Languages
I love stories behind the pictures. Therefor I am usually a bit frustrated when clicking on an image and finding a text written in any language I don't understand (or even complete discussions). Changing 20 times between tookapic and google translate is a bit complicated and not always leading to an understandable translation. Please don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of language diversity, but all the same I would appreciate english subtitles. By the way, @rene gruber has found a great way but does a lot of work to translate all his texts in german, italian and english. A positive effect of writing strictly in english is that I have noticed that my english is becoming better because of the daily practice :)
Ian Prince Yes, the descriptions and the stories they tell are often really interesting.
I'm very much an "original version with subtitles" kind of guy, and enjoy trying to "read" languages I dont really understand.
Facebook's UI helps me with this with its "See Translation" links which avoids having to switch into Google translate.
Another solution is to use the "translate" functions built into some browsers.
That said machine translation clearly has its limits, especially with languages such as ...Polish :) Which is kind of nice in my opinion! All the more power to you Poles and your Polish language that a computer can't really understand :)
Satoshi T
I am usually not use English. As Pawel makes this site in English, I recognize that the "standard language" here is English.
So I try to write description in English about my photos.
I think personal conversation in the comment line is free, but If you want many people from other country to understand -especially the title-, I think that it is better to write in English as much as possible.
Kazzi Satoshi, You're too hard for Yourself. Your english may be not perfect, but it's absolutely enough... and by writing every day, even that little stories under the photos, You can get only better! :)
Satoshi T Kazziz, you are too kind for me...
Kazzi I'm not, Satoshi. I'd be glad to talk to You in person to hear it ;) but You really don't have any reasons to be ashamed. Practice, keep it up. My English is not perfect, far from it, but since I'm not a politician (lol), actor or translator, it does not have to be. it's "goodenough", and so is Yours! :)
365 Shades of Calvados
@Ian The most disturbing google or bing translations that I've met were from Vietnamese. I really couldn't guess what my friends were writing about!
@jazzie, @Grace I think if we try to write using simple language the automatic translations may be closer to the original.
I read about a man who writes his novels in simple Polish, so that Google Translate can easily translate them into other languages. :)
Ian Prince Hihi, isn't "simple Polish" an oxymoron? ;) Interesting about Vietnamese being so hard to translate. FWIW, I've seen Google translate really really struggle with Swiss-German :)
365 Shades of Calvados
Swiss-German like Austrian-German has rather specific vocabulary, so no wonder Google gets stuck.
As for simple Polish, I've seen samples of the translation and the results were quite promising. You just need to be aware that your text will be translated into English. I say English, because GT translates every language through English, which is fun to analyze when you translate related languages like Polish to Slovak or Danish to Norwegian or Swedish. :D
jazzie Swiss german has no official written language and therefor we all write as we want and in our own dialects. It is a way to keep a secret from google 😄.
Jule I speak (and am) German-German and sometimes I have no idea at all what Austrians and Swiss people say :D
Romain
If have the idea that I'm the only dutch speaking guy in here! 😉.
It should be a nice option to search by country / language between the users....
papaya
I try to write well in English by Google Translator.
I have a problem with the teaching of English (bad student;-))
Translator does not emphasize, as I did in the Polish language. I'm trying dozens of times. And it seems to me that somehow outwit an interpreter. I think it is more or less well. I hope. I'm curious how you friends to see?
And in the final translator something breaks down. ;-)
Michael Gatton I don't mind using google translator as needed. I would not want to impose English on anyone else. But I assume from a practical perspective and as a business model, English will likely be the default for some time to come. At least until some sane nation steps up to take Anglo-American place in the world.
Tomasz Dolata I consider that the English language is universal and should the Handling of here.I also am using google translate, but my time at the school was obligatory knowledge of Russian language.A life still forced to learn Dutch :)
Romain Aha Tomasz... so today we start our first Dutch lesson... OK? :-D
Tomasz Dolata Met zachte G ? :D
agnieszka bladzik new polish wave of users and I observe majority of comments and description in polish, I left my tookapic on english version and I try to write everything in english. Now I'm confused if 5 comments are in polish should I add one in polish as well or stick to english.
Ian Prince I totally admire, and feel thankful to, you and all the other non-native English speakers writing here in English. That said, I totally respect, and understand, that some threads end up being in the mother tongue of those conversing, be it Polish or any other language. Oh, and Polish looks a cool language, to my eyes anyway
agnieszka bladzik :) i think it's first time that I hear/read someone tell it looks cool - I have few international friends and they always say it's rather ridiculous ;) [but they try to speak it]
Magda Korzewska I am so used to write in my funny English and I am trying to keep it, but have the same feeling as you. I will try to stick to it as this is very beneficial for me. I have also friends who follow my project abroad, so it is also easy for them to read it.
Paweł Kadysz Adding on-demand translations (like on Facebook) on tookapic is a matter of few minutes, really. But it's not free.
agnieszka bladzik i don't know if it will be worth it in long run. i'm just more confused now that's all ;)
Anne
I think we use Polish instead of English because (especially I'm talking about myself right now;)) we don't feel comfortable with it. For example today I made a description in English but I deleted it because I thought that text is full of mistakes and I felt unsure. I know that it's stupid :) Also, I often write very long sentences and then I have no idea how to translate it so I give up.
I just wanted to explain some reasons why Polish people write in Polish :D I hope I will have more courage to write descriptions in English soon :) And it's good that this topic is here because for example I wasn't aware that it's a problem and people really like to read stories about photos (cause I can read in Polish and in English, so I didn't notice this)
Gogi Golzman dear ann ..... i prefer to read your mistaken english then dont understand you at all .. all of us friends. and believe me, more you write in english , less mistakes you will have =] good luck!
Anne So I'm going to describe pictures in my strange English :) Thanks :)
Tomek Zimnocho @ann, it took me a month living in England to start to understand what people are talking to me, 2 years to feel comfortable to speak and another 4 to make my english as bad as local people speak ;) (yup, some locals are rubbish ;)). But since day 1 everybody seemed to understand what I was trying to say. so don't worry, just use english. actually what I see up there is quite good :)
Gogi Golzman
i see english as an international language.
almost in every country people speak english.
so i guess its the best for all of us =]
Marcin Bujacz For me as a newcomer it was a bit confusing that all UI is Polish, talks are in English and descriptions are sometimes Polish and sometimes English. I ended up choosing language which I see and titled my first photo in Polish. I think many people think similar and if they see website in Polish they will use Polish and if the website is in English they will try to use English.
I don't think that translated UI is bad, but some of this diversity is probably because of it.
agnieszka bladzik hmm @Paweł maybe by default it should be set to english and then user can change it? or this is how it is?
Paweł Kadysz If user is from Poland - the site is displayed in polish. If user is not from Poland, we display english version of the site. You'd be surprised how many poeple don't know a single word in english, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to run their 365 project on tookapic ;)
I think the simple solution is to follow people that speak the language you understand.
jazzie I do completely agree with you! And maybe it helps to those who feel uncomfortable with writing in english to know that quite few tookapicers are native english speakers - most of us have the exactly same 'problems' with the english language. I always have dict.cc beside the tookapic window when writing a description 😂
dzikon
At first, I thought - the tookapic project is for me, cause I have to show myself that I am able to take a photo for every day in a year. But then I read this thread and changed my mind. That's really melting my heart that a lot of you are using translate pages because you're interested in descriptions!
Just changed every title to ENG and added appropriate description! Have a nice day ;)
jazzie Oh, you're great! :)
Paweł Kadysz Sometimes the stories are much better then photos ;)
blueone After reading the comments, I decided not only to start writing titles and descriptions in English, but also to pay more attention to telling the stories behind my pictures. Well, sometimes there is almost no story at all, however other times it's just my laziness or "no one cares" thoughts. And then I see that some of you use translators to read Polish (Vietnamese, German etc.) descriptions! So someone cares, thank you :)
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Grace I know what you mean! I always want to know what people are talking about haha