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> People may prefer the English experience because they expect the translated version to be inferior As an Italian, I can relate so much to this, because trans

> People may prefer the English experience because they expect the translated version to be inferior As an Italian, I can relate so much to this, because translated apps will happily treat verbs as adjectives and vice versa. A couple example: * Flixbus' app translates "Open ticket" to "Biglietto aperto" (treating "open" as an adjective, not as an imperative verb). Correct translation should be "Apri biglietto". Nothing bad, just unnecessarily confusing (what is an "open ticket"? As opposed to a "closed" one?) * EasyJet's app does the reverse and makes it much worse. The English version likely says something like "Gate close: xx:xx (am|pm)". They mis-translated this as "Gate chiuso: xx:xx", which actually means "Gate has closed", even though the gate is still open. So you get a small heart attack, notice the actual closing time, curse the translators, and go on with your life.

TrueGeek 5y ago
This is surprising. You really think someone as big as EasyJet would get that right. We're doing a translation now into Japanese and the translator is actually taking the time to look at screenshots and use the app to see the text in context. It makes a huge difference. As you've pointed out, it's one thing to see the string "open" in a XLF file, it's quite another to realize it's intent. This requires setting up demo environments for each translator though.
- kalium-xyz 5y ago
  The secret is that you cant verbatim translate into Japanese as well, which forces more attention (also its a bigger economy)
- Pinus 5y ago
  Heck, Microsoft got it wrong — Swedish versions of Windows used to have a folder called "Vanliga filer" (Ordinary files). This was, of course, the "Common files" folder, but the translator, probably having no context, picked the wrong meaning of "common", and chose a Swedish word which does not have the "shared" meaning.
  - Lex-2008 5y ago
    Another data point: When Windows 10 just came out, many of apps in start menu had a label next to them, which in Russian version said "Создать" (~Create). It took me some time to figure out that it's a poor translation of "New" (~Recently added). Proper Russian translation would be "Новое".
  - r00fus 5y ago
    The problem isn't the translation, per-se, it's that translation isn't tested (or tested thoroughly enough). Amazing Microsoft can sell a whole other version of Windows and mess something like that up. Everything that impacts the user experience needs to be tested.
  - el-salvador 5y ago
    In El Salvador (our TLD is "sv") we sometimes get apps or websites in Swedish because "sv" is used as a language abbreviation for Svenska/Swedish. Spotify was like that for months when it launched here.
- seszett 5y ago
  > You really think someone as big as EasyJet would get that right. Well even Apple has a wrong translation on the iOS keyboard in French. The "Return" key is translated as "Retour" (generally meaning "Back" rather than "Carriage return") instead of "Entrée". It might have changed in the last years though, I don't know.
  - zapzupnz 5y ago
    That’s not a mistake. The English term ‘Return’ refers to a carriage return (on a typewriter, it means to move the carriage back when you’ve reached the edge of the paper). The French translation of “carriage return” is “retour chariot”, hence the ‘Retour’ key on French keyboards. In Apple terminology, the Enter key is a completely separate key on the number pad with a different function and has no equivalent on iOS’ on-screen keyboard. Therefore, the ‘Retour’ translation is appropriate for Apple’s software ecosystem.
    - seszett 5y ago
      > hence the ‘Retour’ key on French keyboards. But as far as I know there has never been a key called "Retour" on French keyboards. Both Return and Enter are called "Entrée" in French by everyone I know, maybe because Apple's keyboards don't have any text on them, while PC keyboards do have "Entrée" written at this location[0]. Retour is only ever used to mean "Back", and Back is also translated as "Retour" on iOS. Which means in some cases (like in the Mail app) you have two different "Retour" buttons, one that inserts a newline while the other one cancels what you're doing. I'm certainly not the only person to have a problem with it because I'm the one having to explain why the keyboard says "retour" to iPhone users, even though I mostly use Android phones. [0]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/KB_France.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/KB_Franc...
      - zapzupnz 5y ago
        > Both Return and Enter are called "Entrée" in French by everyone I know Most likely because everyone you know has learnt learnt that PCs. On PCs, they're the same button. In Apple's ecosystem, they're completely different buttons that do entirely different things. > But as far as I know there has never been a key called "Retour" on French keyboards On Apple keyboards, it has always been referred to in the operating system and documentation as the "touche Retour". Though you're right, there isn't a symbol on the keyboard in Europe in order to sell the same model for the whole region. > Back is also translated as "Retour" on iOS. Which means in some cases (like in the Mail app) you have two different "Retour" buttons, one that inserts a newline while the other one cancels what you're doing. The latter is actually a UI error in most cases. Apple's HIG demands that "< Back" buttons actually have a label to say what you're going back to. But yeah, they have a hard time following their own advice. > I'm the one having to explain why the keyboard says "retour" to iPhone users Now you can explain: it's just Apple terminology dating back to the 1980s. :-)
travisjungroth 5y ago
I think the issue is many translation databases just hold the English text and then all the translations. So the entry is “Open ticket” and then you just drop in the translation anywhere that phrase shows up. But sometimes “open” is a verb, sometimes a noun. The actual identifier should be something like “Open a ticket (imperative, button)” and then that phrase has translations, including the English “Open ticket”.
- shoulderchipper 5y ago
  >The actual identifier should be something like “Open a ticket (imperative, button)” Or even better: "ui.ticket.actions.open" — trying to shoehorn linguistic categories into translation files is a painful experience, but dumb specific IDs work great and make untranslated captions apparent.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    Or even Create Ticket. From the description, it seems a ticket is being created not opened, despite the slang that people incorrectly use for buttons.
    - kemitche 5y ago
      If a ticket is closed upon completion, it stands to reason that creating a ticket is "opening" it.
      - IncRnd 5y ago
        > If a ticket is closed upon completion, it stands to reason that creating a ticket is "opening" it. That's faulty reasoning. At the inception of a ticket, it is first created and then opened. It is common to have these programmed to work as a single button push, but they are two actions, and creation always happens first, even when the ticket is not opened. Later, when the ticket is completed, it gets closed. When you go into your house, an opening must first be created, either a doorway or some other hole in the wall like a window. Then, after the hole is created, you can enter the house.
lksaar 5y ago
I have a similar experience as a german on the internet. Aliexpress (straight up wrong translations), Discord (anglicism, adjective ordering and weird sentence/tone structures) and plenty of others I don't remember, the list is pretty long. Size doesn't really seem play an effect aswell. Another big issue are potential bugs you encounter. If you just get a translated error message without any error number or something similar it's a very frustrating experience to troubleshoot it. I've spend quite some time retranslating error messages to solve issues. Add to it that often knowledge bases are outdated in the translated languages.
- andruby 5y ago
  Aliexpress in Dutch is lovely! Plenty of items on Aliexpress can be shipped from multiple locations. "China" is almost always one of the options. Well, in Dutch they've translated that to "Porselein". That is a valid translation, if you are talking about plates and dishes made from porcelain) I wonder how actively harmful this bad translation is to their business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_(material) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_(material) screenshot: https://fransdejonge.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screenshot_2019-11-07-porselein-fs8.png https://fransdejonge.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screensh...
  - seszett 5y ago
    Weird, I sometimes get the French translation of AliExpress (when my cookie expires I suppose) and I haven't noticed "China" being translated as Porcelaine in French. I wonder why it's different. Also now I wonder why I get the French version, since I live in Flanders (although I'm a French speaker). AliExpress translations are totally incomprehensible though anyway. I really don't think they should show the translated versions by default. (By the way, your second link doesn't respond for me)
  - d1sxeyes 5y ago
    "Ships from" though is perfect Dutch.
- chrismorgan 5y ago
  > Size doesn't really seem play an effect aswell. This holds true in all areas of software development—nay, in business in general. To the point where I’m not really sure why people do expect large players to do a good job, because they just about never do. Large organisations are very close to incapable of producing good results—their software will be clunky and slow, their translations present but bad, their customer support painful. Small organisations are more likely to be able to produce good results. Notwithstanding this, small enterprises are often unable to match large for certain resource availability (including time!), which acts as a balancing factor so that small is not often uniformly superior to large, though it’s much more likely to be superior in a certain subset of fields; and this is the case with i18n/l10n. I think this actually stands to very simple reason when examined numerically: have enough mass and you’ll produce average results (regression to the mean); be small and you’re more likely to deviate from the mean, whether for good or for bad, and if for bad you’re more likely to fail, so you’ll tend to end up with more above-average small players.
alex_young 5y ago
“Open ticket” doesn’t even really make sense in English. Maybe “Buy ticket” or “View ticket” or similar would make sense there. Flux bus is German, I suspect the translation was from German and not English in this case?
- yarcob 5y ago
  In German adjectives and verbs are easily distinguishable without context. The verb "open" would be "öffne" and the adjective "open" would be "geöffnet". So it's unlikely this mistake would happen if you translate from German to Italian. It's common to talk about "opening" files to view them, so I assume that's why the developer chose that term, even tough "view" would have been better.
  - jan_Inkepa 5y ago
    Don't German UI conventions follow the convention of using infinitive verbs for commands normally? ('öffnen' instead of 'öffne'?) [the only exception I know is the adjective "rückgängig" for "undo" ] Though even there your point still stands - they can be easily distinguished from the perfect form ('opened' (geöffnet) vs 'to open' (öffnen) ). So I guess I'm nit-picking a bit.
    - manuel_w 5y ago
      Native german speaker here. Have no clue about UI conventions nor grammar, but I'd expect either "Öffne Ticket" or "Ticket öffnen". "Öffnen Ticket" is wrong, just as "Ticket öffne". I suppose the Flixbus app was made by native German speakers coding in English language. That would explain why they chose "open ticket" rather than "view ticket" or similar. As some of the parent posts said, you also "open files" here, so they probably just did what they assumed is right. Denglish (Deutsch-Englisch) is full of this. Happened to me as well; for most of my life I used "eventually" incorrect, thinking it means "maybe". * German "eventuell" = English "maybe" * German "schlussendlich" = Englisch "eventually", "at last"
      - 5y ago
OneTimePetes 5y ago
I wish the users could edit the text and then the app would take over a text the users agreed upon in majority. It cant be that hard.
- translator6546 5y ago
  Facebook did that early on, no idea if they still do. As a professional software localizer, I was not amused by the resulting translations.
  - OneTimePetes 5y ago
    I don't see why as a local user i cant override a crappy translation at least for my account.
- jonas21 5y ago
  Sounds like a good way to end up with all the strings in your app translating to "penis".
franky47 5y ago
My Italian teacher in college had the following saying: "Traduttore, traditore": the translator is a traitor.
- addaon 5y ago
  Thank you for providing a translation of that. Traitor.
fabian2k 5y ago
I set my Android phone to English mostly to avoid badly translated apps. Not so much for the major ones, but you never know if you might get some really bad machine-translated stuff in some apps. As there isn't an easy way to set this per app, it makes more sense to me to just switch the phone entirely to English.
- sdiq 5y ago
  Sometimes this doesn't work like what happens on the desktop with Google, for example. English is my default language, and in country where English is also the official language but Google in its wisdom, decided that the default for google.com is Swahili. Yet, I don't know of anyone that uses Swahili as his default langauge on digital devices. Microsoft too. Every once in a while they would send me text messages in cryptic Swahili that I have never bothered to find out what it means.
- Delk 5y ago
  That's also one of the reasons why I don't use a localised version of a desktop OS. Especially on Linux, where everything follows the OS locale and the translations of many open source applications are either only half-done or leave a bit to be desired in terms of quality, the original English strings are just a better experience if you're proficient enough. I'm not saying this to bash open source translations (let alone translators) or anything. A good translation takes a lot of work. That's just how things seemed to be last time I tried, and I don't really have the energy to contribute myself nowadays. Of course there are other reasons for not using a localised desktop especially if you're a technical person, such as better web searchability in case of problems. But the inconsistent quality of translations is probably one of the top reasons for me.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    I wonder if there is just any point in doing translations for software unless you are fully committed to having full time I18n people testing the actual app in the language. At my past job it was basically a throw over the wall thing where we send them yml files and they send us back yml files without the translators ever touching the app. The translators also likely did not understand which words were key app terms which should stay constant. For example "benefit" is a key term which can not ever be substituted out with something like "improvement" even if it seems like it makes more sense in the particular string. But without knowing the app well, you wouldn't know this. Seems like it would be better just convincing everyone to use the English versions of everything since those are perfect and the majority of the world knows it now.
BurningFrog 5y ago
Hopefully it's better now, but back when I lived in Sweden, I had to routinely translate strange Swedish wording to English to figure out what arcane computer term the translator had misunderstood.
zelos 5y ago
Confusingly, "Open Ticket" is a valid term for a ticket with no fixed date it has to be used on.
jakub_g 5y ago
> So you get a small heart attack This is something overlooked by devs and PMs sitting comfortably in their chairs. People using apps in the modern world, especially mobile apps, are tired, stressed, busy, unfocused, and on the move. Small things like that added to the mix can induce a lot of stress. For many devs/PMs it's just a piece of text. For the user it's much more. The translations are somehow unappreciated part of the app dev by many people. I know several languages and I checked all new translations in our app each time but few people cared as much.
- dharmab 5y ago
  Tom Scott used an example of a phone system for results of an STI test to demonstrate this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZM9YdO_QKk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZM9YdO_QKk
Blikkentrekker 5y ago
I always use the English version of everything simply because error messages in Dutch or any amount of troubleshooting isn't going to helpful at all. In the Netherlands, almost anyone who has about any device he owns configured in Dutch is almost certainly technically illiterate. People keep everything English not even because the Dutch translation is inferior but because any online documentation one will find is based on the English version. This is so entrenched that any notes I even keep to myself on my computer are in English rather than my native language without even giving it any second thought. It is honestly somewhat strange and awkward to read technical documentation in Dutch. Many of the translated words they use take a moment for me to figure out since I never heard them in Dutch.
- el-salvador 5y ago
  Same here. Some IT departments even have a policy of setting up every server in English to make troubleshooting easier.
asveikau 5y ago
> translates "Open ticket" to "Biglietto aperto" I have a good example. I won't name names. I saw an Italian localization on a "like" count in social posts that localized "N people like this" as "N persone come questa" [N people like this one]
Joker_vD 5y ago
While most of modern European languages are heavily analytical, English language is pushing it straight into the isolating language territory. Morpological differences between nouns, adjectives, imperatives, infinitives? Who needs those? Just line the words in the correct order!
- agarsev 5y ago
  It is true that English is extremely analytical, but most european languages are fusional rather than analytical: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusional_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusional_language
missedthecue 5y ago
It's crazy to believe that EasyJet wouldn't pay an Italian guy for a few months to translate the buttons and commands and notifications in their application, considering Italy is a fairly large market for them.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
baxtr 5y ago
It’s really embarrassing that two large Europeans companies are unable to pay 20 € per hour for a mediocre translator, which you could find on upwork within minutes.
Galanwe 5y ago
French here, I do the same, French translation are unbearable. Not only will there be tons of small mistakes with nouns/verbs as you mentioned, but maybe worst, there is often "overtranslation". Some words are well established as technical jargon in English, and should _not_ be translated. - "cloud" -> "infonuagique" - "email" -> "courriel" - "freeware" -> "gatuiciel" ...
- franky47 5y ago
  While I agree that we (fellow Frenchman here) tend to overtranslate, some of our portmanteaus are kind of clever. My personal favourite is illectronisme, a combination of illettrisme (illiteracy) and électronique (electronic), to refer to people who are not good with computers.
  - zapzupnz 5y ago
    My favourite is autof = selfie. It’s auto-photo, but if you pronounce it, it’s photo said backwards — because you use the hold the camera backwards or use the front-facing camera.
kwhitefoot 5y ago
Open ticket is ambiguous in English anyway. It could mean the ticket to which this refers is of type open or click here to view the ticket. I have a different complaint than most others here and that is that most UIs require me to mentally translate from software developers English to real English. It's no surprise then that translating to a completely different language is difficult and error prone. Edit: mismatched asterisks.

TrueGeek 5y ago

This is surprising. You really think someone as big as EasyJet would get that right. We're doing a translation now into Japanese and the translator is actually taking the time to look at screenshots and use the app to see the text in context. It makes a huge difference. As you've pointed out, it's one thing to see the string "open" in a XLF file, it's quite another to realize it's intent. This requires setting up demo environments for each translator though.

kalium-xyz 5y ago
The secret is that you cant verbatim translate into Japanese as well, which forces more attention (also its a bigger economy)
Pinus 5y ago
Heck, Microsoft got it wrong — Swedish versions of Windows used to have a folder called "Vanliga filer" (Ordinary files). This was, of course, the "Common files" folder, but the translator, probably having no context, picked the wrong meaning of "common", and chose a Swedish word which does not have the "shared" meaning.
- Lex-2008 5y ago
  Another data point: When Windows 10 just came out, many of apps in start menu had a label next to them, which in Russian version said "Создать" (~Create). It took me some time to figure out that it's a poor translation of "New" (~Recently added). Proper Russian translation would be "Новое".
- r00fus 5y ago
  The problem isn't the translation, per-se, it's that translation isn't tested (or tested thoroughly enough). Amazing Microsoft can sell a whole other version of Windows and mess something like that up. Everything that impacts the user experience needs to be tested.
- el-salvador 5y ago
  In El Salvador (our TLD is "sv") we sometimes get apps or websites in Swedish because "sv" is used as a language abbreviation for Svenska/Swedish. Spotify was like that for months when it launched here.
seszett 5y ago
> You really think someone as big as EasyJet would get that right. Well even Apple has a wrong translation on the iOS keyboard in French. The "Return" key is translated as "Retour" (generally meaning "Back" rather than "Carriage return") instead of "Entrée". It might have changed in the last years though, I don't know.
- zapzupnz 5y ago
  That’s not a mistake. The English term ‘Return’ refers to a carriage return (on a typewriter, it means to move the carriage back when you’ve reached the edge of the paper). The French translation of “carriage return” is “retour chariot”, hence the ‘Retour’ key on French keyboards. In Apple terminology, the Enter key is a completely separate key on the number pad with a different function and has no equivalent on iOS’ on-screen keyboard. Therefore, the ‘Retour’ translation is appropriate for Apple’s software ecosystem.
  - seszett 5y ago
    > hence the ‘Retour’ key on French keyboards. But as far as I know there has never been a key called "Retour" on French keyboards. Both Return and Enter are called "Entrée" in French by everyone I know, maybe because Apple's keyboards don't have any text on them, while PC keyboards do have "Entrée" written at this location[0]. Retour is only ever used to mean "Back", and Back is also translated as "Retour" on iOS. Which means in some cases (like in the Mail app) you have two different "Retour" buttons, one that inserts a newline while the other one cancels what you're doing. I'm certainly not the only person to have a problem with it because I'm the one having to explain why the keyboard says "retour" to iPhone users, even though I mostly use Android phones. [0]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/KB_France.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/KB_Franc...
    - zapzupnz 5y ago
      > Both Return and Enter are called "Entrée" in French by everyone I know Most likely because everyone you know has learnt learnt that PCs. On PCs, they're the same button. In Apple's ecosystem, they're completely different buttons that do entirely different things. > But as far as I know there has never been a key called "Retour" on French keyboards On Apple keyboards, it has always been referred to in the operating system and documentation as the "touche Retour". Though you're right, there isn't a symbol on the keyboard in Europe in order to sell the same model for the whole region. > Back is also translated as "Retour" on iOS. Which means in some cases (like in the Mail app) you have two different "Retour" buttons, one that inserts a newline while the other one cancels what you're doing. The latter is actually a UI error in most cases. Apple's HIG demands that "< Back" buttons actually have a label to say what you're going back to. But yeah, they have a hard time following their own advice. > I'm the one having to explain why the keyboard says "retour" to iPhone users Now you can explain: it's just Apple terminology dating back to the 1980s. :-)

travisjungroth 5y ago

I think the issue is many translation databases just hold the English text and then all the translations. So the entry is “Open ticket” and then you just drop in the translation anywhere that phrase shows up. But sometimes “open” is a verb, sometimes a noun. The actual identifier should be something like “Open a ticket (imperative, button)” and then that phrase has translations, including the English “Open ticket”.

shoulderchipper 5y ago
>The actual identifier should be something like “Open a ticket (imperative, button)” Or even better: "ui.ticket.actions.open" — trying to shoehorn linguistic categories into translation files is a painful experience, but dumb specific IDs work great and make untranslated captions apparent.
- IncRnd 5y ago
  Or even Create Ticket. From the description, it seems a ticket is being created not opened, despite the slang that people incorrectly use for buttons.
  - kemitche 5y ago
    If a ticket is closed upon completion, it stands to reason that creating a ticket is "opening" it.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      > If a ticket is closed upon completion, it stands to reason that creating a ticket is "opening" it. That's faulty reasoning. At the inception of a ticket, it is first created and then opened. It is common to have these programmed to work as a single button push, but they are two actions, and creation always happens first, even when the ticket is not opened. Later, when the ticket is completed, it gets closed. When you go into your house, an opening must first be created, either a doorway or some other hole in the wall like a window. Then, after the hole is created, you can enter the house.

lksaar 5y ago

I have a similar experience as a german on the internet. Aliexpress (straight up wrong translations), Discord (anglicism, adjective ordering and weird sentence/tone structures) and plenty of others I don't remember, the list is pretty long. Size doesn't really seem play an effect aswell. Another big issue are potential bugs you encounter. If you just get a translated error message without any error number or something similar it's a very frustrating experience to troubleshoot it. I've spend quite some time retranslating error messages to solve issues. Add to it that often knowledge bases are outdated in the translated languages.

andruby 5y ago
Aliexpress in Dutch is lovely! Plenty of items on Aliexpress can be shipped from multiple locations. "China" is almost always one of the options. Well, in Dutch they've translated that to "Porselein". That is a valid translation, if you are talking about plates and dishes made from porcelain) I wonder how actively harmful this bad translation is to their business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_(material) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_(material) screenshot: https://fransdejonge.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screenshot_2019-11-07-porselein-fs8.png https://fransdejonge.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screensh...
- seszett 5y ago
  Weird, I sometimes get the French translation of AliExpress (when my cookie expires I suppose) and I haven't noticed "China" being translated as Porcelaine in French. I wonder why it's different. Also now I wonder why I get the French version, since I live in Flanders (although I'm a French speaker). AliExpress translations are totally incomprehensible though anyway. I really don't think they should show the translated versions by default. (By the way, your second link doesn't respond for me)
- d1sxeyes 5y ago
  "Ships from" though is perfect Dutch.
chrismorgan 5y ago
> Size doesn't really seem play an effect aswell. This holds true in all areas of software development—nay, in business in general. To the point where I’m not really sure why people do expect large players to do a good job, because they just about never do. Large organisations are very close to incapable of producing good results—their software will be clunky and slow, their translations present but bad, their customer support painful. Small organisations are more likely to be able to produce good results. Notwithstanding this, small enterprises are often unable to match large for certain resource availability (including time!), which acts as a balancing factor so that small is not often uniformly superior to large, though it’s much more likely to be superior in a certain subset of fields; and this is the case with i18n/l10n. I think this actually stands to very simple reason when examined numerically: have enough mass and you’ll produce average results (regression to the mean); be small and you’re more likely to deviate from the mean, whether for good or for bad, and if for bad you’re more likely to fail, so you’ll tend to end up with more above-average small players.

alex_young 5y ago

“Open ticket” doesn’t even really make sense in English. Maybe “Buy ticket” or “View ticket” or similar would make sense there. Flux bus is German, I suspect the translation was from German and not English in this case?

yarcob 5y ago
In German adjectives and verbs are easily distinguishable without context. The verb "open" would be "öffne" and the adjective "open" would be "geöffnet". So it's unlikely this mistake would happen if you translate from German to Italian. It's common to talk about "opening" files to view them, so I assume that's why the developer chose that term, even tough "view" would have been better.
- jan_Inkepa 5y ago
  Don't German UI conventions follow the convention of using infinitive verbs for commands normally? ('öffnen' instead of 'öffne'?) [the only exception I know is the adjective "rückgängig" for "undo" ] Though even there your point still stands - they can be easily distinguished from the perfect form ('opened' (geöffnet) vs 'to open' (öffnen) ). So I guess I'm nit-picking a bit.
  - manuel_w 5y ago
    Native german speaker here. Have no clue about UI conventions nor grammar, but I'd expect either "Öffne Ticket" or "Ticket öffnen". "Öffnen Ticket" is wrong, just as "Ticket öffne". I suppose the Flixbus app was made by native German speakers coding in English language. That would explain why they chose "open ticket" rather than "view ticket" or similar. As some of the parent posts said, you also "open files" here, so they probably just did what they assumed is right. Denglish (Deutsch-Englisch) is full of this. Happened to me as well; for most of my life I used "eventually" incorrect, thinking it means "maybe". * German "eventuell" = English "maybe" * German "schlussendlich" = Englisch "eventually", "at last"
    - 5y ago

OneTimePetes 5y ago

I wish the users could edit the text and then the app would take over a text the users agreed upon in majority. It cant be that hard.

translator6546 5y ago
Facebook did that early on, no idea if they still do. As a professional software localizer, I was not amused by the resulting translations.
- OneTimePetes 5y ago
  I don't see why as a local user i cant override a crappy translation at least for my account.
jonas21 5y ago
Sounds like a good way to end up with all the strings in your app translating to "penis".

franky47 5y ago

My Italian teacher in college had the following saying: "Traduttore, traditore": the translator is a traitor.

addaon 5y ago
Thank you for providing a translation of that. Traitor.

fabian2k 5y ago

I set my Android phone to English mostly to avoid badly translated apps. Not so much for the major ones, but you never know if you might get some really bad machine-translated stuff in some apps. As there isn't an easy way to set this per app, it makes more sense to me to just switch the phone entirely to English.

sdiq 5y ago
Sometimes this doesn't work like what happens on the desktop with Google, for example. English is my default language, and in country where English is also the official language but Google in its wisdom, decided that the default for google.com is Swahili. Yet, I don't know of anyone that uses Swahili as his default langauge on digital devices. Microsoft too. Every once in a while they would send me text messages in cryptic Swahili that I have never bothered to find out what it means.
Delk 5y ago
That's also one of the reasons why I don't use a localised version of a desktop OS. Especially on Linux, where everything follows the OS locale and the translations of many open source applications are either only half-done or leave a bit to be desired in terms of quality, the original English strings are just a better experience if you're proficient enough. I'm not saying this to bash open source translations (let alone translators) or anything. A good translation takes a lot of work. That's just how things seemed to be last time I tried, and I don't really have the energy to contribute myself nowadays. Of course there are other reasons for not using a localised desktop especially if you're a technical person, such as better web searchability in case of problems. But the inconsistent quality of translations is probably one of the top reasons for me.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  I wonder if there is just any point in doing translations for software unless you are fully committed to having full time I18n people testing the actual app in the language. At my past job it was basically a throw over the wall thing where we send them yml files and they send us back yml files without the translators ever touching the app. The translators also likely did not understand which words were key app terms which should stay constant. For example "benefit" is a key term which can not ever be substituted out with something like "improvement" even if it seems like it makes more sense in the particular string. But without knowing the app well, you wouldn't know this. Seems like it would be better just convincing everyone to use the English versions of everything since those are perfect and the majority of the world knows it now.

BurningFrog 5y ago

Hopefully it's better now, but back when I lived in Sweden, I had to routinely translate strange Swedish wording to English to figure out what arcane computer term the translator had misunderstood.

zelos 5y ago

Confusingly, "Open Ticket" is a valid term for a ticket with no fixed date it has to be used on.

jakub_g 5y ago

> So you get a small heart attack This is something overlooked by devs and PMs sitting comfortably in their chairs. People using apps in the modern world, especially mobile apps, are tired, stressed, busy, unfocused, and on the move. Small things like that added to the mix can induce a lot of stress. For many devs/PMs it's just a piece of text. For the user it's much more. The translations are somehow unappreciated part of the app dev by many people. I know several languages and I checked all new translations in our app each time but few people cared as much.

dharmab 5y ago
Tom Scott used an example of a phone system for results of an STI test to demonstrate this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZM9YdO_QKk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZM9YdO_QKk

Blikkentrekker 5y ago

I always use the English version of everything simply because error messages in Dutch or any amount of troubleshooting isn't going to helpful at all. In the Netherlands, almost anyone who has about any device he owns configured in Dutch is almost certainly technically illiterate. People keep everything English not even because the Dutch translation is inferior but because any online documentation one will find is based on the English version. This is so entrenched that any notes I even keep to myself on my computer are in English rather than my native language without even giving it any second thought. It is honestly somewhat strange and awkward to read technical documentation in Dutch. Many of the translated words they use take a moment for me to figure out since I never heard them in Dutch.

el-salvador 5y ago
Same here. Some IT departments even have a policy of setting up every server in English to make troubleshooting easier.

asveikau 5y ago

> translates "Open ticket" to "Biglietto aperto" I have a good example. I won't name names. I saw an Italian localization on a "like" count in social posts that localized "N people like this" as "N persone come questa" [N people like this one]

Joker_vD 5y ago

While most of modern European languages are heavily analytical, English language is pushing it straight into the isolating language territory. Morpological differences between nouns, adjectives, imperatives, infinitives? Who needs those? Just line the words in the correct order!

agarsev 5y ago
It is true that English is extremely analytical, but most european languages are fusional rather than analytical: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusional_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusional_language

missedthecue 5y ago

It's crazy to believe that EasyJet wouldn't pay an Italian guy for a few months to translate the buttons and commands and notifications in their application, considering Italy is a fairly large market for them.

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baxtr 5y ago

It’s really embarrassing that two large Europeans companies are unable to pay 20 € per hour for a mediocre translator, which you could find on upwork within minutes.

Galanwe 5y ago

French here, I do the same, French translation are unbearable. Not only will there be tons of small mistakes with nouns/verbs as you mentioned, but maybe worst, there is often "overtranslation". Some words are well established as technical jargon in English, and should _not_ be translated. - "cloud" -> "infonuagique" - "email" -> "courriel" - "freeware" -> "gatuiciel" ...

franky47 5y ago
While I agree that we (fellow Frenchman here) tend to overtranslate, some of our portmanteaus are kind of clever. My personal favourite is illectronisme, a combination of illettrisme (illiteracy) and électronique (electronic), to refer to people who are not good with computers.
- zapzupnz 5y ago
  My favourite is autof = selfie. It’s auto-photo, but if you pronounce it, it’s photo said backwards — because you use the hold the camera backwards or use the front-facing camera.

kwhitefoot 5y ago

Open ticket is ambiguous in English anyway. It could mean the ticket to which this refers is of type open or click here to view the ticket. I have a different complaint than most others here and that is that most UIs require me to mentally translate from software developers English to real English. It's no surprise then that translating to a completely different language is difficult and error prone. Edit: mismatched asterisks.