D french-speaking community

[monarch_dodra]

On Saturday, 9 November 2013 at 08:32:24 UTC, Jonathan M Davis 
wrote:
> On Friday, November 08, 2013 23:51:16 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> On 11/8/13 11:43 PM, Raphaël Jakse wrote:
>> > I had a really hard time translating "slice". I opted for 
>> > "tranche".
>> 
>> morceau?
>
> I suppose that that would work, but I believe that tranche 
> would be the more
> direct translation (certainly, it's what's used when talking 
> about slices of
> bread). However, I don't know if there's another word that 
> happens to have
> more accurate connotations in this case.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

French myself too, but I consider myself part of the English 
community.

My personal feeling is that when it comes to translating 
technical jargon, it is sometimes best to just keep the original 
word, explain/learn what it means, and stick with that.

This is because the "words" are already loaded with more meaning 
than what basic English gives them, for example, 
"range"/"interval". Or "aggregate" or what not. All words with 
very specific meanings in the context of a specific *programming* 
language, that transcends the English language itself.

If you "translate" those words, you are actually creating new 
words, which will require people to associate a new meaning to 
said word, when the original English word was perfectly fine for 
it.

The japanese seemed good at doing these kind of things when I was 
there, talking about things like "regista", or whatnot.

On the contrary, the French seem to like *everything* to get 
translated, to the point where the French themselves get confused 
by the double standard. For example, for "stack"/"heap", the 
French have "tas"/"pile". I'm French myself, and I can never 
remember which is which! Why couldn't they just keep 
"stack"/"heap"?

That's what I feel like anyways. Explaining things in your local 
language is fine, but if technical words get translated, 
oftentimes, you lose more from the loss of the context specific 
definition, then the gain from replacing it with a word in your 
own language, but with no added definition.