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    New feature: Languages Other Than English (LOTE)

    For a long time I have wondered how popular our site might be amongst those who do not speak English. We have only made our site available in English until now. We have just released a new feature called LOTE (Languages Other Than English), which allows us to organise translators to translate fields on all pages of the site, in a gradual fashion (if there is no translation, the "fall back" is English).

    You can see how this looks on the front page for German (if you have your OS language set to German, you should automatically see the page in German, BTW), and a little of Polish (because these are some of the languages we speak in our head office). In the user Control Panel, top right of most pages (EXCEPT the discussion forums!), you can see the language selector.

    But the goal of this is not western-European languages (although, it's obviously possible), but to add Chinese, Japanese and perhaps some Indian languages.

    We also have the option to employ Google Translate for some (or, all!) fields. We all know that Google Translate quality is low (and sometimes laughable), but as someone who only speaks English and has lived in the Netherlands for the last five years, I have found it very helpful to get the "gist" of what is going on, and I figure, that's better than nothing (well, "nothing" being English). And anyway, the majority of the "content" on the site transcends language anyway (the issue mainly is finding it).

    This change affects every page of the site, and while it all seems to be working fine from our end, please do report any bugs you see. And if you speak Japanese or Chinese fluently, as well as English fluently, please drop me a line - we might have some work for you!

    #2
    I see some raves in German, but not all of them.. is there a selection done there? Or did you really write German version of some raves?
    (or did Google Translate stop after some translations, it's not free I believe)

    Should be interesting to know how well Google Translate works for AW raves English->Japanese, that sounds mighty hard to get right. I do wonder how many Chinese will get past the Great Firewall to access AW

    Oh yeah, main menu and section-names will be translated manually I guess? 'cos at the moment language set to German only seems to affect some raves.

    Spanish might be interesting as well?

    Comment


      #3
      Frans,

      We just played today with raves - they are sent to Google Tx to do. We do pay, but we worked out to translate ALL raves on the site to one language is only $150 or so! But, I want to add a "disclaimer" to raves "translated by Google Translate", so people can read it and not assume we're total idiots.

      No idea how GT is for EN to JN, we'll find out very soon!

      I have spoken with a few Chinese, who say there is no problem accessing AW in China!

      ATM, German has only been done for the front tour page - none of the nave has (yet) been done. A german-speaker in the office may do some more this week. We also have a Spanish employee, and she may have time to do some work on it soon.

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        #4
        Nav and parts of the FAQ are probably best translated manually. As you said it's more about finding the content.

        Oh, does this mean Customer Support will provide support in Japanese/Chinese soon?

        Comment


          #5
          only by using Google Translate!

          Comment


            #6
            The german translation on the front page is not really appealing and sounds machine translated. When I encounter such sites, I usually switch to english if possible. Chrome has a built-in translation feature, so anyone could use this already and get the same translation quality. You can do better with a native speaker, but be careful with the wording, it might easily sound profane and cheap.

            Do expect a large market of non-english speaking germans? Most germans learn english at school and to be honest, surfing around porn sites doesn't require a huge vocabulary to get along. This is not shakespear or complicated legal documents. ;-)

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by vollunsinn View Post
              The german translation on the front page is not really appealing and sounds machine translated.
              Quite so, and the Google-translated raves are simply terrible.

              I'm actually quite surprised you're doing this. While I have been at odds with one or the other business decision over the years, my impression has always been that AW handles all aspects of the site in a highly professional manner. Not here.

              If you feel that you want to have German raves on the site then by all means go ahead. But you need to get it right. First, the copy needs to sound idiomatic rather than translated, and be grammatically sound (punctuation is less important, but not negligible). And second, the culture of respect that is so central to the identity of the site needs to pervade each and every rave, no matter what language. As vollunsinn has said, it should never, ever sound profane and cheap, or it's no longer AW. Find yourself a good translator who is up to the job, or don't do it.


              Edit: I've set my default language preference back to English but my profile manager won't remember it - I need to do it again every time I log in.

              Comment


                #8
                Vollunsinn and Maurice, can you be more specific with what you believe has been poorly translated?

                Our plan is to "hand translate" everything except the raves, and German now has coverage on most of the site (EXCEPT raves, and other bulk text pages like FAQs, About). We're working on the missing elements - there are a few.

                MAurice, thanks for the on-re-login bug report, we'll get that fixed.

                Comment


                  #9
                  sorry, I should have said, a large chunk of German was completed yesterday, March 4.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by garionhall View Post
                    And if you speak Japanese or Chinese fluently, as well as English fluently, please drop me a line - we might have some work for you!
                    Not sure about Japanese or Chinese translation, but I've had some success using Amazon Turk for linguistic tasks that require a human touch. There are a lot of good people with great language skills who can do this work for you at very low cost. There are also some caveats, such as the need to break work into small chunks, the need to do some QC (work which you can also feed back to Amazon) and you'd need to learn the Amazon Turk process, which is a but clumsy but ultimately pretty slick.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      hey Aaron, thanks for the tip, I'll check it out. We're currently migrating to Amazon Glacier, EC2 and S3 for most of our back office stuff, too (but not the AW site itself).

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by garionhall View Post
                        Vollunsinn and Maurice, can you be more specific with what you believe has been poorly translated?
                        "Wholesome young amateur women" -> "Gesunde junge Amateuerfrauen". Translates back to "healthy" in this context. Like a reminder that porn business is full of filthy diseases, but here everything is better. Image a car dealer who doesn't talk about the moter or cool features, but rather assures that the brakes are working. Or that AW is not a place for users with a fetish for sick models. The problem here is that there is no generic translation for "wholesome" like in "wholesome food". Context matters.

                        "Not everything goes to plan" -> "Nicht alles läuft nach Plan," -> Expect tons of bloopers. Not "We don't have a detailed script and give our models freedom to create something with realism in it".

                        "Write review" -> "Bericht schreiben". Don't use "Bericht" here, use "Rezension" or something like that.

                        "show me more" -> "zeig mir mir". Translates back "show me me". Total nonsense.

                        "Posted by Adam (6 hours 30 minutes ago) " -> "geposted nach Adam (6 hours 30 minutes vor) " Should be something like "Gepostet von Adam vor 6 Stunden und 30 Minuten."

                        "Girl-Girl" -> "Mädchen Mädchen" Directly translated, nobody will get this.

                        "AW Education" -> "Wie man Frauen bekommt". Translates back to "How to get girls". User will expect stupid pick-up lines, ridiculous hints from self-proclaimed Casanovas or phone numbers of hookers. But won't get the idea of the AW Education series.

                        "Afterdark" -> "Mädchen in Reizwäsche bei Nacht". Translates back to "Girls in sexy underwear at night". Yikes! So descriptive... What to expect? Non-Nude girls in almost dark pictures? Come on.

                        And after all, the word "Mädchen" refers to an underage girl.

                        This by far not completed and to be honest, I'd suggest to start over with this translation completely.
                        Last edited by vollunsinn; 8 March 2015, 11:53 PM.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Hey Vollunsinn, thanks for the feedback, it's very helpful!

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by garionhall View Post
                            Vollunsinn and Maurice, can you be more specific with what you believe has been poorly translated?
                            Vollunsinn has made some valid points here. Context is really what matters and you need to move away from literal translations and try to capture the essence of whatever is being described.

                            In "Wholesome young amateur women", the word "wholesome" is rather synonymous to "natural" and should thus be translated to "natürlich".

                            AW Education as I see it isn't actually about how to get women but rather about their take on sex-related issues, so I'd propose something along the lines of "Was Girls über Sex denken".

                            The question of how best to translate "Girl" is a tricky one, particularly in the "girl girl" combination. "Mädchen" usually refers to underage girls though the term is quite common in porn speak and is fine in some contexts, such as in "girl next door" (Mädchen von nebenan). "Frauen" is "women" and while you could substitute "Was Frauen über Sex denken" in the above example, you would need to add "junge" (young) in most cases, or else have users expecting at least 30-year-olds. "Modelle" is possible but sounds like professional rather than amateur models. Most German porn sites use "Lesben" (lesbians) for their girl/girl category, so if you want to avoid this you're most likely stuck with the English word "Girl" which is commonly used in colloquial German as well as in the porn business, though it can sound sleazy if accompanied by degrading language. However I believe it would work for the site.

                            Garion, I'll send you an e-mail tomorrow with a few more suggestions.
                            Last edited by maurice; 11 March 2015, 10:58 PM.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Maurice, thanks also for the helpful feedback. I spoke with a German colleague who did the translations, and we had a similar discussion.

                              This translation thing is a lot more complex that I ever thought, made more complex by people who can consistently do a good job. I have tried friends, colleagues, and professional translators, and no matter what, another party always says their work is terrible! this is from, perhaps 50 translation jobs over the last 10 years, so I think it's a reasonable sample size.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Since this feature was introduced, parts of the home page do come up in German at random times for me (my OS is English, and so is my language preference). This is not a big deal for me as I can read German, but I just wanted to report it in case there are others with the same problem.

                                The parts that come up in German are some or most of the boxes in the right column, and the Latest Updates box in the top left.

                                Usually a page refresh will get them back in English, but just today they stay German after several refreshes - that's why I'm reporting it now...

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Yes I get the same problem, I don't understand german but I think I can work out which section is which just by looking at the pictures but like MidasShadow above it clears after refreshing the homepage.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    hey, could you both post a screenshot?

                                    Any ideas on what might cause it to happen? Anything you can do to MAKE it happen?

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      I'll try to post a screenshot, but like me and MidasShadow said its very random, no idea why it happens and not sure what I can do to make it happen.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        I've seen this happen months ago, but not recently. Not sure if an old screenshot would be useful?

                                        Midas/Havijack, what browser do you use?

                                        Do you ever log out of AW?

                                        In the upper right corner of the page, what language/flag is listed when you see the german page?

                                        Midas, when the problem didn't go away on refresh, did you check your preferences for language?

                                        To possibly clear something up; even when language is intentionally set to German only *parts* of the mainpage are German. You can see this yourself by changing the language top-right of the mainpage. If 'your' German mainpage looks different, please tell us.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Hi Frans,

                                          To answer your questions I use the latest version of Firefox for my browser and yes I do log out of AW when I have finished with visiting the website, sorry but I cant remember what flag is displayed when the writing is in german. Like I have already said this happens very occasionaly and does not spoil my enjoyment of your website.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Hi Frans,

                                            I am using Chromium 42.0 on Linux. I do not usually log out from the site. When parts of the page show in German, the language and flag in the top right were still English and the UK one. When the refresh did not fix it, I did check my profile and verified that it was set to English too.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Many thanks for the answers!

                                              Midas do you log out of AW at all?

                                              havijack , does the part-german page show before you login?

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                I think I know what this is - duplicate cookies, from a moment in time when there was a bug in the LOTE code. Please do the following:

                                                (1) Get your AW username and password
                                                (2) Log out of AW
                                                (3) Delete all AW cookies (note: only delete AW cookies, NOT all cookies!)
                                                - In Chrome: http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/3016/...idual_cookies/
                                                - In IE: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/delete...icular-website
                                                - In Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb...ebsites-stored
                                                (4) Log in to AW again. the issue should be fixed.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Thank you, Frans and Garion.

                                                  It has not helped, I'm afraid. I have logged out, deleted the AW cookies (they looked OK to me, and showed my preferred language as English). I've restarted the browser and logged on again, and I had the problem straight away. The page was English before I logged on, and changed to German after logging on. I am attaching a screen shot if it is of any help.

                                                  Frans, I don't think I have ever logged out (before today that is), but my PC is a new one, I installed it mid-March, and (if I remember correctly), I have not copied my Chromium profile from the old machine.

                                                  Again, this is not a big deal for me: I can read German; just curious how it can happen..

                                                  Thank you.
                                                  Attached Files

                                                  Comment


                                                    #26
                                                    MidasShadow, thanks for trying it, it's very helpful to rule out the issues. While it's not an issue for you, we'd love your help in fixing it, as it may be affecting other users as well (who are not reporting it). So if it's ok, we might ask you a few things to test solutions - Havijack, that's you as well, bud!

                                                    Comment


                                                      #27
                                                      Hmm.. why is Add Blocker Pro showing a '1' there? AW doesn't have adds, it's probably best to disable it for AW site.

                                                      Repeatable errors are good If you get the problem page, make a new tab and go to chrome://settings/cookies look at the cookies for "abbywinters.com" (no www) , there should be one (and only one) cookies named 'language' there, what is the content of it? If you have another method of looking at cookies, that's fine to, this is the Chrome way I know, any method is fine with me

                                                      Also please check if there is a 'language' cookie in any other *abbywinters* section (shouldn't be).

                                                      p.s. to be sure; do NOT post all your cookies, just the language one(s) !!!

                                                      Comment


                                                        #28
                                                        Thanks again for your replies, Garion and Frans.

                                                        I am happy to help troubleshooting this, but it is not something I can reproduce on demand, it just happens from time to time, and all is fine and English at the moment...

                                                        > Hmm.. why is Add Blocker Pro showing a '1' there?

                                                        It is blocking the addthis_toolbox. That is why the Share abbywinters.com / Teile abbbywinters.com box is empty. I would not think that is related to the problem, but I am happy to disable ABP on AW for a while, if you think that is helpful.

                                                        > there should be one (and only one) cookies named 'language' there, what is the content of it?

                                                        I checked this before I deleted the AW cookies at Garion's request, and at a moment the page showed in German. The cookie content was "en". I'll check again the next time the problem occurs just to make sure.

                                                        > Also please check if there is a 'language' cookie in any other *abbywinters* section

                                                        There was just the one in abbywinters.com. None in www.abbywinters.com or forums.abbywinters.com (I did not delete the forums ones, BTW).

                                                        Thank you.

                                                        Comment


                                                          #29
                                                          Something that I thought I should mention after reading a number of the posts here....when hiring translators at the United Nations, it was a requirement that the translator lived for a few years in the country that spoke the language they were translating to. The reason for this was that they didn't want translators that could just translate what was being spoken, they wanted translators that understood what was meant by what was being spoken and would be able to translate that into a similar context. For example, if an English speaker were to say, "You can't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes." To do a direct translation of that wouldn't make any sense, but if the translator understood what that saying meant, he could use a saying in the language he was translating it into that would make sense.

                                                          I think that this might apply here. You can't do a direct word for word translation, since what each word meant in English might not mean the same thing in another language when the whole sentence is translated. This was amusingly displayed in the movie "Under The Tuscan Sun". In the movie, Diane Lane had moved to Italy, and she was approached by an attractive Italian man who offered to help her. Diane Lane politely refused his offer and the man responded by saying, "Oh, you think I am trying to lift you up." Diane Lane thought a second, then said, "Oh, you mean, I think you are trying to PICK me up." The Italian man didn't understand the difference between PICK and LIFT. This is what happens with direct translations.

                                                          By the same token, the emphasis on a particular word makes a difference. For example, these sentences each mean something different, even though the wording is the same. "OH, so you want to go?" "Oh, so YOU want to go?" "Oh, so you WANT to go?" Oh, so you want to GO?" Each sentence has a different meaning, and there is no way to translate that meaning using the word for word translation.
                                                          Last edited by Dekoda; 29 April 2015, 08:39 PM.

                                                          Comment


                                                            #30
                                                            just wanted to say that I am happy to help where I can but have been logged in most of today, refreshed the main screen a few times but no sign of any german writing, it is very ramdom.

                                                            Comment

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