Canadian French advice?

Subject: Canadian French advice?
From: MAGGIE SECARA <SECARAM -at- MAINSAVER -dot- COM>
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 17:18:21 -0700

Two things, actually.

First: I'm going over our installation guide as it has come back from the
translators. This French version is presumably localized for (or at least
meant for use in) the Canadian French market. My French is good enough to
follow along but not enough to do the translation myself, by any means. Our
own people in Montreal have produced the translated document form my
original.

I'm aware that idiom is going to be different, so I'm trying not to be
annoyed that they seem to have not just translated but substantially
re-written (I'm sure they'd say corrected) my text. Among other things,
most of my clean, clear active voice text has suddenly reappeared as
overwhelmingly passive. At the risk of starting a range war, is this just a
convention of software documentation in Canadian French? Is this what those
users expect? Or is our Montreal office just not with-it in terms of
technical communications.

Second: a particular query:

Here's what I said in English:
1. From the Start menu, choose Run.
The Run dialog box appears.
2. In the text box, type regedit then click OK.

Here's the same thing, as translated by our folks in Montreal:
1. Démarrez l'édition du registre et tapez Regedit dans la fenêtre
de Démarrage située dans le menu principal de Windows.

Again, I don't want to raise tempers, but I'm confused. This looks ugly to
me, but I want to be fair. Will that do? Is that ok? I suppose I have no
business trying to copyedit in a language I'm not fluent in, but I'm stuck
with the task.

Any thoughts?

Cheers!

Maggie Secara
secaram -at- mainsaver -dot- com

The English Renaissance is alive at
http://ren.dm.net

From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000


Previous by Author: Re: Paying for the listserv
Next by Author: Canadian French summary
Previous by Thread: printing Word Comments in context
Next by Thread: Re: Canadian French advice?


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads