And in any event, the fact that the source texts are in E shouldn't preclude your translating from X to Y. You just take the translation text file for X which is basically a list of (E phrase, X phrase) pairs, and translate the X phrases to Y phrases. This requires no E knowledge on your part.
If only such a simplistic means of translating between 2 languages actually existed. I doubt it, even in the limited use of programming phrases.
I know in my own area of expertise, literature, it does not exist but I will grant that the needs of a computer program may be much less linguistic precision. But even a computer program still deals in end-users who want to see text
The point is that the software should be originally written in English same as when you write a tutorial for Boost library you write it in English (may be not best one) and then you or somebody else translate it to other language if relevant. Still English is "basic" international language. that
makes sense to them in their own language rather than pig-latin type gobbledygook which they will laugh at. We are talking about computer users who will pay for a computer program in their own language and commercial companies who can not deliver poor quality in that regard and hope to be successful.
Ohhh :-) I have seen enough commercial software with crappy translations, who give the text to professionals that have no idea in software and make really bad job, just because they unaware of the domain. On the other hand I've seen very good translations done by non-professionals who actually know the domain and fluent with the terminology. So... I don't buy it :-) In one of the previous reviews it was mentioned a way to translate strings by creating excel files of original strings and giving them to professional translators. I just can't even describe how many problems such things may cause. Best? Give a translator: - the software - the program like poedit with integrated spell checker and friendly interface. - explain how to make the program to use the generated file And let him work. Believe me it would good much better results, (Of course does not happen in reality, but this is other story) Artyom