On Tue, April 12, 2011 5:34 pm, Carlos Rabassa wrote:
Ed,
Thanks for your detailed comments to my message.
You are welcome.
I'm afraid there are as many opinions on the subject of languages and translations as individuals on earth.
I have heard that notion concerning interpretations of the Tower of Babel in the Bible, also.
I don't claim to have a solution.
I have an idea for a solution that will take a generation to work out in detail. I would be delighted to hear from those who can improve it, or come up with something better.
My opinion and suggestion come from the difference I note, between my times as a student and today.
Decades ago, college professors would recommend books, many of them in foreign languages.
If they were in German or Russian they would warn us about the language.
If they were in English, French or Italian they would just recommend the books without any comment.
We assumed we had to read them. Period.
Ah, yes, Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie, Mengenlehre, Cours d'Analyse, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Liber Abaci, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, Bai Ma Fei Ma, Euclid in Greek, those were the days.
Today, most students make a big issue if you suggest they read something that is not in Spanish.
Old joke:
The correct English word for someone who speaks more than one language is
polyglot
The correct word for someone who speaks only one language is
Norteamericano
Now here and today, what is your specific recommendation about languages and translations in the elementary and high school XO environment?
* I have been a localization administrator for Sugar. We need to finish the language set chosen so far, and add many more, including indigenous languages of Latin America.
* I am helping to organize a push to translate all of the OLPC and Sugar manuals at FLOSS Manuals to Spanish, and then to other needed languages.
* I am taking the lead on the Replacing Textbooks project at Sugar Labs, to create Open Education Resources for every school subject for every country at every age level in every needed language. Spanish is a priority.
Both of these projects at FLOSS Manuals and Sugar Labs are helped greatly by the recent release of the FLOSS Manuals booki software for collaborative authoring, editing, publication, translation, and remixing.
Please consider we have a lot of people to reach with knowledge, not only young kids.
Of course. For example, Lisa Anderson, President of American University in Cairo, was on C-SPAN not long ago talking about the thirst for information throughout North Africa and the Middle East on relatively recent transitions to democracy in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. It also turns out to be important today that some years ago an Arabic translation was made of the Federalist Papers about the US Constitution for use in Iraq. That is just one of thousands of examples of what is needed. Another is How to Bypass Internet Censorship, available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Farsi, Russian, and Chinese from FLOSS Manuals. I am one of the authors.
Also those kids today want to learn about the XO but tomorrow they will be working in many fields of activity. Living in a small country in a globalized world they will most probably have to deal with foreigners coming to Uruguay or travel to foreign countries. How would they handle then the language problem? Wouldn´t it be good if while they learn about the XO they could pick up a foreign language instead of using translations?
Sugar Labs is discussing with a vendor a suite of language-learning materials that might be put on the XO in Sugar under Creative Commons licenses, leaving some physical materials to be sold or licensed commercially to governments for national deployments. Walter Bender has started turning some of it from paper and other physical objects into software.
It will be necessary to allow Uruguay's children to make contact with XO users in other countries for just this reason, along with many others.
How would you advise the many excellent middle aged uruguayan teachers who want to learn to write applications for the XO and know no other language than Spanish?
De esta manera.
http://translate.flossmanuals.net/ActivitiesGuideSugar_es/Introduction
El propósito de este libro es enseñarle lo que necesita saber para escribir Actividades en Sugar, el sistema operativo desarrollado para el proyecto OLPC. Este libro no asume que usted sabe cómo programar una computadora, aunque aquellos que sepan programar puedan encontrar información útil en él. Mi principal objetivo al escribirlo es animar a aquellos que no son programadores, incluyendo a los niños y sus profesores, a crear sus propias Actividades para Sugar. Por esta razón, voy a incluir algunos detalles que otros libros no van a tener y voy a dejar fuera algunas cosas que otros incluyen. La incomprensibilidad impresionante se mantendrá al mínimo.
How would you handle the same situation for young teachers?
Ditto.
I have worked out a process for teaching third-graders Python using Turtle Blocks, which I must write out in much more detail when I get a chance. There are also successful experiments in teaching third-graders LISP, Logo, BASIC, and APL that we can draw on.
How do you propose to take advantage of the programs written in Nepal?
I propose to recruit more Nepali translators. Currently the people who could do this work are overwhelmed with materials in English needed by teachers and students in Nepal.
I heard your disagreement with several points.
I shouldn't have expected anything different because I just offered one personal opinion, mine.
Now it would be nice to hear your positive suggestions.
I hope this helps. I do what I can.
Please ask about any other such issues, and follow the news about the Replacing Textbooks project. I have written at OLPC News, and will have a blog feed at Planet Sugarlabs fairly soon. I am leading a discussion for UNESCO on the economics an finances of educating a billion children at a time using Open Education Resources. Take a look, and let me know if you would like to add something to the discussion.
http://www.wsis-community.org/mod/groups/topicposts.php?topic=118512&gro...
Would someone do the rest of the community a favor and translate our palaver into Spanish? I'm studying Spanish, but it will be some time yet before I can routinely write on OLPC-Sur en español.
Thanks.
De nada.
Carlos Rabassa Volunteer Plan Ceibal Support Network Montevideo, Uruguay
On Apr 12, 2011, at 5:29 PM, Edward Cherlin wrote:
2011/4/12 Carlos Rabassa carnen@mac.com:
English translation follows Spanish original Gonzalo, Hernán, Ana, estoy parcialmente de acuerdo con cada uno de ustedes a pesar de que sus opiniones parecen contradictorias. Nos guste o no, el lenguaje de los programadores, desarrolladores y muchas otras actividades en el campo de la informática, es el Inglés. Negar este hecho es cerrarse las puertas y cerrárselas a los jóvenes estudiantes, que tendrán dificultad para acceder a lo que se produce fuera de Uruguay. Son ideas que conducen a aislar el paÃs en un mundo que, nos guste o no, es globalizado. Pienso que los que desean estudiar informática en serio tienen que estudiar Inglés aún más en serio y muy rápido. Traducir programas, manuales y otras cosas es necesario hoy, cuando muchos no pueden leer el Inglés. Pero esa ayuda tan interesante, útil y generosa, no es la solución del problema básico. Las traducciones las veo como las muletas que usan los que se rompieron una pierna. No se rehusan a ir a un hospital a que se la arreglen. Tan pronto como pueden se hacen arreglar la pierna rota. Usan las muletas nada más que mientras el arreglo que les hizo el médico en el hospital surte su efecto y la pierna se les cura. Y por el momento, hay que traducir, si deseamos que todos lean lo que escribimos:
English translation Gonzalo, Hernán, Ana, I partially agree with each one of you, although your opinions seem to contradict each other. Whether or not we like it, English is the language used by programmers, developers and in many other areas of computer science.
Today. We are bringing up a generation of new programmers by means of OLPC who will program in Spanish and in dozens of other languages. There exist valuable educational programs from OLPC Nepal that have not been translated to English, and there will be much more of this problem.
Denying this fact means closing the doors for us and for the young students. They will have problems to reach resources from outside Uruguay.
Plan CEIBAL has produced a vast volume of materials not made available in English.
These ideas lead to the isolation of our country in a world that, whether or not we like it, is globalized. I believe serious computer science students should study English even more seriously and very fast.
True, but not relevant to the problems of localization and translation for Sugar.
Today it is necessary to translate programs, manuals and other materials, when many of us cannot read English. But this help, so interesting, useful and generous, is not the solution to the basic problem.
Of course not. Is it not obvious that the solution involves teaching a billion children at a time in any and every language that they require? and that many of those children, as they learn other languages, will have to take on the responsibility for translating materials to the instructional languages of their countries, to the official languages of their countries, and to the local languages of their communities? For example, English is the language of instruction in Kenya, Swahili the national language, and the Maa language of the Maasai one of many local languages.
I visualize translations as the crutches used by those who had a fractured leg. They do not refuse going to a hospital and having it fixed. They get it fixed as soon as they can. They only use the crutches while the repair made by the doctor at the hospital, goes through its process and the leg heals.
Your simile falls down. Our children did not break their legs. In fact, preschool children can become fluent in a new language in a few months, as I observed an immigrant friend do in kindergarten. Our problem is that we wait too long to begin teaching them, and do not immerse them in the new language when we start.
For the time being, translate we must, if we expect everyone to read what we write:
And forever. Once we succeed in teaching children to learn and to work in hundreds of languages, we will still have to translate those new materials to all languages required.
English is not the issue. Having 6,909 documented languages in the world is the issue. (ethnologue.com)
Note: I am among a number of people organizing translation projects for Sugar software and for digital textbook replacements, at FLOSS Manuals, Sugar Labs, and elsewhere. We are emphasizing Spanish to start with, but will branch out widely as fast as we can. I would be happy to arrange for hosting Spanish-to-English-to other languages projects at Sugar Labs.
Carlos Rabassa Volunteer Plan Ceibal Support Network Montevideo, Uruguay
On Apr 12, 2011, at 1:42 AM, ana.cichero wrote:
Qué opinión curiosa.... Te cuento una experiencia, 1er año liceo 2010 centro de Montevideo ( 12, 13, 14 años), vienen los estudiantes de ingenierÃa ( alumnos de gabriel eirea ) en tarea de extensión a darnos clase de python. En mis grupos decidimos analizar el ejemplo de guess a number del pippy y representarlo, un chico era el counter, otro la compu y otro el usuario. ( teniamos solo 90 minutos en total)
Hubo gran dificultad en enteder las palabras: red, black, blue..... Imaginarse el resto de los textos en inglé !! Hay que hacer buenas actividades para aprender inglés, pero hay que traducir sugar en mi opinión.
En concreto de Pippy(los relativos a matemática o funciones) tengo los ejemplos con los printy en general lo necesario para que se entienda ya traducido. Los mando a quien se haga cargo del tema. -----LLeva mucho trabajo----- El manual de Sugar que me ocupa ( y que pensaba terminar a fin de abril) , va por la mitad-1.... y creo que pronto voy a tener que poner una pausa de un par de meses por motivos de trabajos nuevos:)
copio acá el ejemplo guess tal y como se carga en una xo configurada con español como idioma, saludos !
import random import pippy R = random.randrange(1,100)
print "Guess a number between 1 and 100!" N = input("Enter a number: ") i=1 while (N!=R): if N>R: pippy.console.red() print "Too big... try again" else: pippy.console.blue() print "Too small.. try again" pippy.console.black() N = input("Enter a number: ") i=i+1 print "You got it in", i, "tries"
En concreto de Pippy tengo ejemplos donde los print están traducidos y en general lo necesario para que se entienda.
2011/2/10 Hernan Pachas hernan.pachas@gmail.com
Sugar no debe tener traducción (es mi opinión).
---hernan
2011/2/10 Gonzalo Odiard gonzalo@laptop.org:
Otro tema que deberiamos acordar es la traduccion de Sugar a "Azucar". Creo que no deberÃa hacerse, pero me gustarÃa acordarlo con quienes han hecho la traducción en primer lugar.
Gonzalo
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