English speakers of the fedi.
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English speakers of the fedi. In a software with the interface in English, Reading a menu with verbs such as Save, Open, Close, Edit, Format etc., do you read them as imperative (an order: "do this") or as an infinitive (the "base form" of the verb, like "to do this")?
Are you a native speaker or have English as a second language?
#Dev #ux #ui #software #interface #translation #uiux #uxui #gui
@eltonfc I'm not a linguist but I'm pretty sure in English the infinitive form of save is literally "to save", so the idea that just "save" could be infinitive is confusing to me. And writing "to save" on a button seems like it wouldn't make any sense? I guess I don't really understand the question.
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English speakers of the fedi. In a software with the interface in English, Reading a menu with verbs such as Save, Open, Close, Edit, Format etc., do you read them as imperative (an order: "do this") or as an infinitive (the "base form" of the verb, like "to do this")?
Are you a native speaker or have English as a second language?
#Dev #ux #ui #software #interface #translation #uiux #uxui #gui
@eltonfc imperative, because when translated in Italian we use the imperative. Open becomes Apri and not Aprire. Save → Salva, not Salvare. Edit → Modifica, not Modificare and so on
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English speakers of the fedi. In a software with the interface in English, Reading a menu with verbs such as Save, Open, Close, Edit, Format etc., do you read them as imperative (an order: "do this") or as an infinitive (the "base form" of the verb, like "to do this")?
Are you a native speaker or have English as a second language?
#Dev #ux #ui #software #interface #translation #uiux #uxui #gui
@eltonfc It is interesting, I have never really thought of it. Swedish native speaker, and the infinite and imperative forms are (mostly) identical also in Swedish, so I haven't made the distinction.
But thinking of it, it's imperative, as I am commanding the machine to do something for me: "Open the (expletive) file".
As a software translator, I haven't thought of it either, but the imperative form comes naturally (and I follow the lead from other software as far as possible).
The biggest hurdle translating is when there are adjectives, as these are inflected by gender, so a menu item like "New" can have several forms in Swedish, and is often translated as "Create", which cannot.
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English speakers of the fedi. In a software with the interface in English, Reading a menu with verbs such as Save, Open, Close, Edit, Format etc., do you read them as imperative (an order: "do this") or as an infinitive (the "base form" of the verb, like "to do this")?
Are you a native speaker or have English as a second language?
#Dev #ux #ui #software #interface #translation #uiux #uxui #gui
"why is the software calling me a dolt?" https://folklore.org/Do_It.html
The 1992 mac hig doesn't address this directly but does label a button "Don't Save".
On the one hand, it can't be the infinitive since it doesn't have "to", but I had to look up what the "plain form" or "base form" of the verb is even called.
The 1992 hig calls them verbs or actions, which makes more sense than claiming that it really is imperative.
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@eltonfc I'm not a linguist but I'm pretty sure in English the infinitive form of save is literally "to save", so the idea that just "save" could be infinitive is confusing to me. And writing "to save" on a button seems like it wouldn't make any sense? I guess I don't really understand the question.
@williamoconnell examples of "save" being interpreted as infitive may be:
"[I want to] save [the file]"
"[I must] save [the file]"Of course, imperative is something like "Computer, save this file"
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@eltonfc It is interesting, I have never really thought of it. Swedish native speaker, and the infinite and imperative forms are (mostly) identical also in Swedish, so I haven't made the distinction.
But thinking of it, it's imperative, as I am commanding the machine to do something for me: "Open the (expletive) file".
As a software translator, I haven't thought of it either, but the imperative form comes naturally (and I follow the lead from other software as far as possible).
The biggest hurdle translating is when there are adjectives, as these are inflected by gender, so a menu item like "New" can have several forms in Swedish, and is often translated as "Create", which cannot.
@nafmo that's what inspired me to post this poll. When translating software to Portuguese, the verbs are translated in the infitive
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For me, that's very different. That's a mnemonic device — a list of things to not forget. Computer commands are "do this".
The high level commands, of course, cause complex functions to be run, but underneath it's all just sugar on top of instructions that are like: "Move the value in this memory buffer to that one. Now add 1 to the value in that buffer. Now compare that value to another buffer, and if it is equal, switch to this other set of instructions."
To me, menu items are like that.
_However_, interacting directly in a GUI is different. Like, typing into a word processor or drawing with a paint program. There, the metaphor takes over more. Feels more like I'm actively doing stuff, directly, rather than giving commands — even though it is just another interface to the same thing.
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English speakers of the fedi. In a software with the interface in English, Reading a menu with verbs such as Save, Open, Close, Edit, Format etc., do you read them as imperative (an order: "do this") or as an infinitive (the "base form" of the verb, like "to do this")?
Are you a native speaker or have English as a second language?
#Dev #ux #ui #software #interface #translation #uiux #uxui #gui
@eltonfc I had to think about this one. It’s a great question. Also interesting that some menu items that could be expressed with verbs are just nouns (“settings,” “font”…).
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@strypey @mattdm @virtulis @eltonfc
This is a really good point--I started out entirely in GUI environments and only a few years later started using CLIs. I do think about GUI buttons as infinitives and CLI as imperative (though, as a native speaker, the main reason why I think about the grammatical difference is because of taking second languages--perhaps the reason why I think the way I do is because la.wikipedia.org uses infinitives).
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Iff English is your second language, how are these verbs tusually translated to *your* language in software interfaces?
@eltonfc I don't understand the question. But in Swedish, the "Close" alternative would be "Stäng", which is an imperative. The infinitive would be "Stänga".
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@eltonfc oddly if I am thinking about software in German, I think I expect the infinitive
@sarajw @eltonfc This poll was the first time I thought about this! How interesting. I read imperative „Save! Open!“ but in German it’s aways translated as infinitive. It would actually be really odd in a really fun way if those menu items were translated as commands. „Speichere!“
Oh, why not go for a royal order?
„So möge er denn speichern!“
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@eltonfc I don't understand the question. But in Swedish, the "Close" alternative would be "Stäng", which is an imperative. The infinitive would be "Stänga".
@jjj what motivates de question is that in English, the infinitive and imperative forms are identical. In Portuguese, they are translated in the infinitive: "Fechar" instead of "Feche" or "Fecha"
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@sarajw @eltonfc This poll was the first time I thought about this! How interesting. I read imperative „Save! Open!“ but in German it’s aways translated as infinitive. It would actually be really odd in a really fun way if those menu items were translated as commands. „Speichere!“
Oh, why not go for a royal order?
„So möge er denn speichern!“ -
English speakers of the fedi. In a software with the interface in English, Reading a menu with verbs such as Save, Open, Close, Edit, Format etc., do you read them as imperative (an order: "do this") or as an infinitive (the "base form" of the verb, like "to do this")?
Are you a native speaker or have English as a second language?
#Dev #ux #ui #software #interface #translation #uiux #uxui #gui
@eltonfc strong #4 (as e.g. an 'edit' menu will often contain not so much a list of things to edit, as a list of editing related features)
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Iff English is your second language, how are these verbs tusually translated to *your* language in software interfaces?
@eltonfc I have simply never used computer interfaces with my native language, so I can't say.
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@williamoconnell examples of "save" being interpreted as infitive may be:
"[I want to] save [the file]"
"[I must] save [the file]"Of course, imperative is something like "Computer, save this file"
@eltonfc Interesting, I think I always thought of it as imperative, but I guess in other languages it would typically be localized to be the infinitive? As an English speaker the idea of writing something like "I want to save the file" on a UI sounds unnatural to me; as though you're just giving the computer information and it's going to make its own decision.
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@jjj what motivates de question is that in English, the infinitive and imperative forms are identical. In Portuguese, they are translated in the infinitive: "Fechar" instead of "Feche" or "Fecha"
@eltonfc I understand that. As I wrote it is the same in Swedish. I don't understand what you mean with how they are usually translated. That would depend on the original text, I can't say how often either is used in general.
