Translation Report Dutch team - Weeks 1 and 2 - Utopian/DaVinci
It's been 14 days since the new translation teams formed and people either formed new teams or added to existing teams.
In the case of the Dutch translation team, we had 4 new additions to the team which made it a full team of 5 translators and one LM.
The object of this post is to tell you a little bit about our Dutch translation team and the work we've been doing so far. I am planning to make an update bi-weekly.
The Team
Since the 2nd of September we have a full Dutch translation team for the DaVinci/Utopian translation project.
The team consists of:
LM (language moderator) @misslasvegas
Translator @minersean has been translating for utopian projects for some time and was our first translator since the 'break' for translations.
Translator @altrosa joined our team in the last application round and has since been working like a horse! You may also know her as @soyrosa
Translator @anouk.nox joined the team in the last round and will possibly translate the less technical projects in the beginning, but I am sure she will be full on once she gets going (if her daughter lets her :)
Translator @dragonsandsnakes joined in the last application round and is still figuring things out. I have no doubts of her abilities, so I am looking forward to see her first work!
Translator @tokentattoo joined in the last application round as well and also still figuring things out.
The Work
Not long after we all came together on our Dutch translators DaVinci discord channel, @minersean took the initiative to draw up a document to walk newcomers through all the different phases. He made it in a way that it was easy to understand. It's quite a bit of reading and searching when you first start out. He made this easier.
That's what I call team work! My thanks goes out to @minersean for making it easier on the newcomers and me as well.
Tranlations to date:
@minersean used to work on the Steem Whitepaper, but with mutual agreement, our new translator @altrosa now works on the remaining part of that translation.
She finished her first translation on September 4th and has been consistently adding new translations to the Steem Whitepaper. It won't be long till that's finished 100%.
@minersean has decided to keep working on the translation for Byteball and we're starting to see an end to this project as well.
The translated parts are as follows:
Steem Whitepaper:
September 4th 2018
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@altrosa/translating-the-steem-whitepaper-or-english-dutch (1100 words)
September 6th 2018
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@altrosa/translating-the-steem-whitepaper-or-english-dutch-or-2 (1100 words)
September 7th 2018
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@altrosa/translating-the-steem-whitepaper-or-english-dutch-or-3 (1000 words)
September 10th 2018
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@altrosa/translating-the-steem-whitepaper-or-english-dutch-or-4 (1015 words)
September 12th 2018
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@altrosa/translating-the-steem-whitepaper-or-english-dutch-or-5 (1015 words)
Crowdin link for the project: https://crowdin.com/project/steem-whitepaper/nl#
In total @altrosa translated 5230 words in these two weeks. Quite impressive!
Byteball:
September 5th 2018
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@minersean/byeball-username-attestation-bot-translation-to-nl-dutch-478-words
@minersean is a busy man. He is still in college and has other priorities of course. However, I appreciate all the work he does in spite of his full schedule. Byteball is his baby and he takes great pride in the translation of this project.
The other three translators haven't translated anything yet, but will surely find their project soon, with some guidance on my part.
Issues
Luckily, there aren't many. Dutch can be a difficult language to translate into and we have seen this especially in the Steem Whitepaper. There are times when you can't just translate the text literally and it is the translators job to play with words, find the right ones and still keep the meaning of the original text in order. This is not always easy, but was managed well. We have also found that there are a few words in the Steem Whitepaper that shouldn't be translated at all, but kept in the original language (English). After some deliberations we came to the conclusion that this is, in fact, the best way to go. These words are all easily understood by a Dutch person.
Conclusion
After working with @minersean and @altrosa for a while, I've come to the conclusion that they are both very capable translators. @minersean knows his tech terms and this is absolutely his strength. Technical texts can sometimes involve a lot of research and can therefore take longer.
@altrosa is getting well accustomed to the material and is finding the right Dutch words, even for complicated sentences. Dutch isn't the easiest language to translate into, so this is quite impressive and it takes a lot of work off my shoulders as I don't have to rewrite anything.
Both translators are very proficient in the Dutch language and I will never find any mistakes in regards to grammar or spelling. I'm happy to have them on my team and I'm looking forward to see more of their work. I know that once the others have started as well, the team will keep me quite busy. Just the way I like it!
This is a good update, and I am glad to see that you'll be doing it bi-weekly going forward. It's great to get this view of the category as it progresses.
The post presented a fair bit of information. I do question your formatting decision to center the text. Looking at your blog, I see that is a thing you regularly do, and not a one-time thing. To me, that makes the text harder to read. Partially, that's an issue of habit. I'm used to text that is aligned to the left in English texts, and to the right in Hebrew. I think that's true for most people, though.
There were also minor issues of style and grammar, though the post was well written overall.
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Thank you @didic for your honest review. I truly appreciate it. You could be right about the formatting. I usually write different kinds of posts and usually like this format the best for what I present. It's purely personal really. But I thank you for mentioning it to me, I might even do a poll now to ask about how people like the format LOL. But in a post writing an update and/or review, it probably does look much better to have text on the left. Maybe, unconsciously it is my way of rebelling against the system that made me align my texts to the left for so long, growing up in Germany and the Netherlands, HA! I may be onto something there.
This was my first, I hope to improve on the updates in time.
As for the minor issues of style and grammar, could you let me know where I went wrong? If you don't have the time, then don't worry. I understand you must be extremely busy :)
See? I didn't align to the left here :) I'm tryin'..I'm tryin'😉
Either way: I thank you for the honesty and kind words. 'Well written' is a great compliment.
I'm always happy to provide examples! I've been told that some people get upset by them, so I've been a lot more skimpy with them of late. But since you asked:
"It's been 14 days since the new translation teams formed and people either formed new teams or added to existing teams." That's a loooong sentence. It could be broken in two. At the very least, there should be a comma before "and."
"The object of this post is to tell you a little bit about our Dutch translation team and the work we've been doing so far." Once again, a comma before "and" would have helped. Also, once you've written "the work we've been doing," the addition of "so far" is redundant.
"Since the 2nd of September we have..." Once you use "since," you can't use the present simple of "we have." It should have been "we have had."
These are some examples of the types of errors that appear in the post.
You're absolutely right. The non-use of comma's stems from the Dutch language. We rarely use a comma before 'and' unless it's a REALLY long sentence. But I will be more mindful of that in the future. I know I can write very long sentences...LOL. Thank you, I won't get offended by examples or criticism. I won't be able to change it if no one tells me :) When I worked as a translator, for years I translated into English as well as into Dutch (from German and English) and no one has ever told me to use more comma's (or shorter sentences) so I really appreciate this! Thank you!
If "and" is used to connect two parts of the sentence, you need the comma. Really, the only time you don't put a comma before "and" is if you're listing two things. "Jack and the beanstalk" doesn't need a comma. "I don't like Jack, and I don't like the beanstalk" does.
Yeah, these are things that I know and learned. However somewhere down the line I let it slip. Then, when no one ever mentions it, it will stay with you until someone does.
Thank you for your review, @didic!
So far this week you've reviewed 26 contributions. Keep up the good work!
Wow, @altrosa has done some impressive work the past few weeks! And thank you @minersean for the work you put in the document to help us get started.
Unfortunately, last week when I intended to start translating, first my daughter got ill and then me. Now we both have a pretty bad cough, so I guess we will be not doing too much for the next couple of days either.
I am still very happy to get selected, and I will hopefully get started soon.
Thanks for understanding @misslasvegas :)
That's OK. We'll just have to get some fire under your butt once you feel better LOL. 😉
Get well soon!