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sharptoothed
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CK
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Aidys
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CK
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Thadh
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jlake
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maaster
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Where do you get the sentences from?
Many of them were collected by the professor Tanaka.
Many of them were just added by different people.
Ich habe gerade eine StudiVZ-Gruppe namens Tatoeba.org gegründet. VZ-Mitglieder also immer hinein da: http://www.studivz.net/Groups/O...ee80e070614900
Do tags have numerical IDs that can be attributed to language-specific labels? Perhaps tags can be translated in a node-and-link fashion like sentences are!
I mean this instead of having tags being stuck in English.
Yes, they do, but I believe sysko is doing (or planning to do) something about the tags to make them translatable. I was planning to have progressed more on the tags cleanup and getting a discussion going on a number of issues relevant to the topic.
Recently something came up that slowed me down a bit and I'm gradually catching up, but it might still not be until April or May that I'm able to put in any solid hours on this.
An IRC conversation generated this idea:
Let's have specialists in certain areas write sentences about those areas so they can be translated into different languages. It may not even be an official designation--just a way to encourage certain types of people to contribute.
On the sentence contribution page[1] there is a link to CK's Words Not Yet in the Tatoeba[2]. I think this is a great tool for contributors who want to contribute to the database's weaknesses.
Perhaps we could create pages of specialised vocabulary (CK's page has an Academic Word List[3]). There is a database of words and translations at ordabanki.hi.is (the interface is in the Nordic languages, even Greenlandic and Sami, and English ... those bastards) that one could perhaps use to generate specialist word lists. I've just sent an email to the Word bank editor to see if one can download the whole thing.
[1] http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/add
[2] http://a4esl.com/temporary/tatoeba/notyet/
[3] http://a4esl.com/temporary/tato...t/eng-awl.html
Here's a click-able link to the Word Bank to make your lives a little easier:
http://ordabanki.hi.is
Heck, I'll even toss in the English interface for free:
http://ordabanki.hi.is/wordbank...WebLanguage=EN
More IRC conversation generated another idea: a MegaHAL-based chatbot for the #tatoeba or a separate IRC channel, fed the entire Tatoeba corpus language by language, perhaps on a weekly or monthly basis. Something that can generate silly sentences for our amusement, inspiration, or even material to add to Tatoeba. It's also a technical thing that Sysko would have to do because Sysko does half of everything.
For languages with few or no native speakers (Esperanto, Lojban, etc.), is there an equivalent for the "@Needs Native Check" tag, or is that tag okay to use even when it's not literally applicable?
It's fine to use it. :-)
Try not to apply it to Esperanto, because it will open a can of worms. Firstly because native speakers of Esperanto don't necessariy have the best command of the language, and also because the idea behind Esperanto is that every sentence which is grammatically correct is acceptable, no matter how strange it may sound to some ears. The actual test for an Esperanto sentence is whether someone from a different language background than the writer understands the sentence.
>or no native speakers (Esperanto, Lojban, etc.),
There are native speakers of Esperanto...
>Nevertheless i think that it's fine to use the "@Needs Native Check" tag, because there probably wont be many real native esperanto speakers here (i guess). So the tag implies what you just mentioned: "@Needs Check by a speaker from another country" but it would be to complicated to use this tag.
The community of Esperanto speakers on Tatoeba is probably the most diverse of all. Esperanto is actually bridging many different languages on Tatoeba that would otherwise probably remain unbridged for years. So there's no need for such a tag, since esperanto sentences are being exhaustively and constantly reviewed...If you want to retrieve non-native mistakes, concentrate on Globish, it's full of them...
ho, mi certe respektas la rolon de esperanto ĉi tie. Mi celis, ke kvankam ja ekzistas denaskaj esperantistoj, la plejparto de esperanto-uzantoj ĉi tie ne estas denaskaj, do la ununura problemo estus se ekzemple hazarde germana Esperantisto kontrolas Esperantan frazon de germana Esperantisto: Tiam eblus ke ambaŭ eraras samlingve.
The only problem could be that two users of the same native language check on each others Esperanto sentences: that way they could both err in the same way, due to their native language.
sed fakte, ĉe Tatoeba, estas esperanto parolantoj ekde multaj landoj. Pli ol iu alia lingvo...
jes, tio ne estas tro versxajna. Sed gxi igxas iom pli versxajna pro samtempeco: Se mi kutime kontribuas vespere estas ankaux vespere por aliaj samlingvaj kontribuantoj kiuj ankaux sxatas kontribui cxe cxi tiu tempo de la tago. Tamen oni ja ne nur kontrolas novajn frazojn, do ne estas tro versxajne :)
Yes, that is why I said "few or no native speakers". Esperanto has few. Lojban has none.
Nevertheless i think that it's fine to use the "@Needs Native Check" tag, because there probably wont be many real native esperanto speakers here (i guess). So the tag implies what you just mentioned: "@Needs Check by a speaker from another country" but it would be to complicated to use this tag.
Well, actually, the same can be said of native speakers of any language.
This was discussed a while back in some detail and alternatives for the title of this tag discussed. "@sentence check", "@grammar check", "@proficient speaker check" or something like that. There was no consensus so we just settled on leaving it for the time being.
The idea being that users with "trusted user" status realised that the tag was for marking sentences that needed to be checked by someone proficient enough to know whether the sentence was correct enough -- and able to judge the limits of their proficiency (a trickier task than one might expect; it's those unknown unknowns).
So, if you're fine with using a tag that's not literally correct, just continue to use "@Needs Native Check". If you don't, we can also reopen this naming discussion ... though that's another can of worms.
I completely agree with Swift, that is fine to use it by my side ;)
Fucongcong a détruit ma phrase 784420 en arguant que c'est un "duplicate" (pas de traduction compréhensible pour les francophones...) de la phrase777512, mais ça n'est pas le cas...Evidemment, je ne peux rien y faire que le reporter ici...
En règle général, je trouve que très peu d'attention est portée à la suppression de supposés doubles et inversement à l'attachement de traductions pourtant distinctes.
Je préconise qu'aucune suppression ne soit opérée sans le consentement du propriétaire, ce qui pose de toutes façons des problèmes de licence...
Ah désolée, je me suis trompée. J'ai zappé la nuance entre tes deux phrases. J'y ferai plus attention la prochaine fois.
Peux-tu rajouter ta phrase comme traduction pour la phrase allemande, stp ?
http://tatoeba.org/chi/sentences/show/777513
ben non, je ne peux pas faire ça. Si tu ne le sais pas, demande à sysko, il va t'expliquer...
en plus, le champ permettant de consulter une phrase par son numéro semble avoir désormais disparu, si bien que je ne sais même pas consulter ma propre phrase supprimée...
Vu l'historique, je pense que c'était une traduction de la phrase allemande. On ne peut pas retrouver ta phrase supprimée, mais on peut la retraduire. Voici le lien de la phrase allemande :
http://tatoeba.org/chi/sentences/show/777513
c'est fait, mais je ne trouve pas normal qu'on ne puisse restaurer les phrases supprimées par erreur. Là il n'y avait pas de commentaires, mais si c'était le cas, ils seraient perdus, sans compter tous les liens évventuels...
mais je confirme que les commentaires sont perdues (dans l'absolu on a une sauvegarde de la base toute les semaines, donc on pourrait toujours retrouver ceux-ci, delta qu'ils datent d'au moins la semaine passé), idem je vais repenser cela quand je m'occuperai de remettre la fonctionnalité de commentaires.
au tenmps pour moi on avait corrigé cela, les commentaires sont toujours gardé et accessible sur la page de la phrase (ce sont les étiquettes et l'appartenance aux listes qui sont perdus )
ouais, donc c'est la merde. Donc en attendant, il faudrait être plus que prudent quand vous supprimez des phrases...
Pourquoi, c'est la merde? Pourquoi ne codes-tu pas ce que tu voudrais?
?
Bah sysko a beaucoup mieux expliqué ce que je voulais dire.
Bah, tu ne devrais pas te mêler des conversations des grandes personnes dans des langues que tu ne maîtrises pas et que tu ne prends pas la peine de lire correctement...
;) ;) ;)
:D :D :D
:P
parce que toi, tu te trouves "respectful" en m'invitant, en coordination avec ton copain Swift à aller me faire voir ailleurs ? Moi je trouve ça très grossier de ta part. Chacun voit le respect à sa fenêtre...
> ouais, donc c'est la merde
soit.
Excuse-moi de remarquer un problème...
ce n'était pas dans le fond. Je suis d'accord que le système est très loin d'être parfait, qu'il y a eu des erreurs de faites lors de conception, erreur que nous payons maintenant car rattraper le tir maintenant n'est plus aussi simple que si on l'avait corriger avant. Je n'ai contre non plus que tu fasses remarquer les dysfonctionnements et que même que tu t'en indignes, Trang et moi ne pensons pas être omniscient même sur notre propre travail, et certaines erreurs / défauts peuvent nous échapper, après pour l'indignation (peut-être pas l'adjectif le plus approprié, mais je ne trouve pas de mots plus proche pour le moment, ça va me revenir) , ok idem, on ne donne pas peut être la bonne priorité à chaque tâche, peut-être certaines devraient être traiter avant d'autre etc.
Tout cela d'accord,
Mais dès lors "c'est de la merde", non là je ne vois pas, ce n'est ni constructif, ni poli, ni respectueux. Peut-être lors de nos premiers échanges je n'ai pas non plus fait part de la plus grande courtoisie, mais ça ne semble pas une justification à continuer dans la lancé.
là, tu commets une erreur d'analyse syntaxique: Relis bien ce que j'ai écris...
....es-tu bien sûr que j'avais écrit un "de" entre "c'est" et "la merde" ?
Es-tu bien sûr que "c'est la merde" a le même sens que "c'est de la merde" ?
Tu sais bien que non.
Je conçois que tu puisses avoir eu une journée fatigante et que je vous tape sur les nerfs et que Pharamp et Swift m'invitent de manière coordonnée à aller me faire voir ailleurs, mais tu sais bien, toi, que "c'est la merde" signifie en français que l'on constate simplement qu'il y a un problème dont on a pas pour l'instant la solution, et c'est très différent de dire qu'on pense que ce qui cause le problème est "de la merde"...
Voici une nouvelle preuve édifiante que les gens lisent ce qu'ils veulent bien lire. On lit ce qu'on veut lire, avec le contexte qu'on a en tête, et non celui qui est indiqué...
Une belle leçon de texte, dans tous les cas...
>Je conçois que tu puisses avoir eu une journée fatigante
Exact, il est 6h du matin sur mon fuseau horaire et je ne suis pas couché (à prendre au sens premier du terme)
là dessus mes plus plates excuses, en effet je pense que mon inconscient (surement la dominante noire de ton avatar qui par mes origines occidental me fait associer sacredceltic => noir , noir => mal , sacredceltic => mal) m'a joué un tour.
en effet c'est la merde.
ouais mon avatar ne joue pas en ma faveur, je sais. Ma nationalité non plus d'ailleurs. Ni mon âge. Ni le fait que j'aime pas les émoticons. Mais ce qui tue, c'est que j'ai le front de demander l'équité linguistique. Ça, ça dépasse l'entendement et il faut absolument tout faire pour me faire taire !
Imagine un peu : Une espèce de vioque franchouillard avec une sale gueule, qui refuse obstinément de mettre des pastilles d'ecstasy plein ses messages et qui ose se plaindre en plus ! Non mais des fois !
Il ne manquerait plus que tu habites en Belgique.
ouais, c'est un cauchemar...
Merci !
C'est vrai que c'est une fonctionnalité manquante. Il faut le voir avec Trang ou Sysko.
Les modérateurs n'ont pas le pouvoir de le faire, mais je pense que sysko pourrait opérer sur le database de façon de restaurer n'importe quelle phrase. Il faut lui demander ça, mais j'imagine que oui, c'est possible.
Oui je suis d'accord que l'on devrait pouvoir le faire, à l'heure actuelle ce n'est pas facilement possible d'avoir une telle fonctionnalité de manière automatique à cause d'une erreur de conception, qui rend ardu la chose. Cependant nous avons l'historique complet des changements, donc oui il m'est tout à fait possible sur demande de restaurer une phrase et des liens.
D'ailleurs la semaine dernière j'ai codé le système d'historique de la nouvelle version, de manière à permettre facilement des retours en arrière en cas d'erreurs, même s'il y a eu des modifications encore après.
I need to have this translated into as many languages as possible:
http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/785667
I'm going to add this message somewhere on the Wall. It wouldn't make sense to tell people they can write in any language in a language they don't understand.
What is the best tag for sentences that have British English punctuation styles? There is one for Mr/Mr., but specifically I'm wondering what I should do for quotes. (American English puts punctuation inside quotes, British English on the outside.)
Here are a few:
http://martin.swift.is/tatoeba/...ml#orthography
If you don't like "spelling" for cases of punctuation, you can create a new tag for that.
*** A quick note on civility ***
Dear community,
This may seem to some as an overreaction, but it's one of little cost and, given past bouts, one hardly too often repeated.
It should come as no surprise to anyone interested in the project that everyone here is pretty passionate about languages in general and this project in particular. After all, with so many other things to spend one's time on, there must be some magic that keeps us here, contributing sentences and exchanging ideas to improve the project.
But the passion (and, to an extent, the international nature of the project) can be a double edged sword. At times passions run high and there may come up disagreements. Sometimes these are ideological differences, but other times they may be simple misunderstandings.
These misunderstandings commonly arise in projects such as these, but can be mitigated by awareness and proper responses.
A short while ago, things started spiralling out of control, prompting lots of discussion on IRC, in personal messages and emails about how to encourage a more productive form of communication. The main advice that emerged from that discussion was to calm down.
I'm a great big fan of the principle of "assuming good faith" on behalf of one's fellow contributors. Trang also posted a blog post entitled "Warning: you are being disrespectful
"[1] where she listed a few good steps to follow in order to diffuse tensions.
The bottom line is: be respectful, and take discussion that could be perceived as otherwise to private messages. If you see a comment that you find disrespectful and no-one has commented on, assume they are simply ignoring it and either: do the same, or respond privately.
That said, thanks to all for their bit in what is by-and-large a inspiringly cooperative group of people.
Sincerely,
Martin Swift
[1] http://blog.tatoeba.org/2010/09...espectful.html
(en) I don't think you can qualify the fact to deem the use of a particular language on this wall "impolite" as a "misunderstanding". Clearly, everybody understands what it is: it is a CLEAR-CUT case of segregation and is NOT acceptable.
Rather than recurringly complaining over the consequences of such segregations, I think Tatoeba should do something to ACTIVELY promote the equitableness of languages. To start with, it should remove English-only references in its logo and elsewhere that tend to make newcomers believe that it is an english-only free range, which is particularly contradictory for a community that deals with languages. I also think that a reminder on the wall that all languages are equally acceptable is necessary.
(fr) Je ne pense pas que vous puissiez qualifier le fait de traiter l'utilisation d'un langage particulier sur ce mur d"impoli" comme une "incompréhension". Clairement, chacun comprend ce dont il ressort : Il s'agit d'une discrimination FLAGRANTE qui est INACCEPTABLE.
Plutôt que de régulièrement se plaindre des conséquences de telles discriminations, je pense que Tatoeba devrait ACTIVEMENT promouvoir l'équité des langues. pour commencer, devraient être retirées les références exclusivement en anglais dans son logo et ailleurs, qui tendent à faire accroire aux nouveaux venus qu'il s'agit d'un champ de tir anglophone, ce qui est particulièrement contradictoire pour une communauté qui traite des langues. Je pense également qu'un rappel sur le mur, que toutes les langues y sont recevables, est nécessaire.
Dear sacredceltic,
You might be surprised about this, but I do agree with your idea about removing the word "project" from the logo and some kind of "all languages are equally allowed here" button/tag/symbol or something here.
I don't know of prior cases of "segregation"; as you call it, but I don't think that everyone sees it in the extreme way, you do. My words were ambiguous and I'm sorry for that. I do NOT want English to be the sole language on the wall (or ANYTHING like that) and I see no reason why non-anglophones should not become moderators too.
My protest should've rather been understood as "Why does someone deliberately change the language inside a thread, thus excluding some of its readers?" (if it were some person unable to write in English, I'd never have complaint). I never tried to imply that only English speakers should have a right to post on the Wall.
Maybe I was too pragmatic here. Being a linguist, Esperantist, a polyglot, currently living in a country were most people do not speak English, and not being an English native speaker myself, I'd never *segregate* people according to their language.
P.S.: Sorry for my broken English. :-P
Speaking English has never been a requirement for becoming moderator.
Well, but as a matter of fact, all moderators do speak English, unlike the vast majority of the world's polyglots (as I have shown earlier, even if Swift is unable to comprehend this, although it's so easy to compute...)
And the reason is clear-cut: Moderators coopt moderators...in English! So it's exactly like any elite reproduction system. You end up with castes.
I don't speak English according to your standards, but I speak a broken childish English. That doesn't count as pure English. Probably Vortarulo, sysko, Demetrius and so on speak very good but not perfect English, as they are learners willing to learn.
The only anglophone moderators with English as their mother-tongue are CK and blay_paul. But we have three German moderators and two French moderators. Will you start a campaign against German, now?
And by the way, that's not a sin, to have been obligated to learn English at school from the age of six, is it?
It's not a sin to teach children a language at the age of six, the earlier the easier for them. But it should be discussed what language and why. The main problem i see here is that it never IS discussed, or if then theres always the "english is the biggest language" argument nobody rends to disagree with. Of course the little children cant choose what they prefer to learn and later find themselves in a situation where it is much more difficult to learn another language from scratch, so they mostly stay with english. But obliging english on everybody? Thismakes the english dominance (although often usefull) anything else than a free chioce and this is just besides many other disadvantages.
I agree, as I've been obligated to learn a language I always hated (just because I felt always obligated to learn it, not for other reasons - every language is beautiful).
But it seems here that speaking English is becoming a "devil" sign, like we are collaborating with a secret agency to destroy the world, and that's not - we are simple Italians, French, Germans, Spaniards who were taught English with force. Why should we stop using English? We studied it hard, it came us to love English sometimes, so why should we put in the trash years of work?
If every language is equal, English is equal to other languages too. If it is the language that Pharamp and Jakov have in common, why can't we use English? It would be probably a day when we will have in common German, Esperanto, maybe Italian... and nobody will say us "wuuu you're supporting English imperialists!!".
I like your point! English shall of course be equal to the other languages and not condemned, even though we were forced to learn it and therefore not always love it.
The difficulty that results from this is whether we should mostly use english, because then the suspected majority can follow (as BraveSentry suggests), or whether we should use for example french, because it is a language we two have in common (as sacredceltic suggests). There is of course no simple solution as both arguments do have good reasons.
My level of french is worse than my level of english, thats why i write in english to you. But i do agree with sacredceltic that i should be "allowed" (i.e. not condemned) to express my ideas in the language i know best that you understand. For instance i would be totally okay if you wrote to me in french - as i understand most of it and (maybe) you can express yourself better than in english; and i reply in english - as you understand most of it and i can express myself better than in french.
Another suggestion i would want to make is that one could express ones thoughts in the language the other one can be communicated best and sum up the points one made in the language of the suspected readers that are not directly talked to.
Maybe it would also help if we had a "show me what languages the discussion-partner has in common with me" and a "show me what language the other commenters have in common" function as soon as we have a "better" profile, with language self-ratings.
At last i want to agree that the discussion should not go to personal insulting.
>English shall of course be equal to the other languages and not condemned
Remind me whoever condemned the use of English on Tatoeba and under what circumstances? I think, somehow, the debate went astray, and from an attack against the use of german on this wall, it ended up, through some bizarre tweaks, dealing about segregation against the English language! How amazing!
In French, we call this game "téléphone arabe". It's very funny : the first player whispers a sentence in the following player's ear, and so on, until it comes back to the first who then says the original and the final versions loud, and they usually completely contradict each other!
The same interestingly also happens in international institutions with retranslations. After so many restranslations, texts end up stating the contrary to their original. It is estimated, for instance, than translating any EU language to any other through English distorts 80% of the content of a given administrative text.
I sometimes wonder how they manage to administer India with 400 languages...Maybe they just don't and everybody pretends it's all ok when it is probably an utter mess!
But then again, this website's users aren't representative of the world's polyglot. At all. You seem to forget that.
Alas...
>but I don't think that everyone sees it in the extreme way, you do
I know, even if I was the last one to raise this concern , I would nevertheless.
I remember a time, not so long ago, when it was deemed "extreme" to think that Blacks should not vacate their seats for Whites in US busses...Only Rosa Parks took exception to it, and was then considered as an extremist by the white majority. People hate to challenge their cosy paradigms, whatever they are, and usually prefer to lick their master's asses in order to gain a little more than others...Marx had perfectly understood this alienation phenomenon, where the slaves themselves manufacture their own chains.
In our 21st century world, the priviledged elite whose parents have paid their trips to English-speaking countries to learn Globish in immersion (which is the only way to correctly learn this mess of a language) become the avant-guarde of the linguistic oppression, forcing others to abide by their master's rules. Already, Celtic languages have been exterminated this way, their speakers being considered sub-citizens.
Globish has become the safest way that the elite found in modern times to reproduce itself...
And the elite's children are the new kapos of this new "paradise".
PS: I don't mind the quality of your English. Mine is not perfect either and will never be, in spite of decades of hard work, so that natives will always find advantage to overpower me in discussions in which they always impose their language. But then, precisely, as our non-native English will never be enough for us to be treated equally, why shoot ourselves in the foot and try to impose or favour it? Don't you think that the US and British governments are powerful enough already that you don't need to collaborate with them? Do you hate your language so much? Why?
Je suis entièrement d'accord avec les idées défendues par Sacredceltic. La lecture de ce débat m'a convaincu de mettre un terme à ma collaboration avec Tatoeba.
Ah ben non par exemple ! Si vous êtes d'accord avec moi, ils vont penser que je fais des adeptes et ils vont me couper le sifflet ! Déjà qu'on m'a déjà retiré mes accréditations...
Et puis ça ne collerait pas avec la théorie de Trang, CK et Swift selon laquelle j'emmerde tout le monde avec ma défense de l'équité linguistique. Vous ne pouvez pas faire exception, ça ne colle pas.
De plus, quitte à avoir des adeptes, j'aimerais autant qu'ils ne soient pas belges...
Donc je vous prie de vous remettre au travail sur-le-champ !