# Promoting Fortran in non-English languages **URL:** \ **Category:** Meta\ **Created:** [February 7, 2021, 8:03pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678 "2021-02-07T20:03:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vmagnin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/vmagnin/32/28_2.png) [@vmagnin](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/vmagnin)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2021, 8:03pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/1 "2021-02-07T20:03:22Z")
In this post, I talk about some simple ideas to promote Fortran and the work of our community in non-English languages. šŸ‡ŗšŸ‡³ We have already talked about non-English languages here: [https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/should-fortran-discourse-be-open-to-languages-other-than-english/385](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/should-fortran-discourse-be-open-to-languages-other-than-english/385) And we discussed that some students (especially undergraduate) can be intimidated coming in our Discourse by two barriers : English level and technical level. But another problem is the referencing of sites in foreign languages. For example, in France Google is dominating (\>90 %), followed by Yahoo, Bing, Qwant and Ecosia. If I type ā€œFortranā€ in the french versions of those search engines, the results are: - Bing: [Fortran-lang.org](http://Fortran-lang.org) is at the 3rd position. - Ecosia: 2nd (in fact Ecosia uses Bing results). - Yahoo: 4th. It seems good, butā€¦ - Qwant: mainly results in French on the first page. And impossible to find [Fortran-lang.org](http://Fortran-lang.org) and affiliated sites, even going deep in the results (limited to 5 pages). - Google: like in Qwant, and I canā€™t find [Fortran-lang.org](http://Fortran-lang.org) and affiliated sites in the 10 first pagesā€¦ Those engines privilege results in the national language, as most people expect, and itā€™s a good and rational thing. But itā€™s a kind of bubble effect and in the scientific fields you need of course to break out of that bubbleā€¦ OK, I know that I have just to add an english word in my query to influence the engineā€™s behavior: with ā€œfortran languageā€, [Fortran-lang.org](http://Fortran-lang.org) is 5th in Google and 1st in Qwant! But most undergraduate students wonā€™t do thatā€¦ (I am trying to teach that to my 20 yearā€™s old students.) **1) Identifying and participating in non-English sites** As a consequence, we can search for non-English forums or Wikis related to Fortran and participate. For example, the first (and only?) french forum about Fortran is: [https://www.developpez.net/forums/f157/general-developpement/algorithme-mathematiques/programmation-parallele-calcul-scientifique-haute-performance-hpc/fortran/](https://www.developpez.net/forums/f157/general-developpement/algorithme-mathematiques/programmation-parallele-calcul-scientifique-haute-performance-hpc/fortran/) where I have posted some news about Fortran and our community (Discourse, fpm, Milanā€™s bookā€¦) and I try to give answers when I can. OK, there is only a few new questions each month in the Fortran forum, but that site has a good page ranking and is considered as a reference by french developers. Therefore, people will easily find there news in their own language showing that Fortran is evolving and has a community. A first step before possibly joining us. **2) Writing papers in computer magazines** We can promote Fortran and its tools by writing papers in our national magazines. For example, in France the Diamond Editions are publishing very good magazines around open source: Linux Pratique, GNU/Linux Magazine France, MISC, Hackable magazine. The pay is pretty good, and the author can even choose to be paid less if he chooses a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license for its paper, that will then be freely put online on their site some months latter: [https://connect.ed-diamond.com/](https://connect.ed-diamond.com/) Writing a paper for a magazine is typically a 20 hours work. We could also write books, but itā€™s a huge effort, as Milan knows šŸ˜‰ , and for a low audience on a national levelā€¦ (OK, it depends on your countryā€™s sizeā€¦) **3) Teaching Fortran** If you teach Fortran to your students you will of course speak about Fortran-lang and its projects. Or if you have Ph.D. students. And maybe put your PDF online. **4) Any other idea ?** ---
**Author:** ![awvwgk](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/awvwgk/32/154_2.png) [@awvwgk](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/awvwgk)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/2 "2021-02-07T20:26:39Z")
I opened an issue at the [fortran-lang.org](http://fortran-lang.org) repository to explore the possibility for localization of the webpage. > > > Inspired by @vmagnin's post at https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678 > Is there a way we can offer localization with the current website design? What would we... ---
**Author:** ![certik](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/certik/32/4_2.png) [@certik](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/certik)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 1:24am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/3 "2021-02-08T01:24:46Z")
Thanks for bringing this up. As I [commented](https://github.com/fortran-lang/fortran-lang.org/issues/197#issuecomment-774808612) on @awvwgkā€™s link, I think itā€™s a good idea to translate the pages to other languages. I think it depends on the size of your country. My old country is small and as such I encourage to use English, as the lingua franca. I am unapologetic about that and simply ā€œrequireā€ it for anybody to learn enough to at least understand technical documents. That being said, it is helpful to translate the webpage, and it does provide an opportunity to connect with more people and opens up more avenues to collaboration (asking people to translate the pages) and as a way ā€œinā€ for people. It is also important to eventually get to the top in (local) search engines, so we have to do whatever it takes. ---
**Author:** ![msz59](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@msz59](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/msz59)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 8:44am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/4 "2021-02-08T08:44:21Z")
One thing is the translation of webpages but another, non-trivial, is the vocabulary/terminology. Probably (at least it is so in Polish) the last version of Fortran which had some printed books published and the vocabulary (mostly) commonly accepted was F77. With the advent of new concepts, constructs, attributes and little-to-no printed material, it was up to (few as they were/are) academic teachers to translate. What has emerged is mostly a sort of _calque_. It is acceptable in speech but when written, looks ugly. Some terms have also changed in English vocabulary. Example: F77 used to have _subprogram_ - _function_ or _subroutine_. In Polish there were _podprogram_, _funkcja_ and _procedura (!)_. Now we have _procedures_ everywhere so if we adopt _procedura_ for the general term, we have nothing left for a _subroutine_. ---
**Author:** ![vmagnin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/vmagnin/32/28_2.png) [@vmagnin](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/vmagnin)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 9:03am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/5 "2021-02-08T09:03:20Z")
If translating pages is decided, I of course agree to work on the french translation! And of course, it could be a collaborative work if there is other people interested here. We can either do a 100% human translation or try to use an automatic translation tool such as [https://www.deepl.com/](https://www.deepl.com/) and revise by hand the result to accelerate (?) the work. Those tools can be very efficient, although the translation can be a little ā€œheavyā€ when there is a lot of technical terms in the sentence. Another problem could be on the copyright side: I donā€™t know if there is any restriction concerning those tools. We should read first their _Terms and Conditions._ ---
**Author:** ![vmagnin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/vmagnin/32/28_2.png) [@vmagnin](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/vmagnin)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 9:22am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/6 "2021-02-08T09:22:01Z")
Yes, some parts could be more difficult than others to translate, depending on the amount of technical terms. In France, it is well seen to avoid mixed language (ā€œFranglaisā€ as we call it), when possible. I have just read the Fr SymPy webpage and at the bottom, the verb ā€œForkā€ was not translated, which yields the ugly ā€œForkezā€. We could use the verb ā€œBifurquerā€ but it is not used in that sense. Although it can be used as a transitive verb, according to my dictionary, it is very rare. It is generally used only as an intransitive verb. So itā€™s difficult to avoid ā€œForkezā€ā€¦ Of course, one must be familiar with a language to feel the ugliness of a term. Each translation team could define somewhere a technical glossary of its preferred translations for technical terms, when several translations are possible, to get something homogeneous. In French, a _sous-programme_ can be a _fonction_ or a _sous-routine_. But a _sous-routine_ can also be called a _procĆ©dure_, which is preferred because a _fonction_ could also be called as a _sous-routine_ (which returns something). ---
**Author:** ![alozada](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/alozada/32/298_2.png) [@alozada](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/alozada)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 12:18pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/7 "2021-02-08T12:18:11Z")
In the case of technical terms, a criterion that can be used is whenever there is a word, in the local language, that fully or partially represents the same idea, use it in that language. Otherwise, the term can be used in English, highlighted or in another _type font_. Thus, a table of equivalences between technical terms in English and languages ā€‹ā€‹other than English can be constructed. This table would always be available in all versions of the page. ---
**Author:** ![msz59](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@msz59](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/msz59)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 2:01pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/8 "2021-02-08T14:01:56Z")
> [@alozada](#): > > whenever there is a word, in the local language, that fully or partially represents the same idea, use it in that language The problem is that such a word is rarely (or never) unique, the only one possible translation. When there are no books published in local language (say, a Metcalfā€™s MFE translation), we have no ā€œlocal standardā€ to follow. ---
**Author:** ![alozada](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/alozada/32/298_2.png) [@alozada](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/alozada)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 3:17pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/9 "2021-02-08T15:17:22Z")
The selection of a specific word or term would require a consensus among the translators for a given language. This consensus can occur according to the frequency of use, for example. ---
**Author:** ![certik](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/certik/32/4_2.png) [@certik](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/certik)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/10 "2021-02-08T16:49:04Z")
@alozada, welcome to the forum! @msz59 excellent point about vocabulary / terminology. Even before translating pages, I would love to have a section called vocabulary or terminology and have all the main terms translated to other languages. As @alozada said, sometimes there is no established term. In that case we can at least list some candidates. I should amend what I [said](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/3) above, that while I require English for documents that are to be read by international participants, I also like to speak Czech with just Czech people and I do not like mixing English terms in it. Having an agreed upon vocabulary of technical terms would greatly help. I feel a vocabulary might be our first step as it would help translating down the road and help make progress in promoting Fortran in non-English languages, the original topic by @vmagnin. ---
**Author:** ![certik](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/certik/32/4_2.png) [@certik](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/certik)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2021, 4:52pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/11 "2021-02-08T16:52:18Z")
I am glad you read the SymPyā€™s French translation. It helps to realize how hard it is to actually produce a high quality up to date translated version of pages. Itā€™s quite a big task. But we can at least start with a vocabulary as I mentioned in my previous comment. ---
**Author:** ![vmagnin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/vmagnin/32/28_2.png) [@vmagnin](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/vmagnin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 7:48am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/12 "2021-02-09T07:48:53Z")
I have read the _Terms and Conditions_ of the free version of DeepL: [https://www.deepl.com/pro-license#free](https://www.deepl.com/pro-license#free) > Both private and business use of the DeepL Translator (free) service are free of charge. There is no restrictions: we can use it to ease our translation work. Sorry @certik , no Czech language yet in that European tool šŸ˜„ šŸ˜‰ But it appears in the long list of languages available in [https://translate.google.com/](https://translate.google.com/) (I have not read their _conditions_). ---
**Author:** ![vmagnin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/vmagnin/32/28_2.png) [@vmagnin](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/vmagnin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 8:23am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/13 "2021-02-09T08:23:07Z")
Some linguistic tools from my bookmarks that could be interesting: **Translation tools** - [DeepL Translate](https://www.deepl.com/translator) - [https://translate.google.com/](https://translate.google.com/) (I have not read their _conditions_) - [SYSTRAN Translate](https://translate.systran.net/?lang=en) (I have not read their _conditions_, but Czech is available). - [https://www.reverso.net](https://www.reverso.net) (I have not read their _conditions_) - [https://www.linguee.fr/](https://www.linguee.fr/) The friend of DeepL, with many languages combinations and translations issued from real documents. **Terminology tools** - [https://iate.europa.eu/home](https://iate.europa.eu/home) ā€œIATE ( **I** nter **a** ctive **T** erminology for **E** urope) is the EUā€™s terminology database.ā€ - [https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/](https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/) ā€œ_TERMIUM Plus_ Ā®, one of the largest terminology and linguistic data banks in the world, gives you access to millions of terms in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.ā€ Especially interesting for the English / French translation. It even knows what is a forkā€¦ **Bilingual dictionnaries** - [https://www.wordreference.com/](https://www.wordreference.com/) ā€œfree online bilingual dictionariesā€ - [https://www.collinsdictionary.com/](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/) - [https://dictionary.cambridge.org/](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/) ---
**Author:** ![Samuel\_GF](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/samuel_gf/32/148_2.png) [@Samuel\_GF](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/Samuel_GF)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 9:52am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/14 "2021-02-09T09:52:29Z")
I can help with the Spanish version, now I am the owner of `fortran.es` ---
**Author:** ![vmagnin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/vmagnin/32/28_2.png) [@vmagnin](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/vmagnin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 10:06am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/15 "2021-02-09T10:06:40Z")
@awvwgk has now set the plugin to internationalize the site. See: [Localization of the webpage Ā· Issue #197 Ā· fortran-lang/fortran-lang.org Ā· GitHub](https://github.com/fortran-lang/fortran-lang.org/issues/197) ---
**Author:** ![epagone](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/epagone/32/252_2.png) [@epagone](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/epagone)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 11:32am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/16 "2021-02-09T11:32:51Z")
I think that a potentially big audience that we should consider (and that would benefit significantly from this work) are Mandarin (and Cantonese?) speakers. In that case the ā€œbubbleā€ that @vmagnin has correctly described is much ticker and more resistant. The problem is to find someone able to revise the automated translation that might be very poor. I know that itā€™s a tougher problem compared to what discussed so far, but I think there is a lot of untapped, rising potential among Chinese developers and the effort might pay dividends. (And no, unfortunately, I donā€™t know any Mandarin and Cantonese, unfortunately šŸ˜¢ .) ---
**Author:** ![vmagnin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/vmagnin/32/28_2.png) [@vmagnin](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/vmagnin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 11:56am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/17 "2021-02-09T11:56:32Z")
> [@epagone](#): > > The problem is to find someone able to revise the automated translation that might be very poor. Hi Emanuele @epagone , yes, we should not put online automated translations. We can use it as a tool to accelerate (or notā€¦) our work, but my opinion is that it should always be revised and amended by a human being. Perhaps there is already Chinese speakers here? And there is probably a lot of speakers in the American labs. It does also depend on the Jekyll server support concerning Unicode characters. ---
**Author:** ![epagone](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/epagone/32/252_2.png) [@epagone](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/epagone)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 12:02pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/18 "2021-02-09T12:02:58Z")
> [@vmagnin](#): > > we should not put online automated translations. We can use it as a tool to accelerate (or notā€¦) our work, but my opinion is that it should always be revised and amended by a human being. Agreed. > [@vmagnin](#): > > Perhaps there is already Chinese speakers here? And there is probably a lot of speakers in the American labs. It is with this hope that I typed my message: to throw the idea on the table and gauge if any Mandarin speaker is part of this discussion board. > [@vmagnin](#): > > It does also depend on the Jekyll server support concerning Unicode characters. Good point, I didnā€™t think about that. I donā€™t know. ---
**Author:** ![msz59](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@msz59](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/msz59)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 12:03pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/19 "2021-02-09T12:03:06Z")
> [@vmagnin](#): > > There is no restrictions Well, there are. DeepL free plan limits the number of whole files (3/month) but also ā€œLimited characters & volumeā€ for ā€˜text translationā€™ ---
**Author:** ![vmagnin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/vmagnin/32/28_2.png) [@vmagnin](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/vmagnin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2021, 12:16pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678/20 "2021-02-09T12:16:48Z")
@msz59 , you are right: if you want to translate files itā€™s three .docx or .pptx. And if you just translate paragraphs, you are limited to 5000 characters (at a time). [Next page](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/promoting-fortran-in-non-english-languages/678.md?page=2)