Jörg Morgan Wrobel, owner of the www.ebookmedia.de website, just called me to tell me that he has completed the first step in translating the Iliad and it's documentation to German.
For all those among you who would like to read the quickstart guide and some other material in German (maybe because you ARE german...) please visit (http://www.ebookmedia.de/downloads.html) his website and see for yourself. The translation of the Iliad GUI is also underway, but not yet complete, so you'll have to live with the english OS for the moment.

Nice idea. :happy2: The same for French & other languages.

I haven't lived in Germany for almost ten years, so I'm somewhat amazed at what is considered acceptable German these days. I remember how, in the early days of the Internet, we used to make cruel fun of the word "downloaden," considering it no better than Hogan's Heroes German. And here it is, being used in a perfectly normal manner...

Having translated software and documentation for a living myself, I am also intrigued by the tough choices translators have to make; for example, assigning a grammatical gender to the Iliad. I always considered mine male, but these guys went for neuter ("der Iliad" vs. "das Iliad"). Why? I guess you could discuss both choices till your teeth fall out....

Also: "Wipptaste" for "flipbar." Love it! Never heard it before. Did they come up with it or has it been around for other gadgets?

Still as terrible as ten years ago: "selektieren" instead of "auswaehlen"; "das Template" instead of "die Formatvorlage"; and such strange things as "spendierte Funktionalitaeten". And if you want me to, I could talk all night about why "screen" covers a much wider range of technology than "Bildschirm" and why therefore a new word should be coined for an e-ink display... I guess that as with anything Irex-related, this German documentation is a work in progress, too.

Ah well - translators get old, but they never fade away ... I'll shut up now....

GreatGonzo, nice post.

# Well, »downloaden« & »herunterladen« exist in parallel here in Germany .
# "der Iliad" vs. "das Iliad" My feeling says das iLiad. :happy2: [like das Gerät, but der PC]
# "Wipptaste" - that's what you do, when you use the flipbar, nach rechts und links wippen.

Do you know Zwiebelfisch auf SPON (http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/zwiebelfisch/0,1518,332092,00.html)?.
Do you think iLiad is a zeitgeisty gadget?

# "der Iliad" vs. "das Iliad" My feeling says das iLiad. :happy2: [like das Gerät, but der PC]

I don't know - I can't think of anything gadgety where I wouldn't instinctively use the male gender; wonder what that says about me...

Do you know Zwiebelfisch auf SPON (http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/zwiebelfisch/0,1518,332092,00.html)?.

Oh yes - required reading for us expatriates, really ... without it we'd just lose touch completely.