Fwd: Translation...

[Christopher Lam]

Forwarding to devel who will have more idea about the specifics of
translating. I'm not a core developer.

The gnucash UI already has French UI -- see
https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.6/C/gnucash-help/chang-lang.html about
switching language. The french term being used is 'transaction répartie'.

https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Translation will explain how to contribute to
translations, especially the tutorial and concepts guide.

Your help is very welcome!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thomas Mann <tmann at gmx.fr>
Date: 10 November 2017 at 22:22
Subject: Re: Translation...
To: Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com>


Dear Christopher,

I would be happy to help. How could I do that ?

I had a look to the .po file, last night. I felt like making lots of
changes. But, what about people who get used of the current translation? It
looks important to me not to disturb those who feel comfortable (because
used to) entering their daily transactions.

Creating and using my own translation to feel more secure with these
strange accounting rules is possible. But it looks a bit weird.

I have an extra problem with the translation of "GnuCash Tutorial and
Concepts Guide". I am intending to complete it to part II included (the
draft translation is achieved to chapter 7). The vocabulary is very
important. I think the concepts are complicated enough to deserve easy to
read translation. Unfortunately, some concepts are not common to the
languages.

For example, I look in dictionaries, accounting books for a translation of
the word "split". It seems that French-speaking accountants did not feel a
need for that very word. I'm not sure it is a good idea for some software
to introduce a foreign word that would rarely be used elsewhere. The word
"split" can be avoided by distributing its meaning, on the one hand "spread
transaction" and, on the other hand "transaction line".  This introduces
major differences in the text that I don't want to impair.

These difficulties, which are the reason I decided to begin translating,
have been troubled when starting to perform the exercises to include
"translated" screen shots.

So the manual translation must rely on 1) the source English text, 2)
accounting vocabulary, 3) software translation. For now, this is a very
unstable situation.

As I said at the top of this message, "I would be happy to help". But, I
don't want to be a load for GnuCash Project, a troublemaker for current
users...

I'm interested in your opinion.

Regards,

Le 10/11/2017 à 12:16, Christopher Lam a écrit :

Hi Thomas


>    Two major problems:
>      * The accounting vocabulary has been mixed up and add difficulties to
>        the simple work of understanding accounting concepts. An example:
>        the name given to the registers is, in fact, the name accountants
>        give to the main book that sums up all the transactions of all
>        accounts. Another example, the word "Transaction" is not used in
>        this context, and have a different meaning (transaction is more
>        like a "deal"). Examples are numerous. It is so confusing that I
>        thought it could be useful to create my own .po file and recompile
>        the whole thing.
>

It will be useful to have a native speaker explain concepts and use correct
words. Thank you for your contribution!


>
>      * But another problem appears : some columns have been inverted. For
>        example,asset account register columns have weird title AND are
>        reversed. So, it is difficult to understand the titles and the user
>        cannot rely on "Debit" on left and "Credit" on right. How is that
>        possible?
>
>
Are you relating to the register for a bank account? The register
debit/credit, for most individuals, is confusing, and does not match the
bank statement which presents the bank's (well, duh) statement of your
account, rather than your own statement. The following explains it all:

http://www.finweb.com/banking-credit/debit-reversed-in-
banking-accounting.html#axzz4y1epdNbF
https://www.accountingcoach.com/debits-and-credits/explanation
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/debit

In formal accounting, for an asset account such as bank, debits will
*increase* it. But the usual bank statement received by the account holder
will state the opposite. Hence, to the layterm, to "debit an account"
usually means to try to empty it.

HTH