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Gary Wheeler wrote: I can tell you from experience in developing localized applications that the
general rule is to never construct text from stock phrases.
I think this might be the best advise yet. It's not just translating text from English to japanese or translating from English to Japanese in context to application but in fact translating English to Japanese in context to the application and in context to the design... Interesting.
(Substitute the languages at will)
Simon Lee Shugar (Software Developer)
www.simonshugar.co.uk
"If something goes by a false name, would it mean that thing is fake? False by nature?" By Gilbert Durandil
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The line-breaking rules of Japanese are very permissive - you can have a line-break everywhere (almost). Unfortunatelly even those rules are only implemented in FireFox...
I check (not now but in the past) some Japanese sites and found no specific handling of breaking so it seams to me that a fluent Japanese able to figure out what all this about regardless the line breaking...
If you however insist not-to-break (as there is no 'right' or 'exact' breaking) you may use CSS, but that of course may (probably will) change the exact layout of your site...
Try to come up with a fluid CSS design where the exact width of a text block will not break (but change a bit) your overall page design...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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So, this is why they are slow readers. They need to first figure out what the sentence actually means.
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Google Translater's Japanese-to-English translater makes the same mistake as yours. It seems to have a bug :: it treats end-of-line as end-of-sentence. Its French-to-English version did the same with a French sentence:-
Le chat mangeait la
souris.
AS
The cat ate it
mouse.
Le chat mangeait la souris.
AS
The cat ate the mouse.
This may happen only with very short lines.
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Those sentences are identical; Japanese is not grammatically affected by line wrapping. As the other commenter suggests, the problem lies with Google Translate (which, by the way, generally produces gibberish from Japanese).
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I help maintain a site that supports 11 languages including Japanese.
We have a phrase based system we use, and we use outsourced translators, and in-house spot checkers familiar with different languages.
We build new interfaces in English (because that is our primary language).
We try to design for the fact that English is usually the shortest way to say most things (in characters due to a volume of 2,3 and 4 letter words), by putting labels ABOVE fields, not in front of them.
Then we send out all of the phases to be translated.
We then review the pages in every language to make sure something drastic did not happen to the flow.
We also use the same group(s) to translate. So, they know our background/context. They also require that ALL translations are reviewed by a second person, and edited before they get back to us.
HTH
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Thanks Kirk.
This is most likely the option I am going to suggest. Gary from an earlier post said something similar and both replies seem to be the most sensible solution. We have a similar process to yours I think it is just the design we need to be more wary of. Thanks again!
Simon Lee Shugar (Software Developer)
www.simonshugar.co.uk
"If something goes by a false name, would it mean that thing is fake? False by nature?" By Gilbert Durandil
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No worries. Real experience counts for a lot.
Also, we use SUBSTITUTION based phrase, it turns out it makes many things easier to translate in larger chunks.
Example:
"All E-Mail replies will be sent to {EMAIL_REPLY_TO} and will be sent from {EMAIL_FROM} so be sure to white list this account."
By doing this, if the language REQUIRES a completely different ordering, it will come back properly:
"XXX {EMAIL_FROM} YYY {EMAIL_REPLY_TO} ZZZ"
"AAA {EMAIL_REPLY_TO} BBB {EMAIL_FROM} CCC"
Trust me. A lot of output has embedded data from the web site. Think about a simple email to change your password using the attached link. Without such control, where do you put the link? How would that affect the wording? How about a link in case they DID NOT choose to reset their password?
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If you think Japanese is fun, try some bidirectional text, that is, mixing left-to-right with right-to-left text (such as English and Arabic). Good luck trying to make sense of how lines should wrap!
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Japanese newspapers still flow text right to left and vertically, top to bottom! What is even more impressive is that Japanese OCR software, such as Fuji Xerox's DocuWorks Desk, understands this!
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As many others have mentioned, Google translate is awful when in comes to Japanese.
I have been studying Japanese for quite some time and even I am sometimes mislead by the weird formatting of various web pages. Since no one else has mentioned it, I will try to help a bit here with the language side of it -- typically you don't see Japanese words broken up between lines since it makes it harder to read (esp with Kanjis that have multiple readings). What this means is that "ideally" you would break up sentences on "particle" and word boundaries. Particles are "markers" that help identify the subject and object etc. Parsing for these is way beyond this type of discussion, and require some working knowledge of the language. Also, to make it harder yet, spaces are not necessary NOR required in Japanese writing (western style punctuation use has crept in though). As a rough algorithm though (if you cannot read nor parse for real particles/words) you could assume any Kanji followed by Hiragana is a word (until you hit a period or another Kanji or Katakana). Also, Katakana are single words too (typically foreign words like "code" in your case). In your case:
好き (すき)
is a single word (to like/love, depending on context) and shouldn't be broken up with a line break (IMHO). Following this algorithm would break up the sentence like:
私は, ____ コード ____ が ___ 好き
which gives four "words" -- it turns out that for this case you have 2 particles は and が ( for those keeping score ) but keeping them attached to their prior "word" isn't typically too confusing to read.
This was probably too long winded for this question but I hope it helped some.
Bill
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If you remove Iron Man’s suit, is he left Stark naked?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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If Iron man and the Silver Surfer decided to join forces, would they be alloys?
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Um...20th April...[^] 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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 oh yeah, that must be where I heard it.
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I had to check my records to see if I had posted it already!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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That's a good one. Did you think of it all by yourself? Is it original?
I guess I'll google to see...
Guess not...
Google started typing for me and found the phrase and numerous links and...
[^]
Well, it was a good one. +1
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Would he change a Fe?
Mongo: Mongo only pawn... in game of life.
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This super hero was originally called Ion Man which was a more positive role model, I feel.
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If he only removed his bottom half, he'd be Toe-Knee Stark naked.
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:groan:
Software Zen: delete this;
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It's the very first time I've seen that photo
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So I'm writing a murder novel. Here's a snippet. I'd like your feedback please.
Sorry, the formatting isn't too good...
The Priest turned on his cell phone and it immediately buzzed. He tapped the instant message icon and saw a new unread message from the day before:
"As Elijah was taken to heaven, so shall we. Praise be to God. I suggest you read
2 Kings 2:11"."
"Thank you, I will Brother." he replied, "God Bless"
He tapped the delete icon and the message disappeared. He then turned off the phone, opened the cover, and removed the SIM chip, dropped it into the toilet and flushed. He got dressed and left, dropping the burn phone into his neighbor’s trash.
20 minutes later he exited the 40 onto St. Joseph’s Drive and pulled into the parking lot of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe Catholic Center, parked and went inside. The Center consisted of a typical brick church with thick mahogany doors and a steeple, a rectory, and a Bible study center. In the study center there was a reading room and he pulled open the door and went in. There were a few people sitting at tables reading and working on laptops, and no one paid him any attention, save for the one casual glance as he walked by. It was not unusual for the general public to come use the Center’s study room for personal or educational study. It was well lit, quite, and out of the way – all good reasons for he used it for his purposes.
There was a collection of old gilded bibles and other study materials on wooden shelves against the back wall. He removed a large King James Bible from the bottom row and flipped open to 2 Kings 2:11. In between the sheaves of manuscript was an 8" x 11" sealed envelope with no markings. He removed it, replaced the bible, and left.
He returned to the car and tore the end off the envelope and tipped it up, sliding out the contents. In the envelope was a 5" x 7" photo of an older Japanese man, and 3" x 5" card with a Japanese name and an address typed on it, and nothing else. He didn’t expect there to be more, as there never was.
The Priest was really a nickname he had acquired while in the Special Forces. Like most SpecOps guys he was proficient in a number of trades, but his religious principles had been something unique to him in his team, and the other members had taken to calling him "Father" and then later "Priest". Some would even come talk to him when the chaplain wasn’t around. He maintained his faith and biblical studies while in the Army, but after he got out he gradually drifted away. 12 years of traveling the world taking lives while risking your own hardens a person and he gradually lost his faith.
After leaving the Army he had been recruited by the CIA, and the name Priest, and his religious background were good cover. Anyone who might actually intercept his text messages and tried to make something of it wouldn’t find the name unusual given his past.
He studied the photo and the address and 10 minutes later had them committed it to memory. He got out of the car with the photo and card, pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit both on fire, dropped them to the ground, and watched them burn down to nothing. He stomped out the remaining flame and scattered the ashes to the breeze with his foot.
He got back in his car and pulled away, wondering what this Japanese guy had done to deserve a visit from him.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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