Re: Canadian French advice?

Subject: Re: Canadian French advice?
From: Sébastien Théberge <stheberge -at- PCO-BCP -dot- GC -dot- CA>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 12:11:57 -0500

Maggie: as a French Canadian writer, I can ASSURE YOU that your translation is correct although not perfect. The translator probably wanted to charge you for more words than you needed.

Eric (and your co-workwer): nice try but there were at least 10 spelling mistakes.

Yes, sometimes, passive it is what users expect (litteral translations, or rational ones, sometimes really annoy French Canadians and they will eventually turn to the English instructions, therefore affecting the image of your product/company)

Geoff's comments were very true.

BUT here it is , in all its glory :

1. Cliquer sur Démarrer puis, à partir du menu, choisissez Exécuter. Une boîte de dialogue apparaîtra.
2. Taper «Regedit» puis sélectionner OK.

Seb

Here's what I said in English:
1. From the Start menu, choose Run.=20
The Run dialog box appears.
2. In the text box, type regedit then click OK.

>>> MAGGIE SECARA <SECARAM -at- MAINSAVER -dot- COM> 08/09 7:18 PM >>>
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:=20

Here's what I said in English:
1. From the Start menu, choose Run.=20
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. D=E9marrez l'=E9dition du registre et tapez Regedit dans la =
fen=EAtre
de D=E9marrage situ=E9e 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=20
secaram -at- mainsaver -dot- com

The English Renaissance is alive at
http://ren.dm.net=20

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


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