Table of contents
- Why are some translations in grey?
- How do I delete a sentence?
- I'd like to add a new language in Tatoeba, what do I have to do?
- How do I change the language of a sentence?
- How can I add tags to a sentence?
- How can I link or unlink sentences?
- How can I become a trusted user?
- How can I become an advanced contributor?
- Can I help translating the website into other languages?
- How do I contribute audio in Tatoeba?
- When contributing in Chinese, should I use simplified or traditional characters?
- How do I delete my account?
FAQ
Why are some translations in grey?
Grey translations are indirect translations. In other words, they are translations of the translations, and not translations of the main sentence (the main sentence is the sentence in big letters).
We display them because they can be useful, but you should be careful. Their meaning may differ a little from the main sentence.
How do I delete a sentence?
At the moment, normal users cannot delete sentences, only moderators can. We will someday add the possibility for users to delete their own sentences, but in the meantime, if you want to have a sentence deleted, add a comment on the sentence asking for deletion and explain why you'd like to delete it.
If you have added something by mistake, rather of asking for it to be deleted, try to replace it by a valid sentence.
I'd like to add a new language in Tatoeba, what do I have to do?
1) Contact Trang (by email or private message) and indicate in the title the language(s) that you would like us to add.
IMPORTANT: We cannot add your language if it does not have an ISO 639-3 code. At this point we already have a lot of languages to deal with, and it's a bit too complicated to deal with languages that are not "officially" recognized.
2) In your email, tell us what icon we can use for each requested language. It does not necessarily have to be the flag of a country. We just want a picture that people can easily associate to the language. If you don't have any specific image, give Pharamp some ideas of what she could use to represent the language (a color, a symbol, an animal). Give all the ideas you have so that we can invent a nice icon for the language. Keep in mind that our icons are only 30x20 pixels.
You do not have create the icon yourself. For graphical consistency, it's better that we do it. Simply send us (or link us) an image from which we will create the icon.
3) Translate 5 sentences into your language(s). Don't worry if the language detection fails. For instance it's possible that the language is detected as Hungarian, but you are not adding a sentence in Hungarian. This is not a problem. If it happens, you can click on the language icon, and select "other language" in the list that appears (it's the first option). Then later, you will be able to set the correct language once it's added in Tatoeba.
4) Create a public list and name it with the name of your language. Add your 5 translations into that list. Feel free to translate more than 5 sentences, but always add them into the list, so that we can easily find them!
5) Don't hesitate to ask us if you don't know how to do something!
IMPORTANT: We will only add your language(s) if you have done all of this. And please forgive us if we take forever despite your going through all these steps.
How do I change the language of a sentence?
Click on the flag; a list of languages will appear. Choose the correct language.
You can only change the language of sentences that belong to you.
You also have to make sure the sentence which language you want to change is the main sentence (and not a translation). If it's a translation, then click on it. It will redirect to a page where the translation becomes the main sentence.
If your language is not in the list, you can request it to be added (cf. question above).
How can I add tags to a sentence?
You have to be an advanced contributor (cf. below).
How can I link or unlink sentences?
You have to be an advanced contributor (cf. below).
How can I become a trusted user?
The status of "trusted user" does not exist anymore. It has been renamed into "advanced contributor".
Related link: http://blog.tatoeba.org/2011/05/new-users-status.html
How can I become an advanced contributor?
You have to contact Trang and tell her that you want to be a candidate to become advanced contributor. Make sure you have read and understand ENTIRELY the guide of the good contributor.
The exact conditions to become an advanced contributor will be published some time in June (hopefully).
Related link: http://blog.tatoeba.org/2011/05/new-users-status.html
Can I help translating the website into other languages?
Yes, thank you for asking! :D
I will explain below all the steps we’re going through to provide Tatoeba in several languages. If you want to help us translate the interface, step 3 contains the main information. However, it’s good to know about what happens before and after.
- Extracting strings from code source. We extract from the code source the strings that need to be translated. These strings are saved into a POT file. It’s just a text file, with some special format (you can open it with a text editor like Notepad). The concept is that the POT file is the template. From this template will be created several PO files: each PO file will contain the translations into a specific language.
- Sending POT file to Launchpad. We send the POT file to a platform called Launchpad. It provides a web interface to manage translations of the POT file and gives the possibility to translate collaboratively. Launchpad will process the POT file to update the existing PO files. It will scan for new strings in the POT file and add them to each PO file. It will detect strings that are no more present and delete them from each PO file.
- Translating. You’ll need to have a Launchpad account. Here’s where you can translate the strings of Tatoeba’s interface: https://translations.launchpad.net/tatoeba. Feel free to add a new language if you don’t see your desired language in the list! Once you chose a language, you can filter the page to display only strings that haven’t been translated yet.
- Updating Tatoeba. Every Monday at 6AM (France time), the PO files are downloaded and converted into MO files. The MO files are binary files, and they are the ones that Tatoeba uses to get the translations of the interface. So it’s only when the MO files are uploaded that Tatoeba translations are actually updated.
You should know that the whole process is not automated yet.
- Someone has to manually start the extraction of the strings from the code source.
- Someone has to manually send the POT file to Launchpad.
- However, thanks to Ppjet6, the part where we download the PO files from Launchpad and convert them into MO files is automated.
You should also know that we sometimes update Tatoeba BEFORE we send the latest POT to Launchpad. As a result, you will not always see the latest strings in Launchpad. Conversely, we sometimes send translations to Launchpad BEFORE we update Tatoeba, so you may find strings on Launchpad that cannot be found anywhere on Launchpad yet. So don't be surprised if texts in Tatoeba and Launchpad are not always synchronized.
Finally, there are some parts of Tatoeba that cannot be translated at all. The FAQ is one of them. The system we use to provide Tatoeba in several languages is good for translating small strings (like options in a menu, language names, etc), but it’s not adapted for whole articles. Ideally, we should use a wiki (or something like that) to store documentation about Tatoeba but we still don’t have that.
How do I contribute audio in Tatoeba?
1) You need have a good microphone because we care about sound quality.
2) Download Shtooka Recorder and get familiar with it. You will be using it to record the sentences, it's a very useful software.
Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcJoLBjUOaY (made by AmberShadow).
3) Pick a few random sentences (just 2 or 3), record them, and send us the samples at team@tatoeba.org, with the title "Audio for Tatoeba in <language_name>". This way we can evaluate if the sound quality is good enough. If it is, we will send you back a list of sentences to record. BUT contrary to what is shown in the YouTube tutorial, you should send us your file in FLAC, not OGG. FLAC is a lossless compression format and therefore will keep all the quality of the audio.
4) Read the list we sent you and check that all the sentences sound natural to you. If a sentence doesn't sound natural, simply erase it from the list. It would be appreciated if you also went to the website to post a comment on that sentence, to indicate it doesn't sound natural and should be improved.
5) In Shtooka Recorder, copy-paste the final list in the "Words to record", fill in the info in the "Speaker" tab, go back to the "Words" tab and click "Continue".
6) Press space to indicate you are ready and read the sentence that is highlighted in red. The software will detect when to start and stop recording, and will jump to the next sentence automatically. All you have to do is read what's highlighted in red. If you want to take a break, you can press space to pause, so that it doesn't record something unrelated. If you need to listen to a sentence's audio, simply select it and press "Enter" (you can navigate with the directional keys: up, down, left, right).
7) Upload your files somewhere (like Megaupload or RapidShare) and give us the link. We will then include your audio in Tatoeba as soon as possible and will let you know when it is done. We understand it would be more practical if you could record/upload directly from Tatoeba, but we unfortunately don't have time to implement the features for this =/
Related link: http://blog.tatoeba.org/2010/04/audio-for-tatoeba-sentences-in.html
When contributing in Chinese, should I use simplified or traditional characters?
You can use whichever you like. We have a tool that will automatically convert simplified into traditional, and traditional into simplified.
When browsing sentences, if you set the Chinese sentence as the main sentence, you will see an additional icon at the top of the sentence.
traditional
simplified
Below each Chinese sentence, you will also see the transcription in pinyin, and below the pinyin, the conversion into simplified or traditional.
You can browse the Chinese sentences to see what it looks like.
How do I delete my account?
There is no button anywhere for you to delete your account. We have not implemented this feature yet because it is a bit tricky. However, you can get your account deleted the following way:
- Send an email to team@tatoeba.org with the title "Account deletion".
- Tell us what is your username.
- Optionally, tell us why you decided to delete your account.
- Also send a private message to Trang with the title "Account deletion", using of course the account you want to delete. It will serve as a confirmation that you are indeed the owner of the account you want to delete.
By default, here is what we will do:
- We will delete all the the information you have added in your profile.
- The only information that will remain is the day you have registered and your username.
- You email will be deleted from the database as well. You will not receive any notifications anymore.
- We will change your username into something more generic (for instance "user002").
- We will change your status into "inactive".
- We will delete your private messages.
- We will NOT delete your sentences. We will transfer them to another member of Tatoeba when we find a volunteer to adopt them. Until then, they will remain in your inactive account.
- We will NOT delete your comments on sentences. You may delete them yourself, but take into consideration the fact that a deleting one of your comments can make a discussion confusing.
- We will NOT delete your messages on the Wall.
If there is something you do not want us to do (or want us to do), you will have to tell us in your email.