I must inform that translating to some slavic language (croatian, serbian etc.) leads to lots of problems, because Moodle is completely grammar-insensitive! It reuses some words (english words) on several places, but for slavic languages this is not possible. To correct that, I had to make corrections in Moodle code, which leads to problems and lots of work when upgrading to any newer version. There must be some way to make Moodle (more) grammar-sensitive. This is hard to maintain.
An idea: is there some way to make some kind of interface for each page, so user can enter grammar-sensitive strings on page directly, or something like that?
Best regards,
Vedran Musica
Srce - Sveucilisni racunalni centar
Zagreb, Croatia
There is MDL-4790
There is this discussion http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=58516
There is this contrib: http://moodle.cvs.sourceforge.net/moodle/contrib/patches/grammar-aware/
So there are some people thinking about it. Nothing of that is in standard Moodle code.
There is this discussion http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=58516
There is this contrib: http://moodle.cvs.sourceforge.net/moodle/contrib/patches/grammar-aware/
So there are some people thinking about it. Nothing of that is in standard Moodle code.
The issue of grammar-insensitivity is affecting not only Croatian language, but Serbian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Czech, Slovakian, Polish, Bulgarian, Ukrainian and perhaps Russian.
IMHO, way more than 200 million Slavic-speaking people would be delighted if some kind of solution, whether the one proposed by David Mudrak, or the similar one proposed by Bojan Milosavljevic here
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=54222
would be accepted and used in standard Moodle code.
JFTR, the affected Slavic languages are widely spoken and used, according to this map:
http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slika:Slovanskisvet.PNG
and the decision to leave the users spread on two continents to find their own workarounds is somewhat unwise and dissapointing, since the adoption rate of Moodle is rather high in these areas (at least in the past 2-3 years).
It doesn't have to be done right away, but it would be nice if "slavic language issue" would find its place in Moodle Roadmap, preferably before Moodle v.2.0!
And JFTR, I am one of the maintainers of the Croatian language pack.
Cheers,
Jasmin Klindzic
University of Zagreb
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Croatia
IMHO, way more than 200 million Slavic-speaking people would be delighted if some kind of solution, whether the one proposed by David Mudrak, or the similar one proposed by Bojan Milosavljevic here
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=54222
would be accepted and used in standard Moodle code.
JFTR, the affected Slavic languages are widely spoken and used, according to this map:
http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slika:Slovanskisvet.PNG
and the decision to leave the users spread on two continents to find their own workarounds is somewhat unwise and dissapointing, since the adoption rate of Moodle is rather high in these areas (at least in the past 2-3 years).
It doesn't have to be done right away, but it would be nice if "slavic language issue" would find its place in Moodle Roadmap, preferably before Moodle v.2.0!
And JFTR, I am one of the maintainers of the Croatian language pack.
Cheers,
Jasmin Klindzic
University of Zagreb
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Croatia
No one is proposing that we ignore the problem. However any changes to solve it will involve some fairly major changes changes to a fundamental part of Moodle. That is why no-one has lept in and started messing around with the code. We need to make absolutely sure we have agreed the right plan before we start changing things. So we need to keep talking about possible solutions, with reasons why they will work in all possible situations.
So, how can we make sure what _IS_ the right plan? Who is going to give qualified proposals? Should we have some kind of a vote on those proposals (assuming that there would be more than one proposal)?
Since I do work at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and there are more than 20 language departments here (not to mention more than 200 language experts), maybe I could ask some of them to define the main issues that are troubling current Slavic language packs (grammar-insensitivity being one of them)? Those issues could be listed as a feature request or something that needs additional work in the Moodle Roadmap.
The adoption rate of Moodle in my country, as well as the other Slavic-speaking countries could be much higher if the e-learning system that we use (Moodle) was not riddled with grammar errors (not due to translators or translation, but due to grammar-insensitivity issues). Our Moodle installation has over 3500 users, and I have been using Moodle for more than two and half years (so this is not a rant of some first-time user).
How can I tell a college teacher to overlook the obvious grammar mistakes spread all over the interface? Especially if the system in question is meant for teaching (not to mention language teaching)?!
I have been trying to find work-arounds in my translation of Moodle language pack to Croatian, but it is really hard (and sometimes - IMPOSSIBLE) to find all the instances in which some string will appear because of the reusable strings (word context plays VERY important role in Slavic languages, as well as gender and so on).
And thank you all for your valuable input!
Since I do work at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and there are more than 20 language departments here (not to mention more than 200 language experts), maybe I could ask some of them to define the main issues that are troubling current Slavic language packs (grammar-insensitivity being one of them)? Those issues could be listed as a feature request or something that needs additional work in the Moodle Roadmap.
The adoption rate of Moodle in my country, as well as the other Slavic-speaking countries could be much higher if the e-learning system that we use (Moodle) was not riddled with grammar errors (not due to translators or translation, but due to grammar-insensitivity issues). Our Moodle installation has over 3500 users, and I have been using Moodle for more than two and half years (so this is not a rant of some first-time user).
How can I tell a college teacher to overlook the obvious grammar mistakes spread all over the interface? Especially if the system in question is meant for teaching (not to mention language teaching)?!
I have been trying to find work-arounds in my translation of Moodle language pack to Croatian, but it is really hard (and sometimes - IMPOSSIBLE) to find all the instances in which some string will appear because of the reusable strings (word context plays VERY important role in Slavic languages, as well as gender and so on).
And thank you all for your valuable input!
They way we choose a plan is we all keep talking to each other and try to reach a consensus. So if you have a proposal, you should write it up on the wiki, on a page linked from http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Developer_notes. Then you post in this forum and ask from comments, and you will probably get people pointing out that this part of your idea does not work in Mongolian, or something, and then so you change your proposal to make it better, until everyone is happy.
If there is more than one proposal we discuss them all, and try to decide which is better.
In Open Source projects, there are about three ways decisions like this get made:
If there is more than one proposal we discuss them all, and try to decide which is better.
In Open Source projects, there are about three ways decisions like this get made:
- Everyone agrees on the same thing.
- We can't agree, but one person volunteers to do the work, and everyone else thinks their solution is good enough, and so is happy to let them do it their way so that it gets done.
- If really no-one can agree, we appeal to our benevolent dictator (Martin D) to make a decision.
- Allow all existing language files to be converted automatically to the new format.
- Keep the interface that developers use to load strings (get_string) as similar as possible to the way it works now, so we don't have to change most of the existing Moodle code (strings are used everywhere).
- Make it possible to translate moodle into every known language grammatically and idiomatically.
- Ensure that translators who are familiar with the existing system for editing language strings and creating language packs can use any new system without too much re-learning.
- If possible, work in a way that is similar to tried an tested methods used in other open source projects.