Chinese translations

As pluiepoco is a native chinese speaker very used to internet matters, and as he has decided to help us translating cucumis.org, I've decided to reject most part of the chinese translations taht was made by non native speakers.
Sorry but we need very fluent translation and most of them were not fluent.

THank you for your confidence on me, and Certainly I will do a good job.

And when I edited others' translation, I consumed a lot of time, it's far difficult than doing it myself. And I note that, when I have edited some already-accepted Chinese translation, after I updated the page, I found no corresponding changes were rendered. So I doubt, whether there is an error, or should I wait for longer time.

I'd waiting for a near-future Chinese version site.

I saw all the work of edition you did, and I thank you a lot for your time spend on improving cucumis.org chinese interface.

You guess right. In fact the modified translations are not immediatly uploaded in the language files. I regurlarly check the modifications and upload them online. If you see that after 1 week your modifications are not online, you can send me a message in order I make it.
All of your moifications have been uploaded for now.

The chinese version of cucumis.org is officially online now !
Thanks to pluiepoco and all other translators who helped to translate it !

Hi! JP,

I'm back again!

Those days I'm quite busy, and days later, we Chinese will enjoy a week of Spring Holidays, which is called Chinese New Year, and in the forthcoming week, I will be free, and then I should take time to help translate some.

新年快乐！Happy New Year 2006!

Nice to see you again
Happy chinese new year and enjoy your hollidays!

How about Chinese (Traditional/Taiwan) web page? It is not just a matter of encoding/codepage difference, it is about culture and language (just like french french and french quebecois)

By the way, there is one thing I can't get it, in Chinese page, it is said, cucumis (葫蘆娃) is a name from the ancient chinese story, and I just can't find the corresponding text in French/English page. Is this a kind of "localization" of the name too?

I highly doubt the fact that cucumis should be translated as 葫蘆娃. Although I am not a professional translator (never went to school to learn this craft), but it is obvious that the logo of this project reflects on water melon more that as the shape of a gourd.

pluiepoco has adapted the title of the websie to chinese culture and he also adapted the axplanation sentence of the homepage about this title.
Don't hesitate to suggest better translations, and I hope puiepoco can reply to you.

Hello, whisky and itsnotvalid, JP is correct, at the beginning of this website, I did not know this site when JP went to www.help.berberber.com to ask me for a initial translation in Chinese. So I made the name 胡蘆娃,

cucumis itself is not watermelon at all, it refers to 黃瓜屬, I quote some explanations from online search:

cucumis:

属中文名：黄瓜属
属拼音名：huangguashu
属拉丁名：Cucumis
中国植物志：73(1):201
所有物种：
菜瓜
黄瓜
黄瓜(原变种)
马泡瓜
甜瓜
甜瓜(原变种)
西南野黄瓜
小马泡
野黄瓜

cucurbit是胡蘆科,包括watermelon. Quote from e-dictionary:
Any of various mostly climbing or trailing plants of the family Cucurbitaceae, which includes the squash, pumpkin, cucumber, gourd, watermelon, and cantaloupe.
葫芦科植物：任一种葫芦科的多数为攀缘或蔓生植物，包括有南瓜属植物、西葫芦、黄瓜、葫芦、西瓜和甜瓜

I chose 胡蘆娃,because the logo is very similar to Chinese cartoon 胡蘆娃, as well as Japanese cartoon 西瓜太郎, but when I suggested JP to choose the two localized name, the Japanese partner insisted that, translation should be accurate, So I only have my option to make it localized in Chinese culturem and I also made subtle discrepancy with original English or French version in the last paragraph of the welcome page.

And When I'm searching online, I find

http://www.daodao.org/article.asp?id=363

It indicates that the localization is very good in Simplified Chinese culture, but if you find it was not proper in Traditional Chinese culture, please note JP to make a better one, but I feel that the Simplified and Traditional Chinese should keep the closest similarity in order to promote this website in Chinese world.

You can share your opinions...

ok.. localization is always a good thing (that helps ppl geting involved), but, since the mandarin (漢語) page is a translation of the original page, maybe we should keep the original text translated, and then add a localization to it? Just a thought

Also, I guess that 葫蘆娃 could be a name copyrighted? Is it OK to use it here as the name of the site?

Copyright is thing concerned at the very beginning, but in China the law of copyright allows a website to have a name the same with a copyrighted name.

在中國註冊的商標要與受商標保護的商品對應,没有廣義上的商標.必須針對商品種類一個個註冊。

Moreover, this site is gratuitous, it's not profit-making organization.

Hi Josephine, I don't know enough chinese to discuss this, maybe our chinese experts will have their opinion about it.

There are just a couple of things I would like to add to make it ore clear :

1) In addition to suggest a translation to "Cucumis", we should also think about the translation of this text displayed on the home page : "Why the name of Cucumis?
Cucumis roughly translates as "Watermelon" from Latin, a spherical fruit like the earth, full of vitality and happiness. With about 3000 spoken languages over the world, we hope this website will help us to get to know each other."

2) I think we should choose a common way translating "Cucumis" in simplified and traditional chinese, because it could perturbs users swaping from a language to another. There is already a translation that was done by pluiepoco for simplified chinese which is "葫芦娃" and "名字由来
葫芦娃是中国现代动画故事的主人公，金刚葫芦兄弟富有智慧、机智、勇敢和乐观，是我们大家的榜样。全世界大约有三千种语言，我们希望本站可以帮助大家互相认识。".

3) It's difficult to take a decision because I don't know chinese. I wait to see what is the opnion of our chinese experts. The translation of "Cucumis" in simplified chinese can be changed if you all agree on it. The fact that the 葫芦娃 is a copyrighted name, is upsetting me a bit, even if pluiepoco tell us that it's allowed in China. If you can find a better translation sounding very well and closed to the watermelon symbol of the website, that would be perfect .

我们不要本末倒置，把精力用在争论用哪一个本地化名字上，一个名字的作用无非是具有标志性，让大家更好记。

把时间用在翻译上，用在帮助别人上，这才是本站之所以存在的意义。

关于葫芦娃合不合适，我想各位中国人都应该明白，因为中文版是给中国人和华人看的，商标法是允许的。我不知道台湾如何，但是中华人民共和国是允许的，这就够了。因为作为中文版的目标客户，中国人的趣味和选择是最重要的。我相信台湾的朋友也是看过《葫芦娃》和《西瓜太郎》的。

誰是各位中國人？呵

我想 Josephine 想說的是「繁體中文」版的網站名稱建議，似乎和「中華人民共和國」沒啥關係吧？

老實說，我真的不知道什麼叫葫蘆娃。葫蘆和 "Why the name of Cucumis? Cucumis roughly translates as "Watermelon" from Latin, a spherical fruit like the earth, full of vitality and happiness. With about 3000 spoken languages over the world, we hope this website will help us to get to know each other." 也真的無法給我任何聯想。

So back to English, as a Traditional Chinese expert , I dont see why the name is translated to "葫蘆娃", and honestly, I can live with it, as explained by pluiepoco and JP, it is for "localisation". But as for "Traditional Chinese", my vote goes to Josephine's translation "西瓜村" (watermelon village), because I think it is more adequate.

我想告诉各位的是，使用正体最多的人口仍在大陆，而不是在台湾或海外。你们明白吗？何为繁体正统？抛开正统不正统不说，目标用户和使用人口这一关，你们都过不了。

我可以透露一点信息的是，目前繁体在国内是合法的，可以出版，几乎所有政府网站和商业网站都同时有繁体版，中华人民共和国中央政府网站也如此。繁简的统一是大势所趋，真不知道你们争什么？难道繁体和简体之间的差别真如你们说的那么大吗？

whisky也说过，繁简之间不过是书面的差别，大家面对面难道听不懂吗？美国人说的不是英语，写的不是英文吗？

真的很奇怪。

还有一点，我不提政治，这里不是提政治的时候，各位宣称自己不是中国人的自淫的人士可以适可而止了吧。

原來你什麼都不懂，什麼都不知道 哈，一天到晚只會說大勢所趨。嘿，你到底對大勢是怎麼樣知道多少啊？

跟你說這些真的是白說了.. 自淫？我看你是自己關起門來打手槍吧？加油。我不需要在這邊跟你吵什麼了。

我沒說過繁簡之間是書面的差別，我說過，這是文化上的差異。我甚至告訴過你，不要來翻譯你根本不懂的「語言」。你都忘記了是吧？更何況你以為你能「透露」啥呢？誰不知道繁體在中國是可以出版的？有多少古書現在依然是使用所謂的繁體中文，尤其是中醫學上的參考用書，這些你以為只有你才知道？但是請不要把「日常生活使用」和書上列印，死的東西相提並論！古希臘文和現代希臘文是截然不一樣的！就算他們都使用希臘文字母，但是一個是活的語言，一個是死的。中國是最多「正體」中文使用族群？這種話請你拿去欺騙別人吧！

政治？政治是你自己先提起的，請不要把這些帽子扣在我們頭上！我好像還記得，是我請你不要在這邊牽扯到政治話題的不是嗎？

至於什麼叫正統？這真的很可笑。法文裡面有多少差異你可知道？誰敢說自己是正統嗎？英文裡面現在有多少變化，誰敢說自己是正統嗎？美國的英語與英國的，有多少 expressions 是含意相差很大你可知道？省省吧！我們不是生活在你的祖國中國，你的正統是你家的事情！干我們何事？

我想最后一次和你争论一次。希望你明白繁体和简体的区别无非类似拉丁文字各种字体的区别，与语言无关，你所说的语言区别在汉语的各个方言区内都大量存在，这不是繁体与简体的区别，是像你说的文化层次上的，所以，希望你理智一点，不要动不动把汉语搞成好象是不同的语言，汉语是包括很多语言的，但那属于方言或语言之间的差别。我用简体写你们台湾的文章，和用繁体写台湾的文章，在语言表达上是一样的，（就像用Times New Roman或者Book Antique写英文一样），不同的是采用何种字体，这是政治层面的事。说不定哪一天大陆改用繁体做官方字体，或者台湾采用简体也未可知。这都不是你我这等小人物管得了的。

还有一点可以告诉你的是，大陆懂繁体的人比你想象得要多得多，不至限于学者，现在中学生懂的太多了。你不信可以问问其他人，我说的是不是事实。

懂一種文字和用一種語言的差別你知道在哪嗎？還是你蓄意當作沒看到？

你要爭辯什麼？你要爭辯的是你根本不瞭解的東西，你是忘記你做的繁中翻譯裡面，我糾正過多少次你的錯誤了嗎？今天你是以一個完全不懂繁中（台灣）這個語言的人的身份來跟我討論繁中，是誰不理智了？漢語，什麼叫漢語？今天中國通用的所謂漢語指的是北京話，這是你們的「官方」語言之一。這個語言和在台灣使用的是同一個嗎？很簡單，你只需要上網去查看看，就可以知道這語言之間有多大的差別！這根本不是你所謂的寫法上的差異而已！我不懂，為什麼你不肯面對這個事實？

你稱計算機，台灣稱電腦。這叫做「字體」的不同而已嗎？你稱激光，台灣稱雷射，你要用打字，我們用列印，還要我舉出多少例子呢？

告訴我？讓我先告訴你吧！對中國的事情，我瞭解的絕對不會比你少多少。但是對台灣呢？你到底知道多少？

你到現在還以為繁中和簡中就是字體的不一樣？我建議你，隨便捉你身邊的任何一個香港人來問，看看他們會給你什麼答案！

醒醒吧！不要一天到晚只活在自己的象牙塔中了！