Monday, April 27, 2009

A note about Arab & Hebrew translation

Why there is a specific case for those two languages. In fact Second Life Viewer does'nt support correctly those two languages.
Everone can read the information on JIRA http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-112.
Thus we need to resolve into our translators what Linden didn't fix for now.
All those fixes are temporary and will need to be removed the day this Second Life Viewer will be fixed.

I was the first to work on this trouble long before others did and I release the first translator really support Arab & Hebrew the 28th September 2008 with the 0.13 Release of Q-Translator.
Actually there are ony two translators than can be used to have a talk with an Arab or Hebrew within SL (translating in both way).
Those two translators are Q-Translator and AF Translator (with some restriction for AF).

Anyone one that would like to test can contact me.
This is why on my comparaison table in world i remove 2 languages from Ferd Translator, MH Translator, UTv12 and X-Lang.
There is a major difference between calling the Google Translator API and make it works with Arab/Hebrew within SL.

Now there are many situations you need to care to fully support Arabic & Hebrew.
Let's make a test everyone can reproduce using the last translators version below.

AF: AF Pro 1.5
FT: Ferd Translator 7.5d
MH: MH Translator 3.82
QT: Q-Translator 0.27
XL: X-Lang 6.0

The correct translation of the English sentence "I have 35 flowers in my box" into Arabic is "عبرم يدلب يف روهزلا 35 يدل"

I SPEAK ENGLISH SOMEONE ELSE SPEAK ARAB

1) Me from English into Arabic
With autdetect setup for My Language
My Language setup to French (fr), Foreign Language setup to Arabic (ar)
I say "I have 35 flowers in my box"
My translator should translate "لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع"

AF: لدي 53 الزهور في بلدي مربع (almost correct)
FT: لدي 53 الزهور في بلدي مربع (almost correct)
MH: لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع (correct) *Autodetect is always off for me
QT: لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع (correct)
XT: عبرم يدلب يف روهزلا 35 يدل (gibberish) *Autodetect is always off for me

2) Me from English into Arabic
Without autdetect setup for My Language
My Language setup to English (en), Foreign Language setup to Arabic (ar)
I say "I have 35 flowers in my box"
My translator should translate "لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع"

AF: لدي 53 الزهور في بلدي مربع (almost correct)
FT: لدي 53 الزهور في بلدي مربع (almost correct) *Autodetect is always on
QT: لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع (correct)
MH: لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع (correct)
XT: عبرم يدلب يف روهزلا 35 يدل (gibberish)

3) Others from Arabic into English
With autodetect setup for others
My Language setup to English (en), Foreign Language setup to French (fr)
Someone say into arabic "لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع"
My translator should translate "I have 35 flowers in my box"

AF: My flowers in the box indicates 35 (gibberish)
FT: My flowers in the box indicates 35 (gibberish)
MH: لدي 53 الزهور في بلدي مربع (gibberish) *Autodetect is always off
QT: I have 35 flowers in my box (correct)
XL: My flowers in the box indicates 35 (gibberish)

4) Others from Arabic into English
Without autodetect setup for others
My Language setup to English (en), Foreign Language setup to Arabic (ar)
Someone say into arabic "لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع"
My translator should translate "I have 35 flowers in my box"

AF: I have 53 flowers in my box (almost correct)
FT: My flowers in the box indicates 35 (gibberish) *Autodetect is always on
MH: 35 setacidni xob eht ni srewolf yM (gibberish)
QT: I have 35 flowers in my box (correct)
XT: My flowers in the box indicates 35 (gibberish)

I SPEAK ARAB SOMEONE ELSE SPEAK ENGLISH

5) Me from Arabic into English
With autodetect setup for My Language
My Language setup to French (fr), Foreign Language setup to English (ar)
I Say "لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع"
My translator should translate "I have 35 flowers in my box"

AF: My flowers in the box indicates 35 (gibberish)
FT: My flowers in the box indicates 35 (gibberish)
MH: عبرم يدلب يف روهزلا 35 يدل (useless) *Autodetect for me is always off
QT: I have 35 flowers in my box (correct)
XT: (keep silent) (useless) *Autodetect for me is always off

6) Me from Arabic into English
Without autodetect setup for My Language
My Language setup to Arabic (ar), Foreign Language setup to English (ar)
I Say "لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع"
My translator should tranlate "I have 35 flowers in my box"

AF: I have 53 flowers in my box (almost correct)
FT: My flowers in the box indicates 35 (gibberish)*autodetect for me is always on
MH: My flowers in the box indicates 35 (gibberish)
QT: I have 35 flowers in my box (correct)
XT: My flowers in the box indicates 35 (gibberish)

7) Others from English into Arabic
With autodetect for others
My Language setup to Arabic (ar), Foreign Language setup to French (ar)
Someone say "I have 35 flowers in my box"
My translator should translate "لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع"

QT: لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع(correct)
AF: عبرم يدلب يف روهزلا 35 يد (gibberish)
MH: عبرم يدلب يف روهزلا 35 يد(gibberish)*Autodetect for others is always off
XT: عبرم يدلب يف روهزلا 35 يد(gibberish)
FT: لدي 53 الزهور في بلدي مربع (almost correct)

8) Others from English into Arabic
Without autodetect for others
My Language setup to Arabic (ar), Foreign Language setup to English (en)
Someone say "I have 35 flowers in my box"
My translator should translate "لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع"

QT: لدي 35 الزهور في بلدي مربع(correct)
AF: عبرم يدلب يف روهزلا 35 يد (gibberish)
MH: عبرم يدلب يف روهزلا 35 يد (gibberish)
XT: عبرم يدلب يف روهزلا 35 يد (gibberish)
FT: لدي 53 الزهور في بلدي مربع (almost correct) *Auto detect always on

Conclusion XT don't support Arabic at all
FT, MH supports it only when translating from foreign language into Arabic (thus you cannot having any discussion)
AF can work in both way (you need to desactivate Auto Detect)
Q-Translator is the only translator that support Arab/Hebrew in all conditions.

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