adding more confusion

Using Messenger Live 2009 in Windows XP I see the Dutch translator has been
adding more confusion to this aplication :-((
My user list has two categories, supposed to be called 'Offline' and
'Online'.
At the moment I have 3 users online, of which 2 are "away".
In stead of 'Online' my list calls the 3 users "Beschikbaar", translated:
'Available'.
This is wrong. Two of them are 'away' and definitely NOT available.



--
regards,

|\ /|
| \/ |@rk
\../
\/os

Greetings,

Hm, I see your point. That's interesting, I don't recall any of my Dutch friends having this
complaint

However, as I know you already are aware, I guess it comes from the fact from the English
where I'll be in the Online status, and this is the Online and Offline groups in Messenger.

Just out of personal curiosity, what do you think would be a better word (in Dutch)?

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
(c) 2009 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
--

"Linea Recta" <> wrote in message
news:#...
> Using Messenger Live 2009 in Windows XP I see the Dutch translator has been adding more
> confusion to this aplication :-((
> My user list has two categories, supposed to be called 'Offline' and 'Online'.
> At the moment I have 3 users online, of which 2 are "away".
> In stead of 'Online' my list calls the 3 users "Beschikbaar", translated: 'Available'.
> This is wrong. Two of them are 'away' and definitely NOT available.
>
>
>
> --
> regards,
>
> |\ /|
> | \/ |@rk
> \../
> \/os
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Kay [MVP]" <>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.msn.messenger
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 5:48 AM
Subject: Re: adding more confusion


> Greetings,
>
> Hm, I see your point. That's interesting, I don't recall any of my Dutch
> friends having this complaint


I suppose most of them couldn't care less, or they aren't sharp enough :-)


>
> However, as I know you already are aware, I guess it comes from the fact
> from the English where I'll be in the Online status, and this is the
> Online and Offline groups in Messenger.
>
> Just out of personal curiosity, what do you think would be a better word
> (in Dutch)?


I wouldn't know a good literal translation but, since the translater left
'Offline' untransated, it seems more than logical to me to do the same with
'Online'. These expressions are well understood in Netherlands and at least
this way terminology remains consistent.



regards,

|\ /|
| \/ |@rk
\../
\/os

Hi,

My guess would be that the linguists who work on these translations might just have such a
limited knowledge of what precisely they're translating, and so they end up with less than
ideal translations.

Your response is typical of most people I've spoken to about similar localization problems --
they would just rather prefer them in English then "translated" words which don't make any
sense. Especially for things like this (as opposed to say an error message or something
similar where you need to tell the user why something is happening).

I've never really understood why so much work/time/money is spent on these translations, that
have so many issues, when they can't even localize the individual English locales -- for
instance, I would like to see the correct spelling of colour in Windows/Messenger/Office.
But that's just a personal rant, I'll save for another time

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
(c) 2009 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
--

"Linea Recta" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jonathan Kay [MVP]" <>
> Newsgroups: microsoft.public.msn.messenger
> Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 5:48 AM
> Subject: Re: adding more confusion
>
>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> Hm, I see your point. That's interesting, I don't recall any of my Dutch friends having
>> this complaint
>
>
> I suppose most of them couldn't care less, or they aren't sharp enough :-)
>
>
>>
>> However, as I know you already are aware, I guess it comes from the fact from the English
>> where I'll be in the Online status, and this is the Online and Offline groups in
>> Messenger.
>>
>> Just out of personal curiosity, what do you think would be a better word (in Dutch)?
>
>
> I wouldn't know a good literal translation but, since the translater left
> 'Offline' untransated, it seems more than logical to me to do the same with
> 'Online'. These expressions are well understood in Netherlands and at least
> this way terminology remains consistent.
>
>
>
> regards,
>
> |\ /|
> | \/ |@rk
> \../
> \/os
>
>