Translate into Japanese about website

[dandv]

Why do you guys think it's a good idea to translate programming documentation into languages other than English? Please read,

• Jeff Atwood (creator of StackOverflow) - The Ugly American Programmer

• My essay on why I think the world would be a better place if more people used English as the universal language

---

UPDATE 2019-Feb-11: if you've landed here from Twitter or elsewhere, kindly read the two materials above. They'll allow you to post a more informed reply.

Also, please understand my position clearly (which I've summarized below for @jakearchibald): I only want to encourage developers to learn English, and I believe that spending time translating documentation into other languages further increases the language barrier, even though in the short term it may enable developers to get involved with one project or another. The reality of open source is that the vast majority of OSS projects use English as a primary language. What I'm advocating for is simply continuing that trend; it's for everyone's benefit.

[watilde]

@dandv Here are some reasons why translation is a good idea for tech communities. Not sure for this specific case, but generally.

1. People cannot choose their mother tongue.
2. English learning differs in difficulty depending on mother tongues.
3. It will be an even more significant barrier for kids.
4. Google translate between Japanese and English does not work well sometimes.

Looking at W3C's mission, they also mention regardless of native language:

One of W3C's primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.

If we want to have more people who have different backgrounds and believe it's a good idea, we should get rid of the barrier.

Refs:

• Language Learning Difficulty
• Web for All
  

[jakearchibald]

Although @dandv was working for Google when he made his comment, his view is not shared by anyone else I know at devrel.

I feel incredibly lucky that documentation & standards are often written in English. I wouldn't be where I am today without those resources. Trying to prevent others having resources in their first language is absurd.

[dandv]

If we want to have more people who have different backgrounds and believe it's a good idea, we should get rid of the barrier.

Which would be a more effective way of getting rid of the language barrier? Translating all materials in all languages, or encouraging people to use one universal language?

[watilde]

Translating all materials in all languages, or encouraging people to use one universal language?

For me, the two options turned into: some translators make efforts vs all human learns English. The former is more efficient.

I know it's p challenging to maintain the translated docs as a core maintainer, but some solutions are already existed and used in many popular projects. I see that helps new joiners a lot :)

[ymotongpoo]

Which would be a more effective way of getting rid of the language barrier? Translating all materials in all languages, or encouraging people to use one universal language?

I don't think these 2 options are exclusive each other, and I believe it is good thing that the community is willing to put efforts on the OSS project in any form, say localization. Even if the committers or contributors for this repository decide to reject further contribution on l10n here, still they may create a dedicated repo for it. I think it is preferred to have all materials in one central repo including l10n.

I understand that it is ideal for all developers to understand English, but making it real just by encouraging developers to learn English takes long time, and it can not be achieved only by us; it involves English education in schools. Also, in terms of English education, the translated doc would be one of the best learning materials for English self study for the users of this tool.

[dandv]

For me, the two options turned into: some translators make efforts vs all human learns English. The former is more efficient.

No. If some translators make some effort, then some materials will be available in some languages. If everyone learns and uses English, everyone understands all materials. We have a similar problem right now with plugs and outlets: some manufacturers make converters from some plug types to some outlets, but if everyone used one standard, things would be much easier. We've achieved that type of success with USB-C.

Also, in terms of English education, the translated doc would be one of the best learning materials for English self study for the users of this tool.

How exactly would a translated doc be even a good learning material for English self study? Do you think users would bother to read the translated and the English doc side by side?

[Pittan]

Sorry for interrupt. Could I challenge the translation again?
I love how parcel works for small front-end development. 😭

[uetchy]

It's great to have translated documents in OSS because there are a lot of people eager to use and contribute to OSS however struggling for language and wasting a great deal of time. That's a needless loss for non-English speakers.
If English is the truly universal language, you could say that there is no need to translate docs. But not at all.
Please don't think localization stuff is waste of time but rather think it will save a large amount of time of many.

[cedmax]

Arguably the common language should be Mandarin Chinese: it's the language with the highest number of native speakers (and the trend is for the gap to increase).

Suggesting English to be universal is arrogant, self centered and utterly elitist. We need an inclusive approach, reaching out to communities and to enable diversification. I, for one, I'm sad this kind of bs always comes from a white dude, I wish we were better represented.

[agektmr]

Learning something by yourself and letting someone learn something are different things. If you want to learn something and you don't know the language, go ahead and learn the language. But for letting other people learn things, providing translation is more efficient. It's obviously more efficient for a single person to translate a document comparing to 10,000 people learn the language by themselves.

At least that's the approach Developer Advocate should choose if you want to reach more people.

@Pittan please don't apologize.
but, duplicate work is simply a waste of time. so if you do work i should be stop my current work.
well, when you need help, i'll help you.

[dandv]

I completely agree that translating this particular documentation is more efficient at getting more developers to use Parcel.

That's a nice short-term goal. It's also just that - a narrow, short term, particular goal.

My goal is broader - empowering everyone in the world to access as much information as possible. Or in the words of my former employer, making information universally accessible. Google is going about that with machine translation. That's great. In parallel, we can go about it by encouraging people to learn English, which, like it or not, is the universal language nowadays.

@cedmax: the white dude in question is not a native English speaker. Please read that section and the rest from my article. I'm sad these kinds of weak counter-arguments come again and again. If there's a new argument I haven't covered, please comment there.

[esparta]

I read it, that's why I also wrote this:

Saying "I did it, you also can" would be just condescend and a clear case of 'survivor-bias'.

You and I have the level of one of them... I didn't say you were born on a place or was your first language. Are you stopping exactly where you are not comfortable enough?

@Pittan np~
that's really cool.
imo parcel website has many issues now. so if you sent a pr, i will make a new pr.

[updated]
that's not a translation issue.

[esparta]

Being a English-native speaker and also say every body should (must?) learn English is a sad situation to be involved at, please reconsider what you are saying, @dandv.

As someone who has been helping others to make accessible technical documentation, tutorials & books for no-native English speakers (Spanish, to be more precise) I can attest this help, more than you ever know being lucky and privileged enough to read and write the de-facto (current) language. Saying "I did it, you also can" would be just condescend and a clear case of 'survivor-bias'. I was privileged enough to attend public and private schools where I was able to learn English, I had time to learn on my own pace English when I needed, a lot of people didn't.

This situation is not new, the first books (and knowledge in general) were all done on the de-facto language, all of them. People were NOT able to access them: hebrew, greek and latin... So, everybody need to read on those languages, like it or not?

IMO, even with good intentions this is nothing different that the Duke Professor Urging Chinese Students Not To Speak Chinese, is for their own good. Good intentions are not enough, you need to live and be on their situations.

[corocn]

👍

[Pittan]

@zacky1972 Is there something I can help?

does anyone already started work for this?
i have already started work.

[Pittan]

@imncls I'm starting working on it 🙋

@Pittan wait...
you started...?

[Pittan]

@imncls
Sorry, I mean I have a local translated file, but not pushed on any repositories.
It's too outdated and I'm working on to update it.

[Pittan]

@imncls Thank you 😭
New Japanese resources will be ready in a few days 🙏

[ymotongpoo]

How exactly would a translated doc be even a good learning material for English self study? Do you think users would bother to read the translated and the English doc side by side?

Yeah, I just raised an example, and is the situation problem? (Your reaction sounds so.)

[lulalala]

We've achieved that type of success with USB-C.

Aha such a noble goal. Unfortunately as much as we want language to work like a standard or program, in reality it does not work this way (otherwise Esperanto would be more wide spread now).

Only when we can refactor a language (e.g. make December the 10th month of the year, because you know... "decimal" means base-ten), would it be possible to require everyone to learn English.

[nfang]

Translating documentation would be a more efficient way of getting people from different culture/language background to get involved in this particular project. Talking about getting rid of language barrier in general is way off the topic.

[dandv]

@jakearchibald I have the utmost respect for you, thanks for jumping in, and for nudging me to clarify my point:

Yes - it's fortunate that documentation & standards are often written in English; or rather, intelligent on the part of the authors. What would an author choose if they wanted to reach the widest audience - to publish documentation in language X (perhaps their own), or in the language with the largest number of developers, and largest number of bilingual speakers who could translate it into other languages? I hope we agree it's the latter choice. This means you are not lucky that documentation & standards are often written in English; you're lucky that you're a native English speaker and didn't have to learn English. I did have to. And it's been the best time investment I've made in my entire life.

That's what I'm trying to convey: feel free to translate all you want; but understand that by doing so, you're removing an incentive for those folks who read the translated material to learn English. And let's be realistic - they're already developers; they already know quite a bit of English because most of the documentation is written primarily in English (translations, if they exist, often lag behind). If you want to be a top developer, it's in your best interest to learn English. Let's encourage that.

[cedmax]

@dandv it doesn't quite matter what is your original language is, what matters is the cultural background in which your opinions got shaped. I appreciate you might (think you) have a very good reason for what you are suggesting. It doesn't make it less elitist.

On the white dude note: that's not a counter argument, that's a statement about a trend I noticed. Sorry if I went off topic on this one

[dandv]

Being a English-native speaker and also say every body should (must?) learn English is a sad situation to be involved at

Who are you talking about? Had you read the Introduction to my essay, you'd know that I'm not a native English speaker.

[fabiosussetto]

@dandv

That's what I'm trying to convey: feel free to translate all you want; but understand that by doing so, you're removing an incentive for those folks who read the translated material to learn English.

Your reasoning is just based on assumptions that you think hold true for everyone, without even questioning them.

You can't decide what works as an incentive or not for other people on such a subjective topic. It may well be that having the same documentation both in English and Japanese is a bigger incentive to learn English OR Japanese, simply because you can read it in both your native language and in the language you're learning.

In fact, I bet you learned English mostly because someone translated content you were interested in from Romanian to English.

[alicetragedy]

My goal is broader - empowering everyone in the world to access as much information as possible.

Great, so if you really want to empower everyone (including minorities and underrepresented people) please stop using the word “guys” when you're talking to a variety of people, as that term is exclusive and not gender-neutral.

[devongovett]

The goal of our documentation is to allow anyone to quickly and easily learn about Parcel, no matter their background or proficiency in any language. We don't wish to exclude anyone from using Parcel simply because they don't speak English. This goal is accomplished by providing the documentation in as many languages as possible.

English speakers are incredibly lucky that lots of documentation is available for libraries and tools in their language, and I do not see why it should be any different for speakers of other languages. The barrier to entry to learning a tool should not also include learning English. That's a crazy high barrier. Obviously things would be easier if everyone in the world just spoke the same language, but that is not a reality or even a remote possibility in any reasonable future. Machine translations will continue to get better, but for now don't match human translations in terms of quality. Therefore, we provide human translations which contributors have generously provided for others of a similar background to them.

Locking this issue to collaborators. If you wish to help translate the website into Japanese as the original issue intended, please carry on. Otherwise, this discussion can occur on other platforms.