French
Deutsch | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Collaboration with Wikipedia users
Hi, quite a lot of these phrasebooks aren't that complete, and some don't even have the first section filled out (Sesotho phrasebook). Seeing that if someone here knew these languages, they would have plunged forward and filled them in, should we ask Wikipedia users who know these languages to help contribute? See w:Category:User st (category of Wikipedia users who speak Sesotho), could we contact some of them and ask if they're willing to contribute to the phrasebook? Thanks. Seagull123 Φ 13:41, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- Yes Why not? We're all in this together, so it's hardly spamming. Note that you can also check out w:st:Category:User en (that category doesn't presently exist but the principle holds for other potential user language categories). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:37, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- Sounds like a good idea. A single, friendly notice to a limited number of users who might be able to help doesn't seem like spamming at all. JuliasTravels (talk) 15:34, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
@JuliasTravels, Koavf: Is there a particular phrasebook we would start with? I would suggest one which is a relatively useful one but is still an outline... maybe the Bengali phrasebook or the Portuguese phrasebook (both are in the World section of the phrasebook list). Seagull123 Φ 15:48, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- Sure, but I must admit I haven't worked on our phrasebooks all that much. When we invite new users to contribute, it should be clear what we would like them to do. The Portuguese book, for example, has all the sentences translated. What do we need for it? Other sentences? Is there are fixed set? Do the translations need to be checked? Also, I wonder if it would make sense to just post in the Pub on Portuguese Wikipedia, instead of write to individual editors? JuliasTravels (talk) 15:54, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- JuliasTravels, I just put the Portuguese one there because it's currently listed as an outline, and as it's in the world section, I thought it could be of a better standard. I think that it's still an outline because further down the list, it's just got the Portuguese phrase without a pronunciation. In regards to where we ask, do you mean here? (Portuguese village pump) or here (Portuguese traveller's pub). I think writing to some Portuguese speaking contributors on English Wikipedia is better, as they will have a better understanding of English (having already contributed to an English wiki) and on Portuguese wiki, they might not speak English at all. Seagull123 Φ 16:21, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- Sure, it makes sense to start with the most important ones, so Portuguese is a good choice. I just meant that we should specify what kind of help we need, because it is not so obvious from looking at the article, if you're not familiar with phrasebooks. You make a good point about the users. JuliasTravels (talk) 16:33, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- JuliasTravels, I just put the Portuguese one there because it's currently listed as an outline, and as it's in the world section, I thought it could be of a better standard. I think that it's still an outline because further down the list, it's just got the Portuguese phrase without a pronunciation. In regards to where we ask, do you mean here? (Portuguese village pump) or here (Portuguese traveller's pub). I think writing to some Portuguese speaking contributors on English Wikipedia is better, as they will have a better understanding of English (having already contributed to an English wiki) and on Portuguese wiki, they might not speak English at all. Seagull123 Φ 16:21, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- Sure, but I must admit I haven't worked on our phrasebooks all that much. When we invite new users to contribute, it should be clear what we would like them to do. The Portuguese book, for example, has all the sentences translated. What do we need for it? Other sentences? Is there are fixed set? Do the translations need to be checked? Also, I wonder if it would make sense to just post in the Pub on Portuguese Wikipedia, instead of write to individual editors? JuliasTravels (talk) 15:54, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- OK, that's a good idea, we could say something like "can you help add pronunciations to the phrases on the page and check whether the phrases are correct". Seagull123 Φ 16:39, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- Also, I've made a bit of a example message to invite people here to help with phrasebooks, it's here, edit it if you want, please make it better! Seagull123 Φ 17:06, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
I've (finally) found two editors who have both edited recently and are able to speak/translate Portuguese. They are: w:User:Rui Gabriel Correia and w:User:Callmemirela. If no one objects, I'll send them a message (based on the one I've written here) later today. Seagull123 Φ 17:53, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- If you're seeking discussion, it's probably a good idea to wait just a bit more than (half) a day. There's no rush, maybe give others a chance to weigh in? JuliasTravels (talk) 19:11, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
- For what it's worth work is already being done on Portuguese phrasebook. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:10, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
Adding soundbites
I think it would be a good idea to add recorded sound clips of the sentences, so that phrasebook users can recognise them as they are spoken. Also useful in getting the pronunciation right. What do you think? Pikolas (talk) 14:08, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
- I agree but, unfortunately, previous discussions have never resulted in a consensus to allow these. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:44, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
pronunciation samples
I was just looking at the Dutch phrasebook and realised that some of the pronunciation explanations are quite confusing. Some phonemes simply don't exist in English. Perfect pronunciation is not a goal of a phrasebook, but it's hard to explain a sound even by approximation, if it doesn't exist in English. Commons has a wide range or pronunciation files. Using them seems just as straightforward for the traveller as giving a somewhat similar explanation in English, and much more accurate. Do we have any policy on using them? If using them is okay, what's the best way to do it? I tried one in Dutch_phrasebook#Pronunciation but because we don't have the template here, it sits on the next line instead of on the same one.. Any thoughts? JuliasTravels (talk) 8 February 2016 (UTC)
- We have had a similar discussion at talk:German phrasebook which unfortunately did not result in much getting done. A similar thing happened at talk:Spanish phrasebook a while later. I still like the idea. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:00, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
- Policy is not to use audio files until we can gain a consensus to use them, and then presumably to set some sort of standards. I suggest that a first step would be to gain approval for an experiment on a single phrasebook. Powers (talk) 01:28, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
- This is a bit of a tangent, but I think that the "experiment on a single page" idea is not so good. Sometimes an idea works brilliantly on one (cherry-picked) page, but its faults become apparent when you expand it to others. I think that five or ten should be considered a minimum size for a useful experiment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
- We're talking about an exceptionally large task, here, and one for which no single person is likely to be able to contribute to more than one phrasebook. What is the value in granting license for you to add audio to multiple phrasebooks when, by necessity, you would have to pick one to start with anyway? Powers (talk) 03:00, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that adding dozens of pre-existing audio files (many of these phrases already exist for common languages) to a page is truly an "exceptionally large" task, and even a subset might be enough to show the idea, but I'm speaking of the general case. Testing any idea on one page out of the current 27,180 articles doesn't show you whether the idea works in general; it really only tells you whether your current implementation works on the one selected page. This is valuable (for example, if it doesn't work well on any one page, then by definition it will not work well on all of them), but it is seriously insufficient (for example, that might be the only page in the entire project that your idea really works well on).
- Also, it might be useful to test different approaches to the same general idea, which probably requires using multiple pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:54, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
- We're talking about an exceptionally large task, here, and one for which no single person is likely to be able to contribute to more than one phrasebook. What is the value in granting license for you to add audio to multiple phrasebooks when, by necessity, you would have to pick one to start with anyway? Powers (talk) 03:00, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
- This is a bit of a tangent, but I think that the "experiment on a single page" idea is not so good. Sometimes an idea works brilliantly on one (cherry-picked) page, but its faults become apparent when you expand it to others. I think that five or ten should be considered a minimum size for a useful experiment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
- Policy is not to use audio files until we can gain a consensus to use them, and then presumably to set some sort of standards. I suggest that a first step would be to gain approval for an experiment on a single phrasebook. Powers (talk) 01:28, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
- Let's not kill the main idea and discussion by focusing on theoretical problems in the testing phase :) I understand the concerns but I don't think this has ever been a problem in practice. A single test article seems quite fine as a starting point since our phrasebooks are all very similar and we'll first need to test some basics anyway. We can go from there, if it turns out to be insufficient. Reading the discussion on the German phrasebook talkpage, there seems to be plenty of support for an experiment, so let's just get started and discuss concrete issues as we encounter them. Let's talk about the visualisation first. Then we can set up an example. I know of these options so far:
- 1 : eins (
ighnss - 2 : zwei
- 1 : eins (
- Let's not kill the main idea and discussion by focusing on theoretical problems in the testing phase :) I understand the concerns but I don't think this has ever been a problem in practice. A single test article seems quite fine as a starting point since our phrasebooks are all very similar and we'll first need to test some basics anyway. We can go from there, if it turns out to be insufficient. Reading the discussion on the German phrasebook talkpage, there seems to be plenty of support for an experiment, so let's just get started and discuss concrete issues as we encounter them. Let's talk about the visualisation first. Then we can set up an example. I know of these options so far:
- The first one takes you to a different page, which seems less ideal when using the the phrasebook. The second one is much bigger though, and I'm not sure how to get it on the same line. Any other ideas? JuliasTravels (talk) 16:01, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I would prefer the smaller symbol as immediately clickable, i.e. producing the sound without taking the user to a different page first. How do we implement this on mobile though? Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:27, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
- JuliasTravels's first example is problematic, because there are two clickable links. I would prefer:
- eins [aɪ̯ns] 🔊
- where I have used the Unicode speaker symbol, instead of our image. But that's still problematic, as Hobbitschuster has pointed out, so I might prefer:
- eins [aɪ̯ns]
- if only we had some way to make the image display on the same line as the preceding text. Providing both IPA pronunciation and an audio link is much better than trying to re-invent pronunciation representation schemes, as we have so ignominiously done at, e.g., Spanish phrasebook. Peter Chastain (talk) 04:58, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- The {{audio-pron}} template, at Wiktionary, puts the image inline, as seen here. The image is still a bit larger than I would prefer, but if we adapted the template for use here, we could change that. Peter Chastain (talk) 06:14, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- IPA and audio recordings are the only unambiguous general ways to represent speech in another language; we should provide both wherever they are useful. If possible, the audio link should go directly to sound, not to another web page.
- In some cases, I think including Spanish, the written form of a language may also be unambiguous once a few rules are learned. For those (or at least the ones in a latin alphabet), we can minimize the use of both IPA and audio, rely more on the written form. This does imply that phrasebooks for such languages should cover the necessary rules.
- In general, attempts to represent foreign sounds with English-based examples are doomed from the start. One problem is that some sounds (the round front vowels in French, the velar consonants in German, Persian, ...) are almost impossible to represent that way. Another is that different English speakers pronounce various things quite differently. In general, I'd say the sooner we can get rid of all such attempts, the better.
- Would an expedition to fix these problems be worthwhile? It looks like a big enough task to justify such an effort. Pashley (talk) 06:38, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- First: I'd rather the audio samples be in the article, not external links that require migrating away from the page. Secondly, on an expedition: Yes, this would be worth the effort, but only if the work won't go to waste because of opposition to this kind of change. Allowing audio samples is a policy change. So I think we should make sure that people who have previously objected won't stand in the way before taking on this project. If we know they would not support this no matter what, that would be unfortunate but also a time-saver for editors. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:52, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- Well iirc there was some opposition towards replacing the current system with IPA and there might be people who argue against adding too many different types of pronunciation aid. That said I think we should proceed. Probably specifically asking those who expressed concern to eliminate any misunderstandings and avoid mistakes is a good way forward. If we cannot gain consensus that would indeed be unfortunate, but if we know that beforehand, we can spare us a lot of effort and frustration. Hobbitschuster (talk) 10:58, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- First: I'd rather the audio samples be in the article, not external links that require migrating away from the page. Secondly, on an expedition: Yes, this would be worth the effort, but only if the work won't go to waste because of opposition to this kind of change. Allowing audio samples is a policy change. So I think we should make sure that people who have previously objected won't stand in the way before taking on this project. If we know they would not support this no matter what, that would be unfortunate but also a time-saver for editors. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:52, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- I completely agree with Ikan; audio samples should be in the article. Clicking on one should give a sound but have no visible effect except perhaps a change of icon colour.
- Problems with IPA are that many people do not know it and some computer systems may lack the fonts to display it correctly. Despite those, WP and more-or-less all dictionaries use it. I'd say we should too; it is the only way to display pronunciation on the screen or page that works for any language. Pashley (talk) 16:19, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- Wikipedia and dictionaries have different goals than our phrasebooks do. We're not trying to document accurate pronunciations; we're trying to provide a quick way for an English speaker to say a line and have it more-or-less understood. Powers (talk) 02:45, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- If our only choices were between IPA and something else, I would probably agree with you: IPA is difficult to learn and understand. Audio is very easy, and after hearing a few clips, the traveller probably won't have to listen to them all. And yes, I would also use IPA, because our pseudo-English transliterations are unteneble, as the discussions at Spanish phrasebook demonstrate. Peter Chastain (talk) 00:05, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
- Wikipedia and dictionaries have different goals than our phrasebooks do. We're not trying to document accurate pronunciations; we're trying to provide a quick way for an English speaker to say a line and have it more-or-less understood. Powers (talk) 02:45, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- Problems with IPA are that many people do not know it and some computer systems may lack the fonts to display it correctly. Despite those, WP and more-or-less all dictionaries use it. I'd say we should too; it is the only way to display pronunciation on the screen or page that works for any language. Pashley (talk) 16:19, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- Talk:Phrasebooks would probably be a better place for development of this proposal. Powers (talk) 02:45, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- We can decamp there, but would you please indicate whether you would be against any use of audio samples for phrasebooks? It would appear that quite a number of us believe those are the best ways to help English speakers say something in a way that could be understood, and much clearer, especially for certain languages, than attempts at pseudo-pronunciations. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:55, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- Let's keep the momentum and broader input we have here, for now.. We can move the discussion there later. I completely agree that the main goal is to give a simple and quick way for travellers to communicate. That's exactly why the use of sound makes sense.
- For a traveller, a sound version is much easier to imitate and gives a much better chance of being understood than any kind of transliteration. It's especially true for languages that are less related to English (like Chinese or Arabic). For the Dutch phrasebook, I'd expect pronunciations to be rather off but understandable. For Arabic phrases, however, I dare say that many English native speakers, especially those who have limited experience with foreign languages, would probably get the pronunciation so wrong that they wouldn't be understood.
- A huge number of our users have learned English as a second language. In fact, there are more speakers of English as a second language, than native English speakers in the world. We all know that millions of those second-language speakers have issues in their pronunciation, varying from slight accents to serious mistakes. Passive understanding is typically better than active speech. Even if we come up with a transliteration that gives a reasonably understandable pronunciation when used by a native speaker, it might generate completely different sounds when applied by someone with a heavy Indian, Chinese or Russian accent. If we have a solution that might overcome this issue, it seems silly not to use it.
- For many people, using phrases in a foreign language that they don't know or understand otherwise can be daunting. Especially with the increasing numbers of areas where you can simply be online (I have been online for at least 75% of my travels in the past 3 years), and with the future being downloads on devices rather than paper prints, future spoken versions could offer the option to play complete sentences. One might even wonder if, should we not offer it, Google translate will make our phrasebooks completely obsolete in a few years. Being completely honest, that's one of the reasons why I haven't ever put any effort in our phrasebooks.
- Any ideas about how to get the speaker/player on the same line as the text? JuliasTravels (talk) 13:14, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- The {{audio-pron}} template, at Wiktionary, does just that. I cannot show this here, without importing the template, but you can see an example in my sandbox there. The image is still a bit larger than I would prefer, but if we adapted the template for use here, we could change that. Peter Chastain (talk) 13:25, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- Let's keep the momentum and broader input we have here, for now.. We can move the discussion there later. I completely agree that the main goal is to give a simple and quick way for travellers to communicate. That's exactly why the use of sound makes sense.
See also:
Presumably there are more; this is something that many projects would benefit from. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- I think the most important thing is that something gets done. The status quo is untenbale. Do you know anybody who has actually used our legacy "phonetic" English? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:57, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- I largely understand them (the system was designed for native speakers of American English, after all), but I've never tried to use them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:39, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
- @Peter Chastain; if you know your way around templates, it would be useful if you could import it here (on an experimental base for now, of course). If that turns out to work well, we can create a test article to discuss if it would be acceptable on a larger scale. JuliasTravels (talk) 21:41, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing, phab:T5726 (a simple loudspeaker icon that you can click for audio) would be great. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of {{audio-pron}}, but maybe we don't them. I see you are a WMF community liaison and have been involved in this phab request. Is it your sense that this might actually get done? Peter Chastain (talk) 04:12, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
- JuliasTravels, I am very much a novice at template writing but would love to take a stab, especially if nobody is in a hurry and if a template expert were willing to hold my hand, perhaps in a real-time chat like IRC. But first, we should decide what we want. (Hence my comments to WhatamIdoing: If WMF is developing what we want, we should wait for it instead.) {{audio-pron}} calls other templates, which in turn call other templates, but we might not need them all. I think an administrator needs to import them, along with the edit history, to meet the attribution requirement of our Creative Commons license. Peter Chastain (talk) 04:12, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
- I don't expect the WMF to do anything about this in the next six months, and probably not this year. If you'd like, I can ask around and see if my estimate is correct. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
- That's too bad then. We seem a stuck :-) I do believe audiofiles is the way to go, but if we can't find a proper way to display them, I don't see how we can make a good test article. JuliasTravels (talk) 22:07, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- I don't expect the WMF to do anything about this in the next six months, and probably not this year. If you'd like, I can ask around and see if my estimate is correct. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
- @Peter Chastain; if you know your way around templates, it would be useful if you could import it here (on an experimental base for now, of course). If that turns out to work well, we can create a test article to discuss if it would be acceptable on a larger scale. JuliasTravels (talk) 21:41, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
[unindent] Any update on the status of the proposed audio sample button? We really should move on this as soon as we can. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:26, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
Suggestion: adding prominent slang and swear words to the Arabic phrasebook and to all the other phrasebooks
Most travelers whom get to experience a new culture, usually also are exposed to the various commonly used slang words, as well as, in many cases common swear words (which one better be aware of for the instances in which one is offended by the locals).
For this reason, at the Hebrew Wikivoyage we started adding a prominent slang and swear words section at the bottom of each phrasebook.
For example, the following phrasebook currently appears at the Arabic phrasebook of the Hebrew Wikivoyage (I translated the Hebrew parts to English):
Prominent Arabic slang and swear words
While the slang words and the offensive swear words in the following list are quite common in the discourse of the Arabic-speaking youth, it is important to emphasize that many of these words are generally considered offensive, especially among Arabic-speaking adults. While you may want to refrain from using the offensive words in this list, you might want to be aware of them during your trip as in some instances, that information might help you know when locals are trying to insult you.
| English | Arabic | English transliteration |
|---|---|---|
| Dick | ? | Zib / Zibi |
| Stupid | ? | Mahabul / Ahabal |
| Stupid | ? | Dba |
| Stupid | ? | Hmar |
| Donkey, stupid | ? | Jachsh |
| Disgusting | ? | Eichs, Jora |
| Old person | ? | Hatiar |
| I know nothing about it / I do not know | أَنَا عَارِف | Ana Aref? |
| Bummer | ? | Ba'asa |
| For real | ? | Ashkara |
| Beware! | ? | Dir Balak! |
| You dog | ? | Ya Kalb |
| Bitch, whore | شرموطة | Sharmouta |
| Bitch, whore | شرموطة | Kachba |
| Your mother's vagina | شرموطة | Kos Emek |
| Uncivilized person | شرموطة | Ars |
| Motherfucker | يا ابن الشرموطة | Ya Ibn el Sharmouta |
| Kiss my ass | الحس طيزي | Tel-has Tee-ze |
| I hope your house would be destroyed | ? | Yakhrab Baytak |
| Oh my god! | ? | Yaa Raabi! / Ya Alla! |
| Godforsaken place | ? | Tizinabi |
| Very good, excellent | ? | Sababa |
| Congratulations, well done | ? | Sahtein |
Would you support adding these types of sections to the English Wikivoyage as well? ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 18:38, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- Frankly, no. I don't think it's a great idea at all. It's of course possible that people encounter these words, but that's true for hundreds of other common words and expressions too. I've travelled quite a bit in Arabic speaking countries and I know quite a bit of Arabic too (including some of these words). I don't have the impression that people use them a lot towards tourists; I don't think they ever did so to address me. It seems absolute overkill to include such an extensive list of bad language. It would give a completely wrong impression of the language and attitude people are likely to encounter when visiting the Arabic speaking countries, imho. By the way, the translation of "I don't know" is missing لا. It now means "I know" instead of "I don't know". JuliasTravels (talk) 19:55, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- I understand. In my opinion though, at the very least we should consider having a section for only the most commonly used prominent slang words that are relevant to tourists.
- By the way, the "I don't know" sentence, is actually said like that and pronounced like a question - "Ana Aref?", and sometimes people say that with their shoulders up, to indicate one really know nothing about the question one is asked (it is somewhat similar to saying "do you really mistake me for an expert on that subject?". ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 20:06, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- I think trying to document the full range of slang can easily become a fool's errand. I know nothing of Arabic except for the fact that "yalla" has entered German slang among certain groups, but judging from the languages I do know, slang is in too fast a Flux and too different regionally for us to even attempt it. The word tuani(s) that is rather common in Nicaragua for instance is unlikely to be understood by a Mexican. Most school books on the learning of languages do not provide "bad words" yet by some miraculous intellectual osmosis even the laziest students can list George Carlin's "dirty words" after hardly half a year of learning English. We might wish to point out common pitfalls (like "coger" which means "take" in Spain and something else entirely in other places) but we should not strive to become urban dictionary of a hundred and fifty languages. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:39, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- By the way, the "I don't know" sentence, is actually said like that and pronounced like a question - "Ana Aref?", and sometimes people say that with their shoulders up, to indicate one really know nothing about the question one is asked (it is somewhat similar to saying "do you really mistake me for an expert on that subject?". ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 20:06, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- Are these words really uniform in pronunciation, meaning and usage throughout the Arabic speaking world? My very limited knowledge on the subject makes me believe probably not.
- On the other hand, if a word is very common to hear then probably worth listing --Andrewssi2 (talk) 20:45, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- Perhaps, but I am not sure even then. If local people are addressing you, as a foreigner relying on a phrasebook, they are hardly using slang if they want you to understand. And if they are trying to offend you without your noticing, you probably notice the situation in other ways – or remain ignorant of it even knowing a few of the words that could be used. Drawing conclusions from what you think are offending words, in a language you at most know the basics of, can quickly get worse than just being ignorant about the awkward situation. Some of the words (or words pronounced similarly enough) might well be used in a totally neutral manner. --LPfi (talk) 21:14, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- I agree, and no, these slang expressions are not universal. Sometimes is the operative word when it comes to Ana Aref :) It's a specific use of a very common sentence, and not even all that popular in most Arabic speaking countries, to my knowledge. In a particular context with particular body language, words can assume different of even opposite meanings. That kind of language (use) never belongs in a phrase book though, because it doesn't work when tourists use it without the correct context and it can cause a lot of confusing. Ana aref is simply "I know". When you shrug and grin and use it in a suitable (slang) conversation, then yes, it may be used to mean "I don't have a clue". If someone is giving you directions to the station in an area you don't know, and he asks if you know where the mosque is (to tell you how to walk from there), answering with ana aref would be a particularly bad idea. If you're a tourist and you know only a few sentences of Arabic, any Arab will understand "ana aref" as "I know". Another problem with slang in Arabic is that it differs greatly from country to country. Half of these words may be popular in, say, Palestine, but might not be popular at all in Syria or Egypt. JuliasTravels (talk) 21:31, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- I oppose this idea in the most emphatic terms possible. First off, swear words have differing levels of vulgarity between different cultures - take the word "cunt" for example, which is considered extremely vulgar in North American English, somewhat less so in UK English, and whose French equivalent (con) is barely considered profane at all; whereas "mother insults" are pretty mild, schoolyard-level taunts in the Anglosphere yet are among the worst things you could say to someone from Latin America or Mediterranean Europe. Our phrasebooks are intended for travellers, not students of language, so including swear words in them without a pretty in-depth level of cultural context that Wikivoyage is not designed to provide could lead to some pretty nasty unintended consequences. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, one of out goals at Wikivoyage is (or should be) to foster a sense of goodwill among travellers and those who come into contact with them, and I think it impugns that goal pretty gravely to teach our readers terms of abuse that might be used against their hosts. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:52, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- Agreed: outside the scope of Wikivoyage. Swearing is a fine art, fraught with danger, and Wiktionary is a good starting point but only that. A WV phrasebook cannot begin to do it justice. Peter Chastain (talk) 00:08, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- I definitely agree that this is a bad idea. The way I see it, the phrasebooks should present words and expressions that are among the most necessary and useful. In the Malay phrasebook, I've included a lot of words for foods that are not part of the basic template, because makan (eating) is so important to Malaysians and food is so delicious there. So it's not that every phrasebook should have only a minimal amount of content, but I really don't see why it's important to teach beginners in a language how to curse like a sailor. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:34, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- I think it best to leave them out of the phrasebooks as they can be found elsewhere should one want to attain them. Of course it is not uncommon to encounter swearing during one's travels but as mentioned above, they can be found elsewhere. One often learns those words and phrases early when discovering languages; however, WV is not the place to do so IMHO. -- Ikan did you mean curse like a "matroc"? -- Matroc (talk) 02:05, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- Does that mean "sailor" in some language? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:51, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
- A damned tabernacle with a chalice full of communion wafers! You do realise that all of this will be complicated greatly by concepts being used as swear, curse or expletives in one language that might be rather meaningless in another. (For instance, that burst of religious terminology that's meaningless in English probably says something really bad en français au Québec, non?). I don't suggest pretending that the voyager will not encounter these words (au contraire!) but it'll take more than a mere literal translation to convey what's very strong language at one destination. For instance, "con" in French (literally) is a female anatomy part but (de facto) is a fairly mild term meaning "stupid"; bring religion into a place where historically the Church has been far too powerful and the reaction is entirely different. K7L (talk) 18:12, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
You all convinced me that is not a good idea here on Engvoy, or elsewhere on Wikivoyage (eg, the Hebrew Wikivoyage). I will be removing those sections from the Hebvoy phrasebooks. Thanks for everyone's feedback. ויקיג'אנקי (talk) 03:02, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia links
Are we linking Wikipedia articles about each language in the sidebar of phrasebooks? I think that would be appropriate. Any objections? Or should we just use the Wikidata link? Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:38, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
- As far as I know, we do both. See French phrasebook for instance. Powers (talk) 01:26, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks. That sidebar looks redundant, with 2 links to Wikipedia. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:30, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- That happens a lot, as we have both Wikidata providing links and our own [[Wikipedia:foo]] interwiki link code. Powers (talk) 01:16, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
- But it seems undesirable to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:53, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
- It may be, but that's a bigger policy issue. Powers (talk) 21:00, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
- But it seems undesirable to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:53, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
- That happens a lot, as we have both Wikidata providing links and our own [[Wikipedia:foo]] interwiki link code. Powers (talk) 01:16, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks. That sidebar looks redundant, with 2 links to Wikipedia. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:30, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
Is there any threshold of usefulness?
I am still strongly of the opinion that no traveler really benefits from knowing Esperanto, except if they want to meet other Esperanto enthusiasts. But that said, with the glaring exception of Esperanto, is there any threshold of usefulness that is or should be applied to languages on this travel guide? For example, Ladino has a rich history, but in what destination is it really useful to know how to speak it? Please discuss whether there is or should be a threshold of usefulness to languages covered by supposedly travel-relevant phrasebooks on this site, and if so, how we could determine where to draw the line. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:18, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- See also Manx phrasebook for instance, which explicitly states (and rightly so) that every person who speaks Manx is also fluent in English. Certainly, there is some utility in being able to read some signage but those will all be in English as well in public spaces. If someone wants to learn Manx (or Ladino or several of the languages we have here), then that is worthwhile but mostly as an academic exercise or possibly to connect with one's roots rather than actual travel. I'm not necessarily arguing for deletion but just providing some perspective. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:24, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- It's a little hard to draw a line but if the language isn't a majority nor official language anywhere, then it's probably safe to say that the phrasebook is of no use — at least in the same sense as other phrasebooks.
- "Exotic" phrasebooks could possibly be developed in the direction of Travel topics instead, presenting more of the culture related to that language, like e.g. Esperanto events, traditional Manx cuisine etc. ϒpsilon (talk) 13:00, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- I would be inclined to agree that we shouldn't bother maintaining a phrasebook for a language that isn't in exclusive use somewhere. I note with some relief no one's tried to make a Latin phrasebook. Powers (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- On second thought, 'exclusive use' is a bit overly strict. Esperanto I can see keeping because one might find an Esperanto speaker almost anywhere. Powers (talk) 22:59, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- How widespread is Pig Latin speaking? ;-) Seriously, how great a chance is there anywhere to find Esperanto speakers, rather than people who speak English? Also, if we're not maintaining a phrasebook, what should we do with it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:11, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- It would be up for deletion if it has no practical utility. Powers (talk) 19:49, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
- How widespread is Pig Latin speaking? ;-) Seriously, how great a chance is there anywhere to find Esperanto speakers, rather than people who speak English? Also, if we're not maintaining a phrasebook, what should we do with it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:11, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
- On second thought, 'exclusive use' is a bit overly strict. Esperanto I can see keeping because one might find an Esperanto speaker almost anywhere. Powers (talk) 22:59, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
- I would be inclined to agree that we shouldn't bother maintaining a phrasebook for a language that isn't in exclusive use somewhere. I note with some relief no one's tried to make a Latin phrasebook. Powers (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
@Mx. Granger, Ikan Kekek: Generally, the precedent in the past for these created languages (Wikivoyage:Votes_for_deletion/March_2017#Ido_phrasebook is the main example) was that we moved them to a userspace somewhere. That seems to a reasonable way to deal with Esperanto: move to it to someone's userspace. Otherwise, we're setting one standard for Ido and another for Esperanto, which doesn't really make sense. The general standard for Wikivoyage is to combine its main policies with "the traveler comes first", but there is no evidence that the scenario of a non-Esperanto speaker and an Esperanto speaker has ever occurred on Wikivoyage, meaning there isn't currently a traveler to come first. We're now in an odd position: delete Ido and keep Esperanto? Selfie City (talk) 13:41, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- It makes perfect sense to keep Esperanto and delete Ido, because Esperanto is (barely) useful for travel and Ido is not. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- In terms of establishing a threshold for what languages we should keep, I might suggest the following standard (this is just a first attempt, and might need to be improved):
- We should only have a phrasebook for a language if it is useful in some realistic travel situation, excluding activities where the whole point of the activity is to use the language.
- This would allow Esperanto (because of the Pasporta Servo) and Catalan (because speaking a bit of it is a good way to make a good impression with the locals, and it's useful for reading signs), but it would exclude languages like Ido and Klingon (because as far as I know no one ever really speaks them except at dedicated events) and Ancient Greek (because it's not realistically useful for communicating with anyone nowadays). —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:36, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- If all we have for some hypothetical language is "activities where the whole point of the activity is to use the language", then the activity is a travel topic and the phrasebook is part of the travel topic article. As long as the topic itself is notable enough as a motive for travel, it's legitimate. K7L (talk) 16:58, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- I agree with this, and I concede that Esperanto passes the test - just barely, as you say. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:07, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- If all we have for some hypothetical language is "activities where the whole point of the activity is to use the language", then the activity is a travel topic and the phrasebook is part of the travel topic article. As long as the topic itself is notable enough as a motive for travel, it's legitimate. K7L (talk) 16:58, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- In terms of establishing a threshold for what languages we should keep, I might suggest the following standard (this is just a first attempt, and might need to be improved):
Phrasebooks
I think we have had discussions about the two (three) possible ways to visualize pronunciation more than once now... There are in short:
- pseudo-phonetics using an English based system - very inaccurate prone to being misunderstood, arguably the one English speakers understand the best
- IPA symbols - not ambiguous, not English based - arguably unlikely to be known by many people
- Audio files: Hard to do (we'd need a bunch of native speakers), hard to get out in a pinch (e.g. the check comes in a restaurant and you want to know what to say now), difficult to make portable; cannot be printed - Upside: everybody understands it and it is the least unambiguous.
Now we will most likely not get to any solution, because we did not the last time around, but maybe some combination of two of the three or all three might be a good idea?
Alternatively, we might seriously consider whether phrasebook are / should be part of our mission with the "others do it better by default" argument. I don't know whether this has merit, but a lot has changed since the first phrasebooks were written on this project... Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:00, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
- @Hobbitschuster: Since the traveller comes first, we should employ the most usable option which is some psuedo-phonetics. Small and unintrusive icons for audio which are excluded in print would be helpful but as you point out, it will be awhile before we have recordings of everything. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:42, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
- Every voyage begins with single step. But we have to take that step if we want to get somewhere... At any rate, you oppose IPA? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:47, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
- @Hobbitschuster: Not at all! Just think of what's maximally useful. We could even have IPA in a chart at the beginning alongside the more intelligible pronunciations and then just use the non-standard but easier to understanding pronunciations throughout the guides. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:57, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
- You see, I think IPA is easier to understand. Because while some sybols are hard to grasp, they always mean precisely the same thing in any given context. No system based on the incredibly illogical English letters to sounds system could even come close to that. And that is before you fogure in sounds English does not have. I understand that some people will not know or understand IPA, but as debates about whether Spanish e sounds like "e" or "ay" (the latter being a sure telltale sign for a broad American/English accent imho) have shown, English is ill-equipped to show how other languages are pronounced. In some cases those pseudo-pronunciations might even confuse people unnecessarily. Spanish or German letters to sounds relations are pretty straightforward, but if it says "bwaynous dee-ars", even people who have understood the Spanish pronunciation logic might get confused.... Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:25, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
- It would be "BWAY-nohs DEE-ahs", which, rendered by a native speaker of most English dialects, comes out close enough for most native Spanish speakers to understand (or so I would think). IPA is great for accuracy, but unless you have a good majority of the hundreds of symbols memorized, useless for rendering foreign sentences on the fly. Powers (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
- We have to explain what sounds exist in a given language at the beginning of the article regardless. And some sounds are impossible to represent by English letters because they don't exist in English. And most languages we would have phrasebooks on don't have hundreds of sounds but a more manageable number somewhere around fifty or lower than that. So it may make sense to explain the sounds at the beginning (meaning the readers can make sense of the IPA symbols) and then give them the IPA symbols with the words. Because quite frankly "bad is good enough" should not be a motto, not even in the crutch we give people trying to pronounce our phrasebooks... Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:13, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
- I cannot talk for native speakers, but for me, with a quite phonetic writing system in my own language(s), the IPA codes often really are much more readable than the English approximations. Most sounds in the languages I know have IPA symbols that look like the letters used for these sounds (a or ɑ for a, e or ɛ for e etc.), thus one can concentrate on the odd ones, or nuances of the quasi-familiar ones. --LPfi (talk) 18:54, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
- Same here. I think part of this debate is whether we should address English native speakers first and foremost (soodou founeticks) or speakers of all languages who read English (IPA) Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:54, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
- Considering there are no other phrasebooks accessible to monolingual English speakers except for these, while polyglots have (at least theoretically) the option of using phrasebooks in their native languages, I should think we would have to target English native speakers as the primary audience. (Also, if a language has sounds in it that aren't present in English, how exactly does IPA help, unless the reader also knows a language that does have the sound?) Powers (talk) 21:10, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
- That would be where audio samples would come in. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:39, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
- I agree. IPA is a great tool for linguists and serious language-learners, but it's not practical for Wikivoyage. Travellers shouldn't have to learn a new alphabet of symbols just to get up and running with basic greetings in a new language, and if we expect them to do so, then we're not going to attract much traffic to our phrasebooks.
- Pretty much every online dictionary, or language-learning app / website I know (Oxford, Cambridge, Larousse, Babbel, Linguee, Duolingo, Wordreference, even Google Translate) uses audio files, even if some also use IPA. Now if we could integrate audio files in the same way as Wiktionary, that would be great. Getting a native speaker for each language would be ideal, but not necessary as long as the person is fluent or near-fluent. I would be comfortable being the voice of French, for instance (assuming my microphone was up to scratch). --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:01, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
- Audio files would of course be extremely valuable. Still, reading IPA is faster than listening, and in many cases easier to grasp, so if it could be included without introducing too much clutter I definitively would like that resource. For the native vs non-native question, the possibility of creating phrasebooks in Cebuano does not help much until we have them, and you should not hold your breath for phrasebooks in 2,000 language versions of Wikivoyage turning up. The second-language speakers (readers) are here and we can either help them or turn them down. The "serious language learners" who benefit from IPA includes many who know just their mother tongue and English — or English and a second language (if a language has a few unfamiliar sounds and symbols, checking them in the Pronunciation section or on IPA (or some such page), or even learning them of the aeroplane is not that difficult). --LPfi (talk) 15:05, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
- My girlfriend is a singer, and singers use IPA all the time to learn the diction of unfamiliar languages (a few years ago, a chorus she was in sang songs in Estonian and Malay, for example). I'm not opposed to introducing IPA into our phrasebooks, but I would be opposed to using it instead of pseudo-pronunciations, and I think I would be opposed to using it without audio. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:43, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
- Audio files would of course be extremely valuable. Still, reading IPA is faster than listening, and in many cases easier to grasp, so if it could be included without introducing too much clutter I definitively would like that resource. For the native vs non-native question, the possibility of creating phrasebooks in Cebuano does not help much until we have them, and you should not hold your breath for phrasebooks in 2,000 language versions of Wikivoyage turning up. The second-language speakers (readers) are here and we can either help them or turn them down. The "serious language learners" who benefit from IPA includes many who know just their mother tongue and English — or English and a second language (if a language has a few unfamiliar sounds and symbols, checking them in the Pronunciation section or on IPA (or some such page), or even learning them of the aeroplane is not that difficult). --LPfi (talk) 15:05, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
- That would be where audio samples would come in. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:39, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
- Considering there are no other phrasebooks accessible to monolingual English speakers except for these, while polyglots have (at least theoretically) the option of using phrasebooks in their native languages, I should think we would have to target English native speakers as the primary audience. (Also, if a language has sounds in it that aren't present in English, how exactly does IPA help, unless the reader also knows a language that does have the sound?) Powers (talk) 21:10, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
- Same here. I think part of this debate is whether we should address English native speakers first and foremost (soodou founeticks) or speakers of all languages who read English (IPA) Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:54, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
- I cannot talk for native speakers, but for me, with a quite phonetic writing system in my own language(s), the IPA codes often really are much more readable than the English approximations. Most sounds in the languages I know have IPA symbols that look like the letters used for these sounds (a or ɑ for a, e or ɛ for e etc.), thus one can concentrate on the odd ones, or nuances of the quasi-familiar ones. --LPfi (talk) 18:54, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
- We have to explain what sounds exist in a given language at the beginning of the article regardless. And some sounds are impossible to represent by English letters because they don't exist in English. And most languages we would have phrasebooks on don't have hundreds of sounds but a more manageable number somewhere around fifty or lower than that. So it may make sense to explain the sounds at the beginning (meaning the readers can make sense of the IPA symbols) and then give them the IPA symbols with the words. Because quite frankly "bad is good enough" should not be a motto, not even in the crutch we give people trying to pronounce our phrasebooks... Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:13, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
- It would be "BWAY-nohs DEE-ahs", which, rendered by a native speaker of most English dialects, comes out close enough for most native Spanish speakers to understand (or so I would think). IPA is great for accuracy, but unless you have a good majority of the hundreds of symbols memorized, useless for rendering foreign sentences on the fly. Powers (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
- You see, I think IPA is easier to understand. Because while some sybols are hard to grasp, they always mean precisely the same thing in any given context. No system based on the incredibly illogical English letters to sounds system could even come close to that. And that is before you fogure in sounds English does not have. I understand that some people will not know or understand IPA, but as debates about whether Spanish e sounds like "e" or "ay" (the latter being a sure telltale sign for a broad American/English accent imho) have shown, English is ill-equipped to show how other languages are pronounced. In some cases those pseudo-pronunciations might even confuse people unnecessarily. Spanish or German letters to sounds relations are pretty straightforward, but if it says "bwaynous dee-ars", even people who have understood the Spanish pronunciation logic might get confused.... Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:25, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
- @Hobbitschuster: Not at all! Just think of what's maximally useful. We could even have IPA in a chart at the beginning alongside the more intelligible pronunciations and then just use the non-standard but easier to understanding pronunciations throughout the guides. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:57, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
- Every voyage begins with single step. But we have to take that step if we want to get somewhere... At any rate, you oppose IPA? Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:47, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
So, in order to move this along, I am quite happy to drop my opposition to IPA as long as it is used alongside something that is more instantly user-friendly, i.e. audio samples. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:16, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
- I suppose we have somebody who (knows somebody who) knows the language well for every phrasebook regulars have been working with, and I suppose most of us has or knows somebody with recording facilities of some kind, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get samples for the sounds and phrases currently in the phrasebooks. Then of course, I speak Finland Swedish, not Swedish Swedish, my mother tongue may show when I pronounce Finnish, and I have no studio. Getting ideal samples may thus be more difficult. Also maintenance after those providing original samples left requires some more work. But we could definitely get samples that are better than the current pseudo-phonetics. --LPfi (talk) 10:13, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
- Agreed. Plus, most of the audio-samples on WP and Wiktionary are definitely not studio quality, but they are still understandable. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:46, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
- Did we come up with a good system for displaying audio files? I thought (at one point) that the links were taking people to Commons, to play the file there, and then you have to go back to the phrasebook page to keep reading. That isn't such a great user experience. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
- Agreed. Plus, most of the audio-samples on WP and Wiktionary are definitely not studio quality, but they are still understandable. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:46, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
New template
I've created {{pron}} for standardizing pronunciations, which, in their current form, are error-ridden I've implemented it on an experimental basis at Māori phrasebook#Consonants. It's used and implemented similarly to Template:Rail-interchange. Is anyone opposed to use of this template? ARR8 (talk | contribs) 05:28, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
- I think it's fine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:10, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
- It seems useful, but I urge people to be cautious about implementing it for languages they're not familiar with. Sometimes the example words are specifically chosen to match the language's phonology or phonotactics (see for instance "cheap" vs. "chore" in Chinese phrasebook) or there may be other phonological issues that are not obvious if you don't know the language. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:09, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Cases in Uralic languages (funny)
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/25690153/English-Swedish-German-Finnish-Dog-Joke
Scroll down for the comic — now with extra Hungarian! --Ypsilon (talk) 09:29, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
- LOL! Note to others that you needn't understand any Uralic languages to get the joke.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:25, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
- Hilarious! Thanks for sharing! Ground Zero (talk) 15:03, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Breadcrumb on language pages
I have added a basic title breadcrumb to the top of each language phrase book. Just a simple one back to this article so that anyone arriving on a language page from a search engine or Wikipedia can then navigate to this index page. Have not created any sub-classifications, not sure that is needed. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:06, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
- Webale! That's Luganda for يعيشك., which is Tunisian for Gelek spas. Which is Kurdish for Merci beaucoup.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:41, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Phrasebooks
Hello, favorite people. My e-mail inbox at work this morning had a note about a Wikimedia France project, LinguaLibre (https://lingualibre.org ). They're recording words and short phrases, suitable for dictionaries, and of course I thought of our past discussions about getting recordings into the Phrasebooks. I don't know much about the project, but I hope that it will be a useful connection. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:00, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for letting us know about this. Just had a play around to establish what kind of files are on there. At least for French, it's mostly individual words and fixed expressions of the kind found in a dictionary, not phrases as such. Presumably, there's nothing stopping Wikivoyagers contributing the sentences that are in our phrasebooks, but if there were any consensus for doing that, we'd be better off uploading to Commons or locally. The LinguaLibre website is clunky and slow at the moment (for instance, a bad search will never return "no results", it will just keep loading indefinitely). Perhaps someone with more patience than me will have a better experience. Also, as it develops, it may have more of the phrases we need, and will become more user-friendly.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:07, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
- Perhaps it would be time for us to revisit recording phrasebook phrases and individual sounds and words from the Pronunciation section, and perhaps destination names, and including audio links in phrasebooks and guides. We should upload to Commons, not locally, so one could start right away, but to add audio links or start a project we need consensus, and I think this should be done as a project. --LPfi (talk) 10:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
- Absolutely, I agree with this idea and always have done.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:37, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
- Me too. In the discussion at Talk:Phrasebooks#Phrasebooks there seems to be agreement in favor of including audio in phrasebooks. I agree we should upload to Commons. I support you (User:LPfi), or anyone else who's a native speaker of a language other than English, plunging forward and uploading audio files or starting an expedition. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:41, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
- @Whatamidoing (WMF), ThunderingTyphoons, Mx. Granger: Only 1 (or at best, 2) phrasebooks have audio. this is what are preventing guidebooks from becoming stars. AnotherEditor144 (talk) 08:07, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
IPA and audio, revisited...
- I agree with the above sentiments that adding IPA and audio will be highly useful to our travellers.
- The following is either ground-breaking or worthy of a "Meh, thats nice; now move along, kid.": I just found IPA Reader, which allows input of IPA and produces an audio clip based on voices of speakers of various languages. It's not 100% perfect, but would save time and effort in producing individual recordings. According to the creator's blog post, this was created for a class. In the comments, someone asked out licensing, but the creator does not appear responsive to blog comments. She does share her code, so at least it's not a black box. She mentions Wikipedia (in above blog) and Wiktionary (at What Is This?/How Do You Use It?), so she may be open to collaborating with Wikimedia or at least releasing the code under an acceptable license. Even if that fails, the posted code could possibly inspire a knowledgable/skilled Wikimedia contributer to develop a similar but not identical solution (within copyright compliance) that could work here and on other Wikimedia projects. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 14:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
- Audio is really useful! IPA is not very useful to people who don't use it professionally. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:19, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
- IPA is useful for those with English as a second language, such as me. In high school we used it for English, so at least my generation of Finns have some grasp of it. Regardless, figuring out (or remembering, if one has looked at the guideline) how a native English speaker would pronounce the gibberish used in pseudo-pronunciations is a lot harder than guessing at the IPA symbols. And we do have quite some non-native readers. The problem for me is that I am not confident enough on IPA to write any. For native speakers I understand the situation is different. Anyway, to get the sound recordings done and included would be a huge step forward. IPA specialists could also use them to transcribe pronunciation of languages they do not know themselves. –LPfi (talk) 12:39, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
- Sure, IPA is useful to people who know it. Most of our readers won't. I have no objection to using it along with pseudo-transliterations, but sound samples are really by far the best way to do things. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:57, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
I only speak English
@Flightnavigator has added "I only speak English" to the Portuguese phrasebook. I think this is a good idea. Please consider adding it to your favorite phrasebooks, perhaps as "I [only] speak English", for the case of people who speak multiple languages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:08, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Question
How is Hindi a world language? It is only spoken by a number of people in the Northern parts of India. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:54, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
- Because it's one of the most-spoken languages in the world, and even more so if you consider Urdu and Hindi to be very closely related. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:13, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
Using Lingua Libre to record audio clips
In the hopes of earning it a star, I have been enhancing the Portuguese phrasebook by adding audio files of words and phrases. Although Commons already had sound clips for many individual words, some were missing, and there were no phrases. I used Lingua Libre to fill the gap. It's a project of Wikimédia France. You can choose from several CC licenses for your contributions, and the files get exported to Commons. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to improve phrasebooks. Nelson Ricardo 2500 (talk) 20:48, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
An idea
Hi. I don't edit here and I am not involved in your community, but I wanted to give a little feedback. As a person who plans on travelling to a few countries to say the least, it is often difficult for me to find good language learning resources for those countries. For example, I see that you have Tagalog phrasebook, but I think it would be useful if there were also a list of websites/communities/apps/Wikibooks/etc. that are recommended for learning the language, and explaining some things about how effective they are. For popular languages like French or Spanish this isn't such a big deal, but some languages are obscure and thus there are very few resources available for learners. So, having them listed here would be useful, because sometimes they can be hard to find and assess.
I have no idea if you have ever discussed this issue or if there is a consensus for this, but I just came to slip this idea in. Take it as you will. Thanks for all your hard work here, your travel guides have been helpful to me. PseudoSkull (talk) 03:01, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- I know a couple of phrasebooks like Japanese feature a learn more section with other sources and other sites where one could learn, if you know of any good Tagalog sources you should add them Tai123.123 (talk) 03:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- I agree that this is useful – please do add "Learn more" sections to phrasebooks if you have resources to share. —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:56, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
- There, could be links to "textbooks or manuals in Wikibooks", "lectures or courses in Wikiversity", "dictionaries with explanations in Wiktionary", and "media files about this language in WikiCommons". --Onwa (talk) 04:36, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
- I agree that this is useful – please do add "Learn more" sections to phrasebooks if you have resources to share. —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:56, 17 September 2021 (UTC)