After seeing how Simplified Chinese localization of Dorico gets done among its recent public releases, not only I but also those circles (of Simplified Chinese users who are using Dorico now) I participated are disappointed in its overall quality.
For example, it is already Dorico Pro 3.1, but the fixed term “Full Score” (already has a fixed non-problematic translation “总谱”) is translated as “全部乐谱” which means “all scores”.
If Cubase, users can optimize the localization by editing XML files. However, Dorico at this moment cannot allow this way of maintaining localization files by end-users.
I am sure about one thing: Suppose that this overall quality applies to Japanese localization, then YAHAMA Japan will hit the roof.
We have no plans to open our translation files to the public, but we are very interested in feedback on the localisation. I will pass your comments concerning the translation of “full score” to our Chinese translator. Please let me know if you have any further feedback.
Then there is an efficiency problem to the localization work.
I was a volunteer in software localization 10 years ago. According to my limited knowledge:
Typically, before starting a software localization, there’d better be a glossary list customized for this software.
After that, using software localization managements like Passolo (maybe your people are using something similar) to manage the localization of each software version release. In case of Passolo, it can also include PDF document files (in latex raw format prior to PDF compilation).
The obvious problem is what happened to your English-Chinese glossary list.
If the glossary list is not well made, then it is almost impossible to make the translated documentation effective enough.
At least, an English glossary list and an already-translated English-Japanese glossary list will be helpful.
There are approx. 30% similarities between Japanese & Chinese music terms. This can also help translation volunteers to be clear with certain English words which may have multiple meanings by context.
I will set up either a bugzilla or a subforum (in my forum https://puwu.pro/) as a localization bug tracker. This can help us generate monthly or seasonal translation bug reports to help you people perform batch-fix, and all suggestions / feedbacks will be discussed among our circles prior to be made and reported.
I’d prefer you to simply make a list of any changes you propose, and either email them to me or post them here. I’m not going to engage with you on the mechanics of how our localisation process works, but suffice it to say that there are professionals with decades of experience working on our documentation and localisation processes and they don’t need any hints and tips about the creation of glossaries or the use of tools.
That said, we very much welcome the feedback on specific terminology you would like us to change, so please do provide that when you can, and we will give it every consideration.
Got it. Since I am busy on the run with my own matters, I will let them post bug reports on my side (They are not good at English writing), and I will translate the reports into English and push them one by one to you on Twitter as soon as convenient.