handbook translation

uzbirglones · 2009-10-14 18:59:41

Hi there... it's been a long time since my last login here.. happy to be back...

i've read the anouncement on the arch linux handbook, by dusty philips, and i must say: congratulations... that's great news... and I wanna help... what would you guys think about making translations of this handbook?? I can make the brazilian portuguese translation. I've already translated the shaman (pacman GUI)... and many lines of the pc-bsd OS... I fell good doing so... 'cause i can bring the system to other brazilian users who can't completely understand the english language...

what do you ppl think about it? can we do that?

Dusty · 2009-10-14 20:12:39

The handbook is a fairly unmodified version of the wiki Beginner's Guide, converted to a special layout in openoffice, and with a poorly designed cover slapped on. Theoretically, any of the existing (or new) translations of the beginner's guide can be converted to handbook format, so ensuring those pages are up-to-date would be the first step. (In your case: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gui … do_Brasil) )

The main modifications required to turn it into handbook format (aside from styling, page numbers, margins, etc) are making sure that links to other wiki articles or web pages are either:

1) Converted to a link that can be typed
2) The contents of the related article copied into the handbook document

If you sent me an open-office document with these things done, I could take care of things like TOC, headers, footers, page numbers, and so on. You could also design a different cover if you wanted.

The major question is whether or not it is worth the amount of work that will have to be put into it.

side question: What are the differences between Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese? I have a friend from Portugal (she's in Canada teaching Portuguese). Are the two languages extremely different, or is it kind of like the difference between Mexican Spanish and Madrid Spanish, or Quebec French and Parisian French? Just curious...

Cheers,
Dusty

uzbirglones · 2009-10-15 11:43:51

oh... thanks for answering, dusty...

the idea of translating the handbook is because the wiki is not 100% translated to portuguese, so searching for all the articles to translate might be a little annoying... and the english articles are pretty better... far more complete and easier to understand... got it?

And, about portuguese and brazilian portuguese... now there is this new "agreement" between the portuguese-speaking countries, but it's not official yet... and there are lots of differences, i don't know exactly why, but I now that brazil has lots of influences of another countries, such as spain, holland, britain, so our portuguese is a bit different from the "original"... the same word can have different meanings in each language. There are at least 3 words daily used in portugal that are bad words in brazil, and vice versa.

well, what I mean is there would be easier to get the handbook translated than to get all the brazilian portuguese articles and translate the missing ones to put in a new handbook... understand?

cheers,
Rodrigo

Last edited by uzbirglones (2009-10-15 14:00:50)

uzbirglones · 2009-10-15 14:00:28

.

Last edited by uzbirglones (2009-10-15 14:03:56)

Dusty · 2009-10-15 18:54:37

uzbirglones wrote:

well, what I mean is there would be easier to get the handbook translated than to get all the brazilian portuguese articles and translate the missing ones to put in a new handbook... understand?

Hi Rodrigo,

Well, translating the handbook would be the same job as translating the Beginner's Guide and its appendices, as that is the exact content I used for the handbook. So the first step would be to get those pages fully translated and up-to-date. I've never had the pleasure of doing any translation work, so I don't know if it is easier to "improve" the existing pages, or to start from scratch. Either way, the updated content should go into the wiki to keep it up to date and could go into a printed form as well. So if you'd rather just translate the handbook, that's fine, but it would be ideal if those translations could also go back into the wiki, if that makes sense.

Dusty

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-14 18:59:41

handbook translation

#2 2009-10-14 20:12:39

Re: handbook translation

#3 2009-10-15 11:43:51

Re: handbook translation

#4 2009-10-15 14:00:28

Re: handbook translation

#5 2009-10-15 18:54:37

Re: handbook translation

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