[TYPO3-UG US] ... from New York

[Alex Heizer]

Hello from the middle of the country. I'm with TEK Development, along 
with Michelle.

I think we have a great opportunity here, and what you say illustrates 
the difference in thinking between a native-speaker of any language and 
one who has learned or is still learning. This not only applies to the 
languages we normally consider languages (English, Dutch, etc.) but the 
language of any endeavor (endeavour??). One problem newbies have with 
TYPO3 is with learning the "language" of TYPO3,  whether it's 
"styles.content.get", "HMENU" or "TSref". And it's the same when we 
venture into areas of marketing that some are familiar with, but others 
are not. "PR", "AP style" and "full-bleed" may be familiar to some, but 
alien to others.

The opportunity we have is to create a culture in which we're free to 
use our strengths, knowing that someone else's strengths support our 
shortcomings without complaint or ridicule. This can mean an Italian 
developer can create an extension and translate it into English to the 
best of their ability, but can concentrate on making that extension the 
best it can be because there are good writers and editors on the team 
who will translate/rewrite the documentation into "correct" English (and 
any other language of choice). The writers and editors can focus their 
strengths on refining the documentation without having to worry about 
bugfixes for the extension. In the same vein, a designer can develop 
websites for clients without having to worry about setting up a 
presentation for a convention.

I know from experience that it's very hard to learn a new language. I'd 
spent several semesters butchering both German and Spanish before 
realizing it wasn't one of my strengths (but I still know how to count 
to 10 in Japanese -- go me!) So I understand and respect the amount of 
work that everyone has put into making an English translation for their 
extension when English wasn't their mother language. Since one of my 
strengths is spelling and grammar in US English, I'm going to start with 
the News and RSS Newsfeed Export extension manuals (picked randomly -- I 
have no idea if these docs need any corrections!!) and begin 
proofreading them for grammar and spelling and offer them back to the 
TYPO3 community. This is something we can all do that will help build 
the community, in every aspect where we see a shortcoming in another 
member: to work in a positive direction together. I'll even volunteer to 
be a "point man" where people can email me specific extensions they see 
a problem with and I'll proofread them, or people can contact me if they 
want to start proofreading themselves so that we don't duplicate efforts.

In any case, I'm excited about the great work everyone's done on T3 up 
until now, and hope we can keep up the momentum!

Alex



Kasper Skårhøj wrote:

>Hi John,
>
>I was adviced to take a look at this thread.
>
>I generally agree with your points but can't feel obliged personally to do
>anything about them. Surely it has outgrown my management capabilities. I'm
>relying on someone else to fix it for me.
>
>  
>
>>  - US English? I can't begin to touch upon the poor US English I've
>>been exposed to during my course with Typo3.  i.e. "Splitted"? Perhaps
>>it's a word, but I (we?) never use/hear it; instead I(we?) use "split".
>>  "I split the log for firewood" not "I splitted the log..."  but hey,
>>it's O/S so it's OK right?  wrong... I can not tell a US company to not
>>worry about the poor English... or teach them to use the Euro date input
>>format 
>>    
>>
>
>It's actually kind of nice for once to have developed something with a
>distinct european touch that US citizens now have to deal with. Then you
>know how it feels when technology and standards are imposed on you from
>abroad :-)
>
>Anyway, I understand your frustration. I guess it is little like when I talk
>in Danish with immigrants in my own country and they swap the words in the
>sentence and generally are pretty hard to understand. Unfortunately, their
>limited capabilities to speak my language has a tendency of making me think
>less of their intelligence although it is completely disconnected. I always
>guessed TYPO3 would suffer from this effect in US/UK. Maybe that is why it
>is most popular in Europe where no one speaks english natively and
>therefore have the same forgiving attitude to the grammar mistakes.
>
>Actually, I like most speaking english to non-natives. The reason is that we
>are in the same boat. Nobody feel inferior which I typically do when
>speaking with native speakers. You should actually be happy that I decided
>and insisted very early on write all code comments and publish all
>documentation in the best english I could. It wasn't easy! It's much easier
>for me to write in native danish and put the exact words on things I want
>to describe. Yet I didn't. Just imagine how much worse it would be if I was
>german! There are 100 million german native speakers and with that audience
>I wouldn't have to worry about an english translation for years!
>
>... and btw, native english speakers are a minority anyway; in the world
>there are more people capable of speaking and writing english who has
>another mother tongue. Better get used to it.
>
>Well, I could go on for a while, but the point is this: "To succeed in life,
>all you need is ignorance and confidence". I like to be ignorant about my
>shortcomings in writing proper english (and much else) and instead just do
>it with confidence! If I were asked to pay attention to grammar, spelling
>etc. that would completely paralyze every initiative. Yet I acknowledge
>every imperfection in the documentation you can point out, but it is not my
>job to fix it.
>
>
>Suggestion: Concern yourself with mistakes in the most static and popular
>material about TYPO3. That could be the .com websites, the Getting Started
>document, the backend translation and context sensitive help etc. Having a
>proof-reader workflow in action is quite expensive in terms of time and
>efforts and it doesn't make sense to apply it on every published bit of
>english.
>To the degree you can define such areas of focus for proof-reading I would
>be in favor of letting you fix stuff.
>
>  
>
>>Epilogue: Typo3 is, by far, the best O/S CMS I've come across.
>>    
>>
>
>Thank you!
>
>  
>