errors on affinity.serif.com

[Oval]

Sorry, but please correct this embarrassing error here: “Aber er wollte etwas erschaffen, dass die Messlatte für kreative Designsoftware deutlich höher legen würde.”

□

“16 Bit” would be better than “16 Bits” there

 

and please stop using wrong/inconsistent dashes on the same website like here and please no wrong quotation marks like there.

 

[Patrick Connor]

I will notify the localisation team. It's only an embarrassing error if we are embarrassed, are you trying to embarrass us? It sometimes feels like you go looking for ways to find fault. 

[Oval]

Thanks. And again sorry for reporting.

 

Yes, the first mistake is embarrassing because

1. “dass” is not “das”

2. “dass” does not mean “das”

3. it hinders understanding and reading fluency (because of 2.)

4. in Germany especially this mistake is called embarrassing, because it is characteristic for bad press

5. people who use "dass" instead of "das" write their texts inaccurately by ear rather than meaning

6. it is not the only error

7. the products are advertised with high standards (especially and also in that sentence); careless mistakes could lead to credibility loss then

8. especially here (“UNTERNEHMEN/Info”): the text quality also has an impact on how a company and its products are valued

 

Auf gut Deutsch: Die Messlatte liegt offenbar sehr niedrig, wenn ausgerechnet in diesem am­bi­ti­o­nierten Kontext derartige Fehler vorkommen. Dass das eine klar ist: Bei »dass« und »das«, da endet der Spaß! 

[Oval]

That was a funny one (from affinity@serif.com): “das innovative Grundgerüst” 

[Oval]

On 10. November 2017 at 8:44 AM, Patrick Connor said:

I will notify the localisation team.

 

Did you or will you (still/again), please? So difficult to kill that terrible “s” …

[Patrick Connor]

Sorry Oval, I don't remember doing so, and if I did it's not been acted on. I think that is the problem with replying out of hours. 

Now that really is embarrassing. 

[Patrick Connor]

@pauls please log these problems with the marketing site and the improvement suggestion 

[Oval]

Thank you so much, just added a picture for the localisation or whatever team that shows the typographic mess. Seems the team uses no app or APu  that prevents such errors.

[Oval]

Thanks for some corrections, but some errors like the wrong dashes, inch marks and the & still hurt.

[Oval]

@pauls uncorrected example:

Head of Development – Tony Brightman – gave a presentation […]

Lightning fast - in particular […]
Have no bloat - utilize a concept […]
Be unashamedly pro - core requirements like CMYK and 16 bit would be built […]

[A_B_C]

(Patrick, while you’re at it, you could maybe make another little change. One would not use the word “erschaffen” in the context of the creation of a software application. According to the bible, God “schuf” or “erschuf” the world and all living creatures within, but a software developer? This word belongs to a different register in German. I do admit that you will read this word *very* often as the German equivalent for “create” when English texts are translated. But it is just wrong, in most cases.)

[Patrick Connor]

4 hours ago, A_B_C said:

(Patrick, while you’re at it, you could maybe make another little change. One would not use the word “erschaffen” in the context of the creation of a software application. According to the bible, God “schuf” or “erschuf” the world and all living creatures within, but a software developer? This word belongs to a different register in German. I do admit that you will read this word *very* often as the German equivalent for “create” when English texts are translated. But it is just wrong, in most cases.)

Our German translator suggests this is a deliberate choice

Quote

I did it on purpose - you created that piece of software from nothing.

This is the very definition of erschaffen.

Artists erschaffen (create) works of art in German.

That is standard nomenclature and the right register when you talk about art.

 

[Patrick Connor]

On 3/31/2018 at 11:34 PM, Oval said:

Thanks for some corrections, but some errors like the wrong dashes, inch marks and the & still hurt.

and

11 hours ago, Oval said:

@pauls uncorrected example:

Head of Development – Tony Brightman – gave a presentation […]

Lightning fast - in particular […]
Have no bloat - utilize a concept […]
Be unashamedly pro - core requirements like CMYK and 16 bit would be built […]

The way our processes are automated these hyphens can not be quickly corrected, but requires manual intervention at some point. Sorry that it offends/hurts your sensibilities. 

[A_B_C]

This is interesting, Patrick. You know, I have seen this translation very often (not only on your site, of course), and I always wondered if that particular choice was deliberate. I do understand the point your translator made, and of course, we could engage in a lengthy discourse on software design and art and human creativity and the use of elevated style now. But that would probably lead nowhere … 

So please don’t mind. You will surely have more important things to do! By the way, would it make sense to watch the WWDC keynote next week? 

Cheers, Alex

[Oval]

1 hour ago, Patrick Connor said:

Sorry that it offends/hurts your sensibilities. 

Thanks. No problem for us. “higher standard for creative design”, “most precise vector graphic design software”, “professional graphic design software”, … just do not fit with (typographical) mistakes.

[MEB]

8 minutes ago, A_B_C said:

So please don’t mind. You will surely have more important things to do! By the way, would it make sense to watch the WWDC keynote next week? 

Cheers, Alex

Of course it makes sense... Aren't you wiling to know more about the next macOS/iOS version and maybe some new hardware? 
 

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Patrick Connor said:

The way our processes are automated these hyphens can not be quickly corrected, but requires manual intervention at some point. Sorry that it offends/hurts your sensibilities. 

The point, surely, is that they shouldn't be hyphens in the first place! They should be dashes.

31 minutes ago, A_B_C said:

This is interesting, Patrick. You know, I have seen this translation very often (not only on your site, of course), and I always wondered if that particular choice was deliberate. I do understand the point your translator made, and of course, we could engage in a lengthy discourse on software design and art and human creativity and the use of elevated style now. But that would probably lead nowhere … 

Wouldn't schaffen (i.e. without the "elevation" to erschaffen) suffice here? My brief research on this topic suggests that you would say „Bach hat großartige Musik geschaffen“, but perhaps the translator was keen to suggest that the Affinity apps are a much bigger deal than that.

 

[A_B_C]

LOL … Miguel, you are too funny … 

[A_B_C]

Well, Alfred, I still believe erschaffen is the wrong register in this instance. At first, I wasn’t actually sure whether erschaffen was deliberately chosen or just an instance of those cumbersome translations you will find almost everywhere when promotional talk is translated from English to German. For instance, Apple translated A touch of genius as Ein genialer Touch when localising the webpage for the new MacBook Pro. This translation is cumbersome for many reasons. Hardly anyone would say this in German, and what is even worse, it doesn’t capture and reproduce the English wordplay appropriately.

But since Patrick said the choice was deliberate, we would have to start a different discussion. No doubt, erschaffen as well as schaffen can be used in describing the activity of artists, and schaffen would certainly be less elevated. But to contemporary readers, I fear both of these words will be perceived as belonging to nineteenth century discourse. There is this entire Genieästhetik (aesthetics of genius) lingering in their background. Schöpfung – Schaffen – Werk – all these words are hardly used by artists anymore, and so for very good reasons. At the very least, they do not sound very fresh.

Furthermore, I don’t believe that the creation of a software suite is the same, or even roughly the same, as the creation of an artwork. Call this a remnant of Genieasthetik and related discourses, but to my mind, a piece of software like a drawing application is first and foremost a tool, while a work of art belongs to a different category. Of course, the concept of art has become very inclusive, and yes, it takes eminent and admirable creativity to develop a software suite like the Affinity range. Nonetheless, to my mind, the purpose of the entire effort is not the creation of an artwork, but the creation of a tool, which, in turn, can be used for creating works of art – as well as many other sorts of things, for sure.

But anyway, this particular choice of words is perhaps just a matter of taste. 

Cheers, Alex

 

 

[Oval]

1 hour ago, MEB said:

and maybe some new hardware

and again the new old information “no new Mac Pro” … 

[Oval]

6 hours ago, A_B_C said:

I don’t believe that the creation of a software suite is the same […] as the creation of an artwork

Auch die Softwarebranche hat ihren manipulativen Charakter. Alles Nützliche ist in der Gesellschaft entstellt. Dass man Dinge so erscheinen lässt oder beschreibt, als wären sie für Menschen erschaffen, ist zu einem gewissen Grad Marketing-Fake. Aber vielleicht kommen nur wenigen Gesaltern auch tröstliche Gedanken, wenn Tony Brighton seine Vision von der Erschaffung einer ganz neuen, besseren Spezies von »kreativer Designsoftware« (autsch!) kommuniziert. Deutschsprachler ereilen da eher ungute Erinnerungen … und sobald Software tatsächlich kreativ ist, sind wir Steinzeithirne alle überflüssig. Aber so wird wohl die Zukunft sein.

 

@pauls Bitte, wo gibt es die genannte kreative Designsoftware?! Wäre sofort gekauft.

[Patrick Connor]

2 hours ago, A_B_C said:

...By the way, would it make sense to watch the WWDC keynote next week? 

well, we will be watching it and some of our staff are attending (as normal) if only for the goody bag (well perhaps not that one).