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Swift Swift December 26, 2009 December 26, 2009 at 4:36:22 PM UTC link Permalink

The search results currently have a line with a couple of icons, one with a link to the item and the other to the comments.

The second line is the sentence itself, and the following lines have translations of it. The translations are links to those items, but the sentence is not a link.

It seems that things could be simplified and made a bit more intuitive if those icons were dropped and the search result sentence made into a link to that item. We'd lose the comments link, but it points to the same page anyway.

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TRANG TRANG December 27, 2009 December 27, 2009 at 8:31:06 PM UTC link Permalink

You're right. I redesigned a little bit the sentences blocks following your suggestions.

We'll see if it bothers anyone...

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Swift Swift December 28, 2009 December 28, 2009 at 4:10:27 PM UTC link Permalink

I for one think it looks better now.

Cheers.

skycomet skycomet December 22, 2009 December 22, 2009 at 9:24:37 PM UTC link Permalink

Hi,

1. Can I translate more than 1 sentence each time? I want to translate in the rate of 50-100 words/day but my connection isn't fast and I don't want to wait for each senetence.

2. Is there any way to download the sentences for languages other than Japanese/English, e.g. Indoenesian or Hebrew, then translating and resending them to you so you can import the translated sentences in your database?


Thank you,

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TRANG TRANG December 22, 2009 December 22, 2009 at 10:44:03 PM UTC link Permalink

I've answered to your email but I'm posting my reply here too in case other people wonder.

1. For now, the only way you can translate more than one sentence at a time is from the search. Type a word in the search bar, it will display results (provided you entered something in English or Japanese that is quite common). You can translate from the results. It displays 10 sentences per page but I can make it display more sentences per page if you feel this is a good solution for you to translate several sentences. Just let me know.

2. For now it's not possible yet. I mean, I probably could, but I have very little time (especially these days), and I'd rather set up some automated system for that.
Besides, we did consider giving the possibility to users to download a file with sentences formatted to be opened with a program called PoEdit. You will then have a page somewhere on Tatoeba where you can upload this file, and it will import your sentences. It's not likely to be implemented before end of January though.

TRANG TRANG December 24, 2009 December 24, 2009 at 3:10:05 PM UTC link Permalink

Alright, we've added a "show more..." link in the random sentence. You can click on it to display more than one random sentence :)

You will be able to specify the language and the number of sentences displayed.

lilygilder lilygilder December 23, 2009 December 23, 2009 at 5:21:25 PM UTC link Permalink

About the community building mentioned in the Tatoeba blog:

Are you planning on creating a forum? I think that would help the community grow and having different threads for introductions, bug reports, feedback, etc would make it easier for users to follow the discussions. I'm not sure if it is necessary yet - there are only a bit under 300 members right now - but it would be cool nevertheless.

What do other users think?

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TRANG TRANG December 23, 2009 December 23, 2009 at 7:09:37 PM UTC link Permalink

Yes it's in our todo list (like sooooo many other things). But as you noticed, right now there aren't that many members.

That's why we set up this "Wall", it's more simple and for now it is largely enough for people to report bugs, give feedback, introduce themselves or write about whatever :)

When the Wall will start reaching its limits in terms of usability, we'll start considering the forum solution.

lilygilder lilygilder December 23, 2009 December 23, 2009 at 11:57:15 AM UTC link Permalink

Hi there,

What can I do with repeated sentences? Is there a way to link one entry to the other or maybe even merge them?

Anyways, thank you for this wonderful project.

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TRANG TRANG December 23, 2009 December 23, 2009 at 12:24:16 PM UTC link Permalink

You don't have to worry about them. We take care of merging them :) We actually already launched a loooong cleaning process a few weeks ago, it removed about 10,000 exact duplicate sentences.
We're going to launch it again sometime, after we've cleaned the sentences from typos or extra spaces where there shouldn't be or things like that.

Anyways, thank you for your contributions. I'm happy to see German getting popular again :D It used to be the 4th language in Tatoeba, until extremely motivated contributors in Chinese and Spanish came along...

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lilygilder lilygilder December 23, 2009 December 23, 2009 at 12:42:36 PM UTC link Permalink

Does this cleaning programm also remove nearly identical sentences? I found a pair where the only difference is the punctuation mark... I'm glad you don't have to do that manually...

I'd be happy if German took the fourth place again. I'll see what I can do and show some competitive spirit. =) This is a fun way to pass time and help other language learners. :)

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TRANG TRANG December 23, 2009 December 23, 2009 at 1:08:08 PM UTC link Permalink

No it doesn't remove nearly identical sentences. I've seen sentences which differ only from the punctuation, but... Well this is a bit tricky.

If you take Japanese, there is supposedly no question mark or exclamation mark (although I suppose it's changing). Instead you have particles to express a question or an exclamation.
The fact that you write "I'm cold." or "I'm cold!" can change something in the Japanese sentence (samui desu / samui desu yo).

So to be safe, I wouldn't delete a sentence that has a nearly identical twin, with only a difference of punctuation.

tinacalysto tinacalysto December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 3:08:46 PM UTC link Permalink

Hey guys, any chance of having Norwegian language added?

Thx and congrats for the great site (which has become my new hobbie)!

P.S.: Portuguese GET!

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TRANG TRANG December 23, 2009 December 23, 2009 at 1:15:37 AM UTC link Permalink

Norwegian Bokmål has been added as a supported language :)

Please, when you have time, add a few sentences in this language to check if the language detection works properly.

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tinacalysto tinacalysto January 5, 2010 January 5, 2010 at 7:28:24 PM UTC link Permalink

thank you. The language detection is working fine.

TRANG TRANG December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 5:15:36 PM UTC link Permalink

Yes, actually someone else has also requested us to add Norwegian. He actually asked to add both Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.

But for that, we're waiting until we have either :
1) Our own language detection system (because for now we're relying on Google's detection, which is reaching its limit...)
2) Or added a feature that enables people to indicate the language of the sentence (instead of having is systematically auto-detected).

Now you have to know that it is not forbidden to add Norwegian sentences, even if it's not "officially" supported. You will not be able to set the language as Norwegian (yet), but you can do that later, when we actually add Norwegian as a supported language.
Besides, it will actually give us some pressure to add it as soon as possible :P

Anyway thanks for your support! We're always glad to see motivated people like you joining the project :D
And congratulations for bringing Portuguese to the 6th position in terms of number of sentences!

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tinacalysto tinacalysto December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 6:40:49 PM UTC link Permalink

(Crap, I sent the message by mistake without having finished it)
Well, I don't think the bokmål/nynorsk differentiation would be a problem. Most online dictionaries I've seen so far deal with bokmål as the pattern.

(btw, thanks for your gentle commentary)

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TRANG TRANG December 19, 2009 December 19, 2009 at 9:01:59 PM UTC link Permalink

The thing is, we want to be as accurate as possible.

I have no idea how different Bokmål and Nynorsk are, but I believe they are more different than the difference between Portuguese in Portugal and in Brazil. There must be a reason why there are two different language codes for each in the ISO 639-3 codes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_language).

Besides it could offend some people if we don't make the difference ^^'

tinacalysto tinacalysto December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 6:37:42 PM UTC link Permalink

>>>> You will not be able to set the language as Norwegian (yet), but you can do that later, [...]

Great, I'll do that. I don'
Regarding the bokmål/nynorsk differentiation, I guess something similar happens to Portuguese... in most cases one can handle to write a phrase that sounds like Brazilian Portuguese and that spoken in Portugal, but sometimes that's just impossible. Same thing for African Portuguese, which sounds to me almost like a different language. In this case I'm indicating in the phrase 'Portugal'/'Brazil'.

sysko sysko December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 5:28:57 PM UTC link Permalink

and congratulation to have contribute to have made today the second (and with a little bit effort) day in term of contributions

http://tatoeba.fr/eng/contribut...ivity_timeline

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sysko sysko December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 5:39:31 PM UTC link Permalink

* and with a little bit effort made it the first day , typed too fast sorry

Versuss Versuss December 22, 2009 December 22, 2009 at 4:27:00 PM UTC link Permalink

Could we translate sentences into language not listed in the site?
I can translate it into Malay language.
P.S. Great site!!

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sysko sysko December 22, 2009 December 22, 2009 at 4:50:28 PM UTC link Permalink

For malay language wikipedia told me there's a lot of different malay, as we make difference between dialect, is this a specific form of malay or it's "standard malay" ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fi...f_Malaysia.svg
is this flag suitable ?

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Versuss Versuss December 22, 2009 December 22, 2009 at 6:11:07 PM UTC link Permalink

Yes it's standard Malay. and there's isnt much dialects used contemporary days..the most well known should be Kelantanese, but standard Malay is spoken all over the country.
Yes that's the flag of the nation =)

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sysko sysko December 23, 2009 December 23, 2009 at 8:49:45 AM UTC link Permalink

ok, by the way could you correct the chinese sentences I've commented please :)

sysko sysko December 22, 2009 December 22, 2009 at 4:47:29 PM UTC link Permalink

the answer is just below
http://tatoeba.fr/eng/wall/index#message_58

spoiler : yes you can ;-)

thanks for your contributions in chinese :)

TRANG TRANG December 23, 2009 December 23, 2009 at 1:10:52 AM UTC link Permalink

Normally we've added Malay as a supported language :)

You'll still have to add a few sentences to check that the language detection does work properly though.

grantortino grantortino December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 1:58:52 PM UTC link Permalink

why i cannot find my sentences in your search engine.
example:
Sentence nº340251
浅草寺にはずいぶんたくさんの人がいるんですね。

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TRANG TRANG December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 5:28:47 PM UTC link Permalink

Yes, we're not indexing on the fly. The main reason is that I didn't (and still don't) have time to figure out how to do that ^^'

Usually I launch the indexing process once a month but considering the increase of contributions, I think it'll be more once a week now...

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aaroned aaroned December 19, 2009 December 19, 2009 at 4:55:35 PM UTC link Permalink

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of database engine is behind tatoeba.org? SQL Server/mySQL or other?

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TRANG TRANG December 19, 2009 December 19, 2009 at 7:59:59 PM UTC link Permalink

It's MySQL :) But for the search feature we're using Lucene (http://lucene.apache.org/java/docs/).

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aaroned aaroned December 20, 2009 December 20, 2009 at 3:35:50 PM UTC link Permalink

I regularly use SQL Server, so I'm not much help with mySQL, but maybe this link might help http://wiki.apache.org/lucene-java/UpdatingAnIndex

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TRANG TRANG December 20, 2009 December 20, 2009 at 11:32:17 PM UTC link Permalink

Thanks :)

Right now though, I must say it doesn't speak much to me... Also, MySQL is not really the issue here (because I know MySQL and it doesn't help me :P).
The issue is to know how to use Lucene (which is written in Java). I just have to take the time to read the documentation.

The search engine part of Tatoeba was coded as a school project, at a time when I didn't have much knowledge in programming but had a good partner who knew Java and so he pretty much did all the coding.

Someday I'll have to look into his code. I'll probably have to upgrade to the latest version of Lucene as well because our code is from like, 2 years ago. Someday... When I have time.

sysko sysko December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 3:22:08 PM UTC link Permalink

I'm not the one who made the search engine part, but it seems that the index is not updated in real time, certainly for perfomance reason, so in few times your sentences will be available :)

MUIRIEL MUIRIEL December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 12:45:31 PM UTC link Permalink

Qu'est-ce que je fais si tatoeba ne reconnait pas la bonne langue d'une nouvelle traduction?
("Bill war in Japan." est allemand et ne parle pas d'une guerre au japon :D!)

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sysko sysko December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 1:18:24 PM UTC link Permalink

il suffit de cliquer sur le drapeau de la phrase et de mettre le bon :)

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MUIRIEL MUIRIEL December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 1:51:18 PM UTC link Permalink

ok, merci :).
mais ca marche seulement sur certaines conditions. et je vois pas sous lesquelles^^...

MUIRIEL MUIRIEL December 18, 2009 December 18, 2009 at 1:52:28 PM UTC link Permalink

ah non, laisse tomber, maintenant je vois^^.

aaroned aaroned December 16, 2009 December 16, 2009 at 6:14:31 PM UTC link Permalink

With regards to Chinese entries, can we have some way of distinguishing between Traditional and Simplified entries?

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sysko sysko December 16, 2009 December 16, 2009 at 9:10:20 PM UTC link Permalink

In fact I was thinking to add an option to convert sentences in simplified chinese to traditionial chinese, and vice versa, wouldn't it be better that way ?

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aaroned aaroned December 17, 2009 December 17, 2009 at 4:55:35 AM UTC link Permalink

Yeah that's a good idea. Means that all the existing entries, in either Traditional or Simplified will be preserved.

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aaroned aaroned December 17, 2009 December 17, 2009 at 5:51:01 AM UTC link Permalink

The other thing regarding Chinese translations that probably needs consideration, is that there are 3 or 4 major regions where Chinese is spoken (Taiwan, Hong Kong, PRC, Singapore), but each region often has a slightly varied vocabulary set to represent the same meanings in another language. I'm no expert on this, but I'm pretty sure a Taiwanese person would translate the English word "Potato" to "馬鈴薯" whereas in the PRC (Mainland) they more commonly translate it to "土豆". Maybe we need the ability to choose the "Region" of our Chinese translations?

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sysko sysko December 17, 2009 December 17, 2009 at 11:48:21 AM UTC link Permalink

Yep we have recently migrate the code of language from iso 639 alpha 2 (name of languages coded on 2 letters) to alpha 3,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639
which allow us to make more precise distinction about languages (as you can see there's already shanghainese)
but for the moment the problem is not really technical, but mostly ergonomical "how do we present it in a nice way, without overloading a sentence with billion of buttons",

moreover the problem can exist with french, canadian french etc... so I agree, its something we will need to handle one day or another
after we need to keep in mind that a beginner maybe don't want to see these regional variations, and only focus on "standard" version, so here come again the ergonomic problem

in fact for the moment if you plan to add "regional" sentences, just add in () which region it is, that people will be aware its not standard mandarin

I will notice you when we will be starting handle this :)

by the way thanks for your contributions :)
(French ?)

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aaroned aaroned December 17, 2009 December 17, 2009 at 12:28:53 PM UTC link Permalink

Yeah I understand.

(When you get round to it, you could possibly make the flag icon a drop-down list of regions for that language, so that if we want to we can mark the translation as region specific.)

By the way I really like your site :).

I'm an Australian studying in Mainland China.

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sysko sysko December 17, 2009 December 17, 2009 at 8:41:17 PM UTC link Permalink

In fact for the moment the flag icon is used to change the language if the tool used to detect automatically which language your sentence is do a bad job (which happen with shanghainese /mandarin, or close language such as ukrainian and russian)

sysko sysko December 16, 2009 December 16, 2009 at 1:31:34 AM UTC link Permalink

Find a work around for those adding in right to left languages (such as arabic)
and who get a strange characters order (see http://tatoeba.fr/eng/sentences/show/340400 for an example)

just edit your sentences and this ‏ to end, it's the xml entities to indicate switching writing direction :), for some strange reason, independant of Tatoeba, I've got the same problem in different text editor while trying to repeat this bug, this control character is sometimes missing

I will try to find quickly a automatic way to get it work properly