Re: [TF-dev] Dutch translation team

I can remember when only Manfred was the sole Dutch translator. And we would meet up with some of the JUG leads to try to inspire more people to join the Dutch translation effort. But they said no one wants NB in Dutch! And now look! Dutch members everywhere! How cool!!!!!! Janice
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-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Erens <[email protected]>

Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:58:16 
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: [TF-dev] Dutch translation team

Hello,

I send this e-mail because I want to join the Dutch translation team,
or in case there is no team (I couldn't find any references to a Dutch
team, however, I found references to teams from other languages) I'd
like to contribute to the Dutch translations.

I'm a long-time NetBeans user, I use it for about 4 years now. I think
the first version I ever used was 5.0, and I liked it immeadiately. I
never used any other IDE. I often update to the betas, because I
currently use NetBeans mainly for C++ development, and each new
version has much better C++ support.

So, a few days ago, I downloaded the 6.7 beta. The features looked
quite good, the UI on Mac (my primary development platform) has also
been improved, and, to my suprise, localisation for my native
language, Dutch, was available.

But when I saw the translated version, I was very disappointed. Lots
of spelling and grammar mistakes, lots of texts untranslated despite
claiming 100% translation, computer terms such as 'directory' and
'desktop' being translated wrongly, etc... I've seen open source
projects with bad Dutch translations before (I cannot judge over
non-Dutch translations), but NetBeans is an app I use and love, so I'd
really like to see the translations being improved.

I've translated some other applications before, and I've been a while
in the Ubuntu-NL translation team. I've got a good knowledge of both
English and Dutch. I've used many apps both in English and Dutch
versions, which means I know the translations of most common terms by
heart. I've tried to translate one file of NetBeans (the readme.html
file) and compared it to the 'official' version afterward. The
'official' version is full of very common mistakes. They are so common
they've got names in Dutch, and most people that know a little about
Dutch linguistics know what they mean by heart and they'll never make
them deliberately. This kind of shocked me even more, because I think
that someone who translates at least knows the basic rules of a
language, but honestly (no insult) BabelFish does even better.

Because I thought I could do this much better, I decided not to stay
with that thought and do nothing, but instead act and join the
translators. I've found a link to this mail address. Please keep me in
the picture about any next steps required to start translating.

I'd like to hear from you soon,

Frank Erens

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