no translator, but I'm pretty sure that just about everyone who writes code also speaks english (not always good english, but some english, anyway). For example, you never see an entire programming language translated into another language (ex. Chinese Javascript), so people who want to code will need to know a few basic english terms anyway.

That is, of course, coming from someone who only speaks english.
And a little spanish. Very little.

TheHockeyist

I'm also no translator, but I agree with PullJosh.

Since Russian has a different alphabet, I'm dead meat. I check the dictionary always.

Rumanti

TheHockeyist wrote:
Since Russian has a different alphabet, I'm dead meat.

*evil chuckles* Russian exists- one of the reasons I made this post. I checked out the Russian Scratch Wiki occasionally and got amazed at how they could translate things..

GunChleoc

I look at each term individually to decide what to do with it. The main question is - if you create a new term, will your readers understand it? So, we create new terms sometimes, sometimes we leave them, and sometimes we just unleash our own grammar/spelling on it. For example, we use “Booleach” for “Boolean” - George Boole was a person, so we add our grammar to the name, just like English does. If your languages doesn't like this at all, you could also go for a word meaning “logical” instead.

Rumanti

GunChleoc wrote:
I look at each term individually to decide what to do with it. The main question is - if you create a new term, will your readers understand it? So, we create new terms sometimes, sometimes we leave them, and sometimes we just unleash our own grammar/spelling on it. For example, we use “Booleach” for “Boolean” - George Boole was a person, so we add our grammar to the name, just like English does. If your languages doesn't like this at all, you could also go for a word meaning “logical” instead.

Sounds good. Thanks for the “tip”. :-)

Vetpetmon

No, this would confuse the readers AND the program. I took apart a Japanese game to find out that it was written in English, but used Japanese letters for the text in the game.

This means that pixel knows English but he doesn't speak it much

gtoal

Rumanti wrote:
I am a translator for Indonesian, and I came upon a lot of Computer Science terms, like “Mod(ulo)”, “Boolean”, etc. And I choose not to translate them. I choose the preserve them as-is (with a few exceptions, done after some research), as I think that they are universal, like our own names, and can not be translated, without creating new words for extra confusion. I learned a little about Computer Science just from the simple terms Scratch choose to preserve, and to use- And I hope the others will experience the same.

But Indonesian uses only Latin characters, just like English. It can not be compared to others who uses completely different characters and/or system. I would love to hear from other translators as well!

Do you translate these terms or not? Why?
If you translate them, how? Do you use a word who has a similar meaning, or do you …? Why?
What do you consider?
What do you wish to achieve from your translations? (e.g. to educate people more about computer science)

Thanks

I used to translate technical papers from French into English. In France they're somewhat Chauvinistic about language and avoid English loan words, so papers would be peppered with expressions like “retour chariot” which were literal translations of the English words rather than something semantically equivalent.

Anyway, the choice of whether to leave, translate to native idiom, or just transliterate the words depends on the convention of the target language/country. If you are translating to English I would recommend using the proper technical term in English. Just be cognizant of whether you're writing for a US or UK or Canadian audience. (For Australia, NZ, and India you can treat those as effectively the same as UK)

With a good translation it should not be obvious you are reading a translation.

G

Jonathan50

Vetpetmon wrote:
No, this would confuse the readers AND the program. I took apart a Japanese game to find out that it was written in English, but used Japanese letters for the text in the game.

This means that pixel knows English but he doesn't speak it much

Pretty much all international programs are written in English, and most programming languages use English for primitives and built-ins and statements etc.
Non-English programmers usually write in English even if they're not good at writing/speaking it.
This wouldn't confuse people in any way.
Scratch projects written in another language always have their source displayed in the language of the person seeing inside. A project is never set to a language.
What do you mean ‘the program’? What program are you talking about?

Catgirl555

We should, because some people may not know what booleans and mods are.

GunChleoc

You could also ask your computing science and language teachers if there is a term available in your language. If the don't know themselves, they could help you with the research, e.g. help you find a textbook in your language that is using the terms - even if it's a university textbook that you don't understand yet, you can still hunt for words in it.

technoguyx

While one definitely sees international programs written in English (as most programming languages use English words only); it is necessary to consider that Scratch is a tool used to teach people all around the world basic programming concepts. Therefore, it is safe to assume that many of them are NOT familiar with English terms whatsoever.

If your language has equivalents for such mathematical expressions, do translate those strings. If I recall, the Spanish translation does change those strings to “módulo” and “booleano” or “booleana”.

Jonathan50

Modulo is more Math-y than CS-y, in my opinion.

GunChleoc

Yes, modulo is a math function.

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