Style of communication in manuals, was: Re: Seeking Help with Windows Maxima installer localization

On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 03:55:07PM +0100, van Nek wrote:
> Am 15 Nov 2006 um 15:10 hat Mario Rodriguez geschrieben:
> 
> > > 2. In German there are two kinds of translating 'you' respective two
> > > ways of communicating with the reader. One is direct, personally,
> > > private and the other one is more elaborated, impersonal, official,
> > > polite, ... . Which kind of communication with the user does the
> > > Maxima community prefer? 
> > 
> > Hallo Volker,
> > 
> > We have the same problem in Spanish (du=t?, Sie=usted). But I prefer in
> > these cases to avoid personal references to the reader, and make use of
> > the impersonal form. For example, I'd write something like
> > 
> > "Man soll das Fenster oeffnen" (or something similar)
> > 
> > instead of "Du solls das Fenster oeffnen", or "Sie sollen das Fenster
> > oeffnen".
> > 
> > But I'm not sure that "Man ..." is common practice in these contexts.
> > 
> > Just an idea.
> > 
> 
> Hi Mario,
> 
> eLearning has proven, that in education with electronic media the students get better results 
> if the eLearning system communicates with the students in a direct and personal style, using 
> "Du=t?". 
> 
> Does Maxima should have a more professional attitude? Then it should communicate in a 
> more non-personal style using "Sie=usted". Does especially open source software need a 
> professional attitude to avoid the association open source = not professional?
> 
> We should clear this point here in the list. The English manual doesn't have this problem. 
> But as you write, both the Spanish and German translators should think about a clear style 
> of communication: Educational and personal or professional and non-personal?
> 
> Let's see what the others think about this. Is there a similar problem in Italian or Russian?
In Italian the different translation groups (gnu/gnome/kde) has taken the
convention to translate always in an impersonal way. 
The personal way was coosen only for elementary school project.
So I think that the Italian Maxima manual should follow the impersonal way.

bye

-- 

Marco Ciampa

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