Dutch version of Affinity Photo 1/2. For when?

[Red Falcon]

I've had Affinity 1 for years but I don't work with it and why?
Because my English is insufficient. I speak Dutch, French and German. But Dutch is my mother tongue.
It's really frustrating to work with a program whose language you don't understand.

That is why I would like to welcome Affinity 1/2 in Dutch together with 24,125,415 Dutch speakers, can you please?

Best regards,
Red Falcon

[MikeTO]

Hi @Red Falcon and welcome to the forum. Please see this 2019 post from Serif.

 

[RNKLN]

Dutch is not such a big language (out of the 24 million users only a small fraction uses Affinity products). When you look in the Affinity products forums, you'll notice that 95%+ of the conversations are in English. In these conversations, when a user refers to Affinity product features, it's also using the English term. Such conversations will have little value to you if you have to translate from terms used in the conversation to the Dutch term you're using in a Dutch language interface. With an English GUI there's no need to do this translation.

 

[Red Falcon]

On 3/2/2023 at 5:18 PM, RNKLN said:

Dutch is not such a big language (out of the 24 million users only a small fraction uses Affinity products). When you look in the Affinity products forums, you'll notice that 95%+ of the conversations are in English. In these conversations, when a user refers to Affinity product features, it's also using the English term. Such conversations will have little value to you if you have to translate from terms used in the conversation to the Dutch term you're using in a Dutch language interface. With an English GUI there's no need to do this translation.

 

Well, take a look. With such humiliating answers, Affinity will never be successful in Belgium.
Not every inhabitant of this planet speaks, writes or can read English.
In Belgium we speak three languages, but of course you didn't know that, the languages are Dutch in the majority of the population, French in the south and German in the east.
And "french fries" does not exist! In the first world war, the Belgian soldiers discovered it and no one can make fries (frietjes in Dutch) like we, the "little Belgians".
And now Affinity can get away with their English version!!!!

[RNKLN]

I'm from the Netherlands and have travelled to Belgium a lot. The Dutch speaking part of Belgium is included in the 24 million people (Netherlands itself only has 18 million inhabitants)

[PaulEC]

3 hours ago, Red Falcon said:

In Belgium we speak three languages, but of course you didn't know that, the languages are Dutch in the majority of the population, French in the south and German in the east.

Affinity does support French and German! Also many people speak English (or one of the other languages that Affinity supports) as a second Language.

I appreciate that everyone who uses Affinity software would like to have a version in their own, first, language, but there are over 7000 languages, Affinity can't support all of them! There has to be a line somewhere and there seem to be enough problems just getting the translations right for the languages already supported. It isn't just a case of translating a language once, each version needs to be updated whenever there are any changes.

There are also a couple of other important points. Serif is quite small, with less available resources than some other software companies. Any resources used to support more languages would inevitably impact other development of the software. Also, when it comes to selling products the number of people who speak any particular language is not really that important; What matters is the number of people who will actually buy the product. 

[Red Falcon]

23 hours ago, RNKLN said:

I'm from the Netherlands and have travelled to Belgium a lot. The Dutch speaking part of Belgium is included in the 24 million people (Netherlands itself only has 18 million inhabitants)

Natuurlijk zijn de Vlamingen ook Nederlandstalig en samen zijn we met 24 miljoen.
Om u een voorbeeld te geven:

Zweden: iets meer dan 10 miljoen.
Noorwegen: 5,3 miljoen
Denemarken: 5,5 miljoen
Finland: 5,25 miljoen.
Portugal: 10,3 miljoen. Ok in Brasilië spreken ze ook een soort Portugees, een soort want het is helemaal niet hetzelfde.

En uw redenering dat het sop de kolen niet waard zijn gaat hier helemaal NBIET op.
Adobe: alle programma's vertaald naar een perfect Nederlands, Skylum ook, ON1 ook.
Waarom zouden ze dat doen als ze niet meer omzet hadden denkt u?
In Nederland is de tweede taal Engels, in België is de tweede taal Frans, dan Engels en dan Duits.

[PaulEC]

Just to put things into perspective when it comes to people saying, "why doesn't Serif do something that Adobe does". Roughly speaking Adobe has over 25,000 employees: Serif has less than 100!

 

Gewoon om dingen in perspectief te plaatsen als het gaat om mensen die zeggen: "waarom doet Serif niet iets dat Adobe doet". Grofweg heeft Adobe meer dan 25.000 werknemers: Serif heeft er minder dan 100! (Google Translate)

[2ddpainter]

I wonder if answers like the translations, is only for a minority
too expensive or too labor intensive, still have relevance in
times of chat gpt

maybe i am a bit too optimistic but I think chat gpt is
also suitable for translating manuals and maybe
it is used already

[PaulEC]

Going on some of the complaints in this forum, it isn't just a matter of translating text files; people often not only complain about the accuracy of translations, but also about how they fit the UI etc. I know someone who is a professional translator, (Swedish/English,) specialising in technical publications, and I can assure anyone who thinks this type of work is easy, that there is a bit more to producing these translations than just being able to speak another language!

[Red Falcon]

16 hours ago, PaulEC said:

Just to put things into perspective when it comes to people saying, "why doesn't Serif do something that Adobe does". Roughly speaking Adobe has over 25,000 employees: Serif has less than 100!

 

Gewoon om dingen in perspectief te plaatsen als het gaat om mensen die zeggen: "waarom doet Serif niet iets dat Adobe doet". Grofweg heeft Adobe meer dan 25.000 werknemers: Serif heeft er minder dan 100! (Google Translate)

Ok, Serif is Adobe niet, maar kijk eens naar Skylum die brengen wel een NL versie. En als ik mij niet vergis doet Corel met "Paint Shop Pro"v dat ook.

[wim]

Als het aantal personeel het probleem zou zijn waarom wel de andere talen?

If the number of staff would be the problem why the other languages?

 

[PaulEC]

2 hours ago, wim said:

If the number of staff would be the problem why the other languages?

If the number of staff would be the problem why the other languages?

 

Quite simply somebody has to do translations in the first place and update them as necessary. If it's commercial software (unlike open source), these people have to be paid! (Unlike open source software, which can be a bit of a "free for all".)

There has to be a limit to the number of languages that can be supported. (There are over 7000 languages in the world, you could hardly expect all of them to be supported!) 

Some software supports a large number of languages (to varying degrees), some a more limited number, and some only one! 

Languages which are widely used (and will, therefore, attract more sales,) are much more likely to be supported than those which have fewer speakers; which will inevitably account for fewer sales. English is the most widespread language across world, it is not only the native language for many people (in UK, USA, Australia etc) but also widely spoken as a second language.) The other languages supported in the Affinity software are also widely spoken, both as first and second languages. (In the OP it was said: "...I would like to welcome Affinity 1/2 in Dutch together with 24,125,415 Dutch speakers'". I wonder how many of those 24,125,415 people would actually buy any Affinity software?)

While it would be desirable for everyone to be able to use software in their own language, the reality is that languages with relatively few speakers, and/or languages that are unlikely to produce many sales, are less likely to be supported. It has been said that more languages may be supported in the future, but that will, presumably, depend on changing demographics of the customer base and other demands regarding development of the software.

 

 

[wim]

Dus zijn de Nederlanders minder dan de Duitsers, Fransen en Italianen.

Nederlanders zijn dus minder dan de Duitsers, Fransen en Italianen.

It's discriminatory

[PaulEC]

7 minutes ago, wim said:

So the Dutch are less than the Germans, French and Italians.

Yes, as far as numbers are concerned - less than half as many!

English - 1.5 billion speakers
German - 300 million speakers
French - 300 million speakers
Italian - 63 million speakers
Dutch - 24 million speakers

I'm sorry, I really think it would be nice to have support for more languages, but the reality is that there is a limit to the number that can be practically supported!

[wim]

I think you own stock in the company.

[PaulEC]

4 minutes ago, N.P.M. said:

You just the made point very clear as to why other languages are important.

 

and why translations need to be done properly!

[Andreas Scherer]

1 hour ago, wim said:

So the Dutch are less than the Germans, French and Italians.

Most likely not. However, looking at the very scarce list of available translations for the Affinity programs (ten in V1) it appears that Serif has/had very limited resources for improving the user experience in this respect.

I recall that there were even fewer translations of the Affinity Workbooks (now out of print), but that especially the German translation of the Publisher Workbook was created concurrently with the English “original”, so I'm quite grateful for that.

And as an aside: When I lived in Aachen / Aix-la-Chapelle / Aken in the late-90s and early 2000s, we quite regularly visited the H5 cinema in Heerlen for the latest movies in English. I learned that the population of the Netherlands wouldn't grant fully synchronized copies of non-native movies, while in Germany you have to search for cinemas that present them in unsynchronized versions.

[PaulEC]

51 minutes ago, wim said:

I think you own stock in the company.

No, I just use their software, and prefer Serif's limited resources to be used to improve Affinity for the benefit of all users, rather than just for the benefit of a very limited group!

[PaulEC]

3 minutes ago, Andreas Scherer said:

And as an aside: When I lived in Aachen / Aix-la-Chapelle / Aken in the late-90s and early 2000s, we quite regularly visited the H5 cinema in Heerlen for the latest movies in English. I learned that the population of the Netherlands wouldn't grant fully synchronized copies of non-native movies, while in Germany you have to search for cinemas that present them in unsynchronized versions.

Another aside: My wife is Swedish (another language not supported in Affinity!) and I find the lack of dubbed, or even subtitled, Swedish films most annoying! Sometimes you just have to accept things are what they are!

[wim]

The software (Serif) is not customer friendly.  I hope you buy software that is in Chinese again without knowing it, think you'll beep differently.  Let's stop it, it doesn't get any better.

[Andreas Scherer]

7 minutes ago, wim said:

The software (Serif) is not customer friendly.

I quite agree, given the deluge of complaints about unfixed bugs in V1 and new issues in V2. Of course, Serif are trying their best, but at several points I'd be tempted to fix them myself if the software were more “open”.

[Andreas Scherer]

On 3/13/2023 at 1:12 PM, PaulEC said:

it isn't just a matter of translating text files

That's absolutely right. From my very limited experience with an extremely small piece of software I can tell that localization is not a trivial task at all.

[Dan C]

1 hour ago, wim said:

I think you own stock in the company.

Serif is not a publicly traded company, so this is not possible.

2 hours ago, wim said:

Dus zijn de Nederlanders minder dan de Duitsers, Fransen en Italianen.

Nederlanders zijn dus minder dan de Duitsers, Fransen en Italianen.

It's discriminatory

Serif have never said this, and I'm not entirely sure what's lead you to this conclusion - but I'm sorry to hear you feel this way.

We have previously confirmed that we have no plans for additional UI languages at this time, and as I understand it this is still the case currently.

 

This thread has therefore been answered, it's Serifs decision as to which languages we support and we may look to add more languages in the future, but as above this is not something we're currently working on.

We ask our users not to speculate on our reasoning for this further, as this is simply conjecture.

__________________________

1 hour ago, wim said:

I think you own stock in the company.

Serif is geen beursgenoteerd bedrijf, dus dit is niet mogelijk.

2 hours ago, wim said:

Dus zijn de Nederlanders minder dan de Duitsers, Fransen en Italianen.

Nederlanders zijn dus minder dan de Duitsers, Fransen en Italianen.

It's discriminatory

Nederlanders zijn dus minder dan de Duitsers, Fransen en Italianen.

It's discriminatory

Serif heeft dit nooit gezegd en ik weet niet helemaal zeker wat u tot deze conclusie heeft geleid, maar het spijt me te horen dat u zich zo voelt.

We hebben eerder bevestigd dat we op dit moment geen plannen hebben voor extra UI-talen, en zoals ik het begrijp is dit momenteel nog steeds het geval.

 

Deze thread is daarom beantwoord, het is de beslissing van Serifs welke talen we ondersteunen en we kunnen in de toekomst proberen meer talen toe te voegen, maar zoals hierboven is dit niet iets waar we momenteel aan werken.

We vragen onze gebruikers om niet verder te speculeren over onze redenering, aangezien dit slechts vermoedens zijn.

[Twolane]

I have a suggestion, since you're all hot to have a translation in your language of choice. Why not provide your specific Affinity translations for the group to critique? That alone ought to demonstrate how much work will be required. Personally, I can't wait for the show. Oh, and don't forget the manual, the online help, and the Preferences. For all three programs. And the web portal as well. Thank you very much.😀

Penny wise but pound foolish indeed.