Re: [RANT] French translation for debconf templates stucked at 90% : analysis
Quoting Colin Watson (cjwatson@debian.org):
> I agree about correct grammar, but whether familiarity is
> "unprofessional" is language-dependent, I feel. I've never found it to
> be a problem in English.
At the minimum, English does not have the tu/vous or du/Sie
problem. Lucky people...:-)
At this time, as a matter of fact, using these familiar ways to speak
to people *is* perceived as unprofessionnal quality.
Just let me take a reference I often use even though some people
around won't like it : Microsoft Windows localisation. I thinks that
most serious people (I mean people which are grown up enough and
forget about "MiKroSofT Suckz") will agree that MS Windows
localisation is quite professionnal and generally well written
(generally.....I have counter examples for French, but very few) and,
geesh, I daily work with MS Windows, blame me.
I have never ever seen any MS Windows screen use the 2nd singular
person when translating "you blahblah".....never.
I'm pretty this is exactly the same for German, Italian and all other
languages which have this dual way to address people when talking to
them (bu the way, this is actually a daily problem in normal life :
should I say "tu" or "vous" to this guy ?)
This leads me to a more general consideration : I have written
scientific papers for years and years before I turned bad and started
working in computer science. I still work in a scientific institution
and daily interact with scientists.
Scientific papers writing is a very special way of writing, by using a
very neutral language (never use 1st person, be factual, never use
exclamation marks, large use of passive form).
Indeed, in good documentation AND in user interaction in our software,
I have found that the best written screens or documentations are the
ones which use these concepts we use in scientific papers writing.
And, also, sometimes learning lessons from MS Windows is not that
bad. The French team sometimes refers to MS Windows ways to translate
things. And this ends up in not that bad work....:)
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