Iulia Tufiº, Attila Feher, Radu Magda *
Considerations on the Localization of Software Products for Management
Information Systems
The different topic of the phrases
in Romanian, towards their English version, represents another
problem and assumes a subsequent processing of the phrases initially
translated word by word, by means of the words dictionary. The
advantage, in the case of the user interface translation, is represented
by the relatively high repeatability of identical phrases, which
determines the frequent use of the phrase dictionary.
As for the product documentation,
BPCS offers a complete set of on-line documentation that includes
as a component the on-line help, available either at screen or
at field level.
The translation of the documentation and the on-line help have
been considered by SSA as a single item, in both cases the translation
of more complex texts being necessary. In such a case it is mandatory
to have, for an efficient automated or at least assisted translation,
grammatical and morphological analysis functions, that are not
available in TTT.
Therefore, the documentation and
on-line help translation cannot be achieved in the most efficient
cost and time conditions, by means of the translation tools that
we have at present.
In this respect, we are interested, having in mind
our continuous activity in the field of software localization,
to use a more advanced translation tool.
At the same time, the translation of the user interface, for a
complex product such as BPCS, stands for an important activity
in itself, taking into consideration the following criteria:
- It allows for a quick dissemination of the facilities of such
a complex software product (its implementation representing an
urgent condition for the increasing of efficiency in the Romanian
enterprises and being very much required on the Romanian market)
among the specific users.
- It allows for the development of an on-line terminological
database, dedicated to the specific field of enterprise business
management. This database can then be analyzed, improved, developed
and used in the localization of the future BPCS versions and also
of similar software products.
- It can be chosen as a case study for the validation and improvement
of the methodologies and technologies for software internationalization
and localization, defined in European projects such as GLOSSASOFT,
or in other projects that address directly the specific localization
aspects for the Central and Eastern Europe.
References
- G. ELLMANN, Software Localization, Third European Summer
School on Language and Speech Communication, 10-21 July 1995,
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 1995.
- *** TTT/PC The foreign language accelerator, Seagull
Business Software B.V., Copyright 1995.
- *** BPCS/AS
Open Business Enterprise Information Systems,
System Software Associates Inc., Copyright, 1994.
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