| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | Tired of so called professionals in my community Thread poster: Eva T
|
|---|
Robert Mouris 
Hungary
Local time: 22:36
Member (2007)
French to German
+ ...
| Insert symbol | Apr 6, 2007 |
Carolin Haase wrote:
I also have this problem whenever I try to post a question in Portuguese or Spanish, let alone a real forum posting (which, because of that, I never do!). I simply don't know how to write the "c" with the little tail underneath or the "n" with the little wave on top in my German keyboard. In Word, no problem, but on the web? Do I need to learn html?
Windows has this "Insert symbol" function. Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, Systems Tools, Character Map. I write now a word on my Swiss-German keyboard: "acção", and now with the help of this system tool: "acção". It works!
If you use it regularly, you can make a shortcut on your desktop.
| | | | fairfaxcompa (X)
English
+ ...
| Wikipedia agrees with Richard...and so do we. | Apr 8, 2007 |
Richard Benham wrote:
"...So replacing umlauted vowels with the corresponding plain vowel followed by an e and ß by ss when you don’t have the normal German characters available is the professional thing to do, as opposed to ignoring umlauts or using a capital B for an ß.
Hello Richard,
I agree with your post.
When I am on an American keyboard, I use the "ae, ue, oe" and this substitution is absolutely legitimate.
After a friendly note from one moderator, I went on a little search about this controversy and found the following link with this excerpt, which I suggest to be read by everyone who has posted on the topic of the German Umlaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umlaut_(diacritic)
" When typing German, if umlaut letters are not available, the proper way is to replace them with the underlying vowel and a following . So, for example, "Schröder" becomes "Schroeder". As the pronunciation differs greatly between the normal letter and the umlaut, simply omitting the dots is considered incorrect. The result might often be a different word, as in schon 'already', schön 'beautiful' or Mutter 'mother', Mütter 'mothers'.
Despite this, the umlauted letters are not considered part of the alphabet proper. When alphabetically sorting German words, the umlaut is usually treated like the underlying vowel; if two words differ only by an umlaut, the umlauted one comes second, for example:
Schon
Schön
Schonen
There is a second system in limited use, mostly for sorting names (colloquially called "telephone directory sorting"), which treats ü like ue, and so on."
Regards,
M. Straub
| | | | Klaus Herrmann
Germany
Local time: 22:36
Member (2002)
English to German
+ ...
| Legitimate? Yes, maybe. Sensible? Probably not. | Apr 9, 2007 |
fairfaxco wrote:
When I am on an American keyboard, I use the "ae, ue, oe" and this substitution is absolutely legitimate.
When I am on an American keyboard, I switch to the German keyboard layout, and then there are as many umlauts (or ç, for that matter) as I need.
Of course it is more appropriate to use ue than to ignore the ü alltogether, but that's not the point. Professional work also means to know one's tools, and I had the impression that this was the starting point of this thread.
| | | | Monika Coulson
Local time: 14:36
Member (2001)
English to Albanian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Right on Klaus | Apr 9, 2007 |
Klaus Herrmann wrote:
Professional work also means to know one's tools, and I had the impression that this was the starting point of this thread.
Thank you Klaus. That is exactly my point as well. If you say that you are a professional, then act like one please.
Cheers,
Monika
[Edited at 2007-04-09 18:08]
| | |
|
|
|
| The English Wikipedia and the German Alphabet | Apr 9, 2007 |
fairfaxco wrote: After a friendly note from one moderator, I went on a little search about this controversy and found the following link with this excerpt, which I suggest to be read by everyone who has posted on the topic of the German Umlaut. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umlaut_(diacritic)
As far as I know, good references for German are established German dictionaries like Duden and not so much the English Wikipedia, helpful as it may be in so many other cases. The Duden says we have 26 letters plus ä, ö, ü, ß.
Their sort order has nothing to do with them being proper or improper letters but is just a rule for sorting words in lists. Mr. Schröder's name is Schröder and not Schroeder, since the latter is a different, existing German name of its own.
We are not talking about private emails here or the fast and dirty exchange in a chat room but serious requests for help in form of qualified answers. And if someone asks what is the word for poetry and I write Poesie, it should be clear that I do not mean Pösie.
If someone has no German or whatever special keyboard at hand and is absolutely helpless when it comes to producing Umlauts in cases where it is necessary to have correctly written information, then please make it clear to the asker that what you write is not written correctly but should contain special characters at some places. Whatever arguments you may find all over the Internet for whatever points you wish to make, it still does not change the fact that there are correct ways of spelling and incorrect ones. There is a difference between communicating in a language and giving correct information when it comes to spelling.
| | | | Steffen Walter
Germany
Local time: 22:36
Member (2002)
English to German
+ ...
| Corrections required "after the fact" | Apr 10, 2007 |
Claudia Krysztofiak wrote:
Whatever arguments you may find all over the Internet for whatever points you wish to make, it still does not change the fact that there are correct ways of spelling and incorrect ones. There is a difference between communicating in a language and giving correct information when it comes to spelling.
Exactly. Another pet peeve of mine is that such poor practice (of not using correct diacritics) leaves moderators and KudoZ editors with the task of cleaning up the mess "after the fact" in order to create linguistically correct glossary entries. We could certainly do better than that.
Steffen
| | | | Eva T
English to Albanian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Thank you to all | Apr 24, 2007 |
of you who cared enough to express your thoughts, whatever they were, in this discusison. Have a great day.
Eva
| | | | George Trail
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:36
Member (2009)
French to English
+ ...
| Here's what I have to say | Apr 12, 2010 |
First of all, I want to rub it in the original poster's face, because I like a bit of fun (I mean no harm):
who do not even write their own language correct.
...correctly.
I think this is and should not be acceptable.
So you think it *is* acceptable yet you state that it should not be?
=====================
Secondly, as far as writing incorrect characters is concerned, not all computer keyboards are the same. That's on... See more First of all, I want to rub it in the original poster's face, because I like a bit of fun (I mean no harm):
who do not even write their own language correct.
...correctly.
I think this is and should not be acceptable.
So you think it *is* acceptable yet you state that it should not be?
=====================
Secondly, as far as writing incorrect characters is concerned, not all computer keyboards are the same. That's one reason why people sometimes agree that they have no choice but to use substitutions on purpose; but also don't forget that not everyone knows how to type accent characters without copying and pasting a single such character from any article on the Internet that happens to use it. Besides, there have been times when I've tried to type certain accent characters when writing an email but it doesn't let me - it deselects the message window (I use Google Mail)! ▲ Collapse
| | |
|
|
|
Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 22:36
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
INTO SPANISH wrote:
If by "web" you mean posting here, let me tell you it's just the same:
ñ = alt+164
Ñ = alt+165
This works fine for kudoz area.
It only works if your keyboard has a number pad. Mine doesn't, so the method you describe here does not work for me. I can type ñ and Ñ without using Alt, though, because my keyboard setup is "United States International". I suspect some people use the correct characters in their word processors because their word processors have a function for inserting such characters that their web browser doesn't.
As for the original poster's complaint, well, I believe that it is important for the term itself to be spelt correctly, but if the answerer makes spelling errors elsewhere in his answer, then that is fine. After all, when someone agrees or disagree with him, they are agreeing or disagreeing with his term, not with his explanation. If you agree with someone's term, it doesn't mean or imply that you approve of him as a person.
| | | | Brian Young
United States
Local time: 13:36
Danish to English
| keyboard availability | Apr 12, 2010 |
I bought a Macbook at the end of 2008, and it solves some of these problems. I can choose from a wide variety of keyboards, so I can get any character I want. I personally do not like using substitute characters, even if the meaning is clear. Also, I take it with me everywhere, so I never need to use another computer. I can also display a small picture of the keyboard layout, and that helps while learning the location of the special letters. This is much easier than the method described for a wi... See more I bought a Macbook at the end of 2008, and it solves some of these problems. I can choose from a wide variety of keyboards, so I can get any character I want. I personally do not like using substitute characters, even if the meaning is clear. Also, I take it with me everywhere, so I never need to use another computer. I can also display a small picture of the keyboard layout, and that helps while learning the location of the special letters. This is much easier than the method described for a windows based computer.
I only translate into English, so my life is easy. But I write a lot in Danish, and this computer has made life easy in that respect. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Tired of so called professionals in my community | Apr 12, 2010 |
Monika Coulson wrote: Klaus Herrmann wrote:
Professional work also means to know one's tools, and I had the impression that this was the starting point of this thread.
Thank you Klaus. That is exactly my point as well. If you say that you are a professional, then act like one please. Cheers, Monika [Edited at 2007-04-09 18:08]
I do not know the Albanian alphabet. But, for more common European languages there is no excuse. Such behaviours only demonstrate two things:
a) lack of respect for the reader, whether professional or not
b) ignorance of professional resources: http://allchars.zwolnet.com/
I believe that we all should make feel such translators uncomfortable until they leave the translation arena. As translators community, we are already discredited enough by tolerating things like that.
[Editado a las 2010-04-12 22:27 GMT]
| | | | Russell Jones
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:36
Italian to English
| Respect please | Apr 12, 2010 |
George Trail wrote:
First of all, I want to rub it in the original poster's face, because I like a bit of fun (I mean no harm):
who do not even write their own language correct.
...correctly.
I think this is and should not be acceptable.
Perilously close to a "personal remark" George.
Eva is, of course, talking about people's use of their native language. Unless they are asking for help, correcting non-natives' use of English in the forums is not "a bit of fun", it is just rude.
| | |
|
|
|
Neil Coffey
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:36
French to English
+ ...
| Some info on typing accents | Apr 13, 2010 |
If you'll forgive the link to my own web site, I put up some information a while ago on different ways of typing accented characters in Windows, in case it's of any use:
http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/technology/typing-accents.shtml
Incidentally, regarding matters such as the use of "ae" instead of ä etc in German, it strikes me that th... See more If you'll forgive the link to my own web site, I put up some information a while ago on different ways of typing accented characters in Windows, in case it's of any use:
http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/technology/typing-accents.shtml
Incidentally, regarding matters such as the use of "ae" instead of ä etc in German, it strikes me that the feeling that this is unacceptable may be recent. In the early days of the Internet, it was pretty much common practice to use "ae" etc. E-mail and other electronic messaging systems didn't universally deal properly with characters beyond basic ASCII characters (unaccented letters, numbers and a few basic symbols). ▲ Collapse
| | | |
I don't know anything about the Albanian alphabet and therefore cannot comment, but I have seen a few forum questions asked or answered deliberately in "Text Message style" English or French, which I find really, really not appropriate for a professional translator.
| | | | urbom
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:36
German to English
+ ...
| three years on... | Apr 13, 2010 |
Russell Jones wrote: George Trail wrote:
First of all, I want to rub it in the original poster's face, because I like a bit of fun (I mean no harm):
who do not even write their own language correct.
...correctly.
I think this is and should not be acceptable.
Perilously close to a "personal remark" George. Eva is, of course, talking about people's use of their native language. Unless they are asking for help, correcting non-natives' use of English in the forums is not "a bit of fun", it is just rude.
Not to mention that the last post in the previous discussion was made nearly three years ago.
| | | | | Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Tired of so called professionals in my community | Trados Business Manager Lite | Create customer quotes and invoices from within Trados Studio
Trados Business Manager Lite helps to simplify and speed up some of the daily tasks, such as invoicing and reporting, associated with running your freelance translation business.
More info » |
| | Trados Studio 2022 Freelance | The leading translation software used by over 270,000 translators.
Designed with your feedback in mind, Trados Studio 2022 delivers an unrivalled, powerful desktop
and cloud solution, empowering you to work in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
More info » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
Translation news
