Translation into Spanish fails because doubtful original version
Trying to support Musescore, I've decided to contribute with translations into Spanish (my mother tongue). I registered at Transifex and started to translate untranslated strings.
I find the following string:
Controls the gain of the makeup input signal in dB's.
I consider that this description makes little sense. I think it refers to the "Makeup gain" knob in the Synthesizer / Master effects / SC4. It should be
Controls the final gain after compression, in dB
I have tested it and it is exactly this what this knob does. Note that there is no "makeup signal", but makeup gain. Note also that unit symbols such as dB do not need to be pluralized.
If my version is accepted or another one replaces it, I'll be able to translate it. Sorry if this is not the best place to discuss the original description, but it has been motivated by a translation issue
Comments
“Controls the gain of the makeup input signal” is (just) understandable in English but I couldn't begin to work out how to translate it into Spanish (or any other language). I think you are correct that many sentences in English (especially technical, musical, scientific) need to be translated into clearer English before being translated into another language.
Would a spanish musician with a knowledge of synthesizers feel that “Controla la ganancia final después de la compresión (en dB)” makes sense?
In reply to “Controls the gain of the… by underquark
As an electronic engineer specialized In acoustics and audio, I can tell that there is no such a thing as "makeup signal", let alone "makeup input signal". A rapid web search reveals that "makeup gain" appears 38000 times, many of them related to audio compressors, while "makeup input signal" appears only 113 times. Interestingly, one of the latter, http://ttmanual.audacityteam.org/man/SC4, challenging that very phrase elsewhere --in the Audacity forum--, and others referring to the other meaning of makeup related to cosmetics.
Moreover, makeup gain in compressors is applied at the output signal of the compressing device, so the only way the presence of the word "input" in this context would make sense would be as "the input signal to the makeup gain block", which is very different.
I think “Controls the gain of the makeup input signal” is gramatically correct but is meaningless in this context.
I can't tell whether all musicians will understand my proposal, buy anyone that has real experience in the use of compressors should readily understand it.
Federico Miyara
You will find in music that there are many words that do not translate well between English and Spanish. I speak little Spanish and have found helping out on the Spanish forum that I must check my google translations to ensure certain words are translated correctly. The first example I can this of is the English word "rest" is "silencio" (silence) in Spanish.
In reply to You will find in music that… by mike320
While google translate is a good tool to save work in long phrases, as well as a general guide, it uses a statistical engine. This means that on average it provides acceptable translations, but it can be disastrous in specific cases. I've found it cannot substitute a fair knowledge of the technical jargon in both languages.
Thank you for joining the translation effort!
In case the original English description is up for improvement, and it does seem you know what you are talking about, could you open an issue in our tracker at https://MuseScore.org/en/project/issues ?
In case of a fix, it will be pulled into master first (future MuseScore 3.0) and only after that backporting to the 2.x branch so it can make its way into the next 2.x version.
Thanks again for joining!
In reply to Thank you for joining the… by Thomas
And meanwhile we could fix the English "translations" (US and GB) on Transifex too.
In reply to Thank you for joining the… by Thomas
Thank you for your encouragement. I've created issue #268554.
Regards,
Federico Miyara