[Gretl-users] Re: a (not so short) reflexion on gretl translations
Am 11.11.2020 um 10:45 schrieb Artur Bala:
Dear gretl developers/translators/users
Here’s my thought : should we expect from gretl translations that the
estimation models description/label – at least in the main Menu – be
consistent across translations? Let me take as example the basic entry
from the Model menu and address this “aesthetic concern” of homogeneousness:
English: Ordinary Least Squares
Italian: Minimi quadrati ordinary --same as original but in
lowercase
German: Kleinste Quadrate (OLS) --(almost?) same as original
but English acronym added
...
I think that a homogeneous presentation would render gretl amore
“professional” look but once again, this is a very personal point of view.
Hm, not sure I understand the point. Typically people do not compare or
notice the presentation across languages, I'd say. In terms of
"professionalism", let's not forget that other software is English-only.
Is there actually any other statistics software that is translated?
But I completely see the difficulties that you mention. As the German
translator I was always torn between keeping English terms or acronyms
and translating more things to German. In the example above the term
"OLS" is so common in German that I thought it had to be added to be
clear.
Always from a personal standpoint, for the French translation that
I’m
in charge of, I always add a localized acronym if the method is well
documented in the literature and widely used in teaching; otherwise, I
keep the English acronym instead. For example, VECM estimation is
translated in the french literature (Modèle à Correction d’Erreur) but
the original “VECM” acronym is used instead. In such a case I avoid to
suggest the translated acronym “MCE” because not only literally no one
would relate it to “VECM” but it would also be confusing as “MC...”
generally stands for “Least Squares...” methods in French acronyms.
Besides, other acronyms that were not so common a couple of years ago
like MVIL (for LIML) are now increasingly used and would easily enter gretl.
I fully agree. And in that sense I think every translator may come to a
different conclusion in a particular case. That would not suggest a
harmonization I think.
thanks
sven