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Facebook in Esperanto

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Ubutumwa 64

ururimi: English

hiyayaywhopee (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 21 Ruheshi 2008 17:25:05

The people at Facebook just added a slew of languages which volunteers can help translate the website's interface into, and, hurrah, Esperanto is one of them. I and at least one other person have been translating glossary terms over the past couple days, but I was hoping that there would be people here with Facebook accounts who are a lot better at this than I am.

http://www.facebook.com/translations/

richardhall (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 21 Ruheshi 2008 22:08:03

I've added the application to my facebook account, but I've had to switch browser to use it. Firefox 3 doesn't seem to like it.

davidwelsh (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 21 Ruheshi 2008 22:31:28

I really like the system they've got - anyone can suggest a translation for a particular word or phrase, and then folk can vote for the alternative they think is best.

hiyayaywhopee (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 21 Ruheshi 2008 22:59:23

Hrm. I'm using Firefox 3 and I have no problem with it. Might want to bring that up at the forum for discussing the application.

richardhall (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 21 Ruheshi 2008 23:01:10

hiyayaywhopee:Hrm. I'm using Firefox 3 and I have no problem with it. Might want to bring that up at the forum for discussing the application.
I might just do that. I'm running Firefox 3 on an Intel-based iMac

Later edit: Strangely, the translation application now seems to be working. half an hour ago it wasn't showing in Firefox, but was there in Safari. Whatever the problem was seems to have resolved.

hiyayaywhopee (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 24 Ruheshi 2008 00:08:14

andrew.longhofer:Yeah, the direct democracy of it is pretty amazing. It allows the majority of users to decide the best route for the translation to follow and allows collective fluency to shape the way this translation process works.

I can't decide, however, if it is a good thing for the Esperanto translation. There is such a volume of zealous but as-of-yet unskilled komencantoj who are eager to contribute but don't have sufficient vocabulary or handle on the grammar.

I'm not saying I've only produced perfect translations, only that I've noticed a potential weakness: Esperanto has a vast number of people who get excited and study nonstop for a couple of days, pronounce themselves "fluent esperantists," and move on without any further study, and putting into practice frankly incorrect and inappropriate usage. The number who become truely fluent is incredibly small, compared. I aim to be in the second group, but find myself rather more occasionally than I would like in the first.
I don't know who you're talking about over there... I'm perfectly frank about how awful I am. =P I've been stuck as a beginner for a bit too long and it's starting to frustrate me.

However, I don't think it'll be much of a problem because the number of votes needed to achieve "consensus" is quite large - blatantly obvious translations like "konto" or "amiko" haven't been frozen and moved off the list yet. I'm more worried about the Esperanto translation never being able to continue because the number of translators isn't meeting that threshold. Newbies such as I will be able to contribute and maybe learn a thing or two without getting in the way too much, I think.

eb.eric (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 24 Ruheshi 2008 04:06:46

Looks to be a pretty good system, I hope the translations all end up being top notch.

Strange though, it seems sometimes you can click more than once to vote a translation up by 2 or 3 instead of 1. Anyone else notice that?

erinja (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 24 Ruheshi 2008 11:59:24

hiyayaywhopee:I've been stuck as a beginner for a bit too long and it's starting to frustrate me.
In my opinion, the solution to this problem is to get yourself into an Esperanto-only environment, where you are forced to "live" in Esperanto for a while. It does wonders for your ability. I think it is extremely hard to achieve fluency through internet/writing alone. Even with Skype and other voice chat programs, there's no substitute for living and breathing Esperanto for a while.

When I was learning, my ability hit a certain threshold of "pretty good", where I could read pretty well, write decently well, and speak ok. But I didn't become truly fluent until I had spent several periods of time in Esperanto-only settings. It also does a lot for rejuvenating your interest in the language. "Oh my gosh these people are so cool! And I can talk to them! With our common language Esperanto!" etc lango.gif

davidwelsh (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 25 Ruheshi 2008 12:37:47

I think it would be great if some more experienced Esperantists were able to go in and leave comments on any of the translations that aren't so good, to nudge the voting of us less experienced enthusiasts in the right direction. (Even once you're voted for a particular translation, you can go back and change your vote if someone suggets something better.)

But generally, I think the flexibility of our language means that there are lots of perfectly adequate, correct solutions to any particular problem (reen vs. malantaŭiri for example) and it's more a matter of collective taste what we go for. The obviously incorrect translations seem to have got voted down quite heavily.

alexbeard (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 19 Mukakaro 2008 20:06:05

do they have myspace in esperanto?

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