Hi everyone

Marklin has no respect for French-speaking buyers ... Marklin is not even able to make a full French version in his cs2 ... but to take money from these buyers markln beats the world record speed of cashing cash !!!



The cs2 in appearance in its French version is quite correct ... but once you want to go deeper as in the CV, it is bullshit .. do not be afraid of words ... I pay and in return I need full service ... not cheap service



What does that mean?



I'm not mad at the Germans ... but against Marklin ... who thinks we're paying pigs !!!

It's as if you have to cross the street to go to the bathroom of another establishment, because it is forbidden to go to the bathroom of the restaurant where you eat ... you see me cross the street pants down

Thewolf

To do language internationalization take specific software development skills/methods and development discipline to stick to that system, typically where all printed text is referred to by a an index into a table, and which column of the table you pull from depends on the language chosen. Then its a matter of just maintaining that table in the languages you support - but requires you only fill an entry with the actual proper translation (no "lets put the placeholder German in there and come back to it later" nonsense, and no hard coded messages allowed in the code) - and filling out the entire table before you enable a new language. But they don't do that, so you get "partial support". If they had no respect you'd not get any French, so at least there is some support.

ok ...I understand

Me and my mood of '' truck ''

I understand and agree with you.

Here quite a good translation program. Perhaps it helps you too. I use this always for translations German - Polish vv for my business contacts to Poland.

https://www.deepl.com/translator

This translator has also a french section available.

regards

TEEWolf

I am inclined to agree with this. Märklin have made a choice, presumably based on demand, to offer their products to English-speaking and other language users.

The CSx is not a cheap product. Software bugs which require patches is one thing, but to not even attempt translations of apparently random user and error messages is just lazy and rude.

It says "you (Foreign speaking user) do not matter to us". Thanks for your hard-earned discretionary spending, now go away.

And I think that sucks. If the product is not ready to ship to market, DON'T SELL IT!

But here's a thought, how about an inducement to ALL owners, that in return for contributing an accurate translation of a given message, you will receive a credit to spend in the Märklin online store. Professional translators do not come cheap so this would be a very inexpensive way for Märklin to resolve the issue and incredibly quickly.

There is no shortage of skilled users already in the community with the required language and specialist knowledge skills to make this happen very quickly.

All it would require is ....

1: A means to easily identify any specific message - perhaps by a small code, or some unique key press that generates the database code for that exact text.

2: A means to contribute the translation online or via email. This could even be put up for peer review just in case someone else has a better, shorter or more accurate variation.

3: A means for the accepted translated text to be distributed back out to all CSx users by a simple update process.

If for whatever reason the update back to the unit requires a complete package, then how about the translated messages being publicly available in the interim for a quick online lookup ?

It really should not be that hard in this modern world.

Steve

I don't think it is arrogance on the part of Marklin. It is merely a software development trend that was started by Microsoft decades ago. In short, you:
1. Hype up the product in the months before release.

2. Do minimal testing - on the basis that you will never find them all anyway.

3. Release the product to start the cash flow.

4. Wait for the bugs to come in - fix the easy ones and leave the harder ones to version .1 or version 2 of the product.

In other words, the buyers of a product are the BETA testers. The manufacturer save heaps of money as they don't have to pay for expensive expert testing.

The big difference between Microsoft and Marklin is that Marklin does not provide a direct line to their customers to report the bugs.. Cookee's idea of using a small code to identify the message is good - Microsoft use a hexadecimal number, but there is nothing in those German messages that can be used to redirect the programmer to the origin of the error message.

So the message here is. "Never buy the first of a new thing. Wait for the update or the next year."

I get confused just by having Thewolf and TEEWolf writing in the same thread..........

Per.

You can send them improved translations. But do not even expect a "Thank you" from them.
Credit for the shop? That would be great.

An attempt from 2014 to improve the translations can be found here:
https://www.marklin-user...e-French-CS2-translation
https://www.marklin-user...-English-CS2-translation
https://www.marklin-user...-Swedish-CS2-translation
https://www.marklin-user...-Italian-CS2-translation

Some of the errors listed in 2014 have been corrected by Märklin.

Maybe start a new thread in 2018 and compile the translation errors of the current version.

My CS2 is set to English and it shows German messages and mature typos.

Really?
They produced some very funny mistranslations over time.
I loved the "mountain set" they announced with the 2016 New Items brochure ...

That is exactly the problem and it is one of poor software design. If the software architecture is done correctly no text would ever be hard coded in UI text fields, which I believe is also what Minok was pointing out as well.

You simply put a reference for that text in the dialog box or menu item and the text in the correct language is supplied at runtime based upon the language the user selected during setup. This is not at all difficult to do or even new technology. I have been doing this for multi-language UIs for a very long time. If the architecture was done properly it would not matter what happened to the teams because the correct behavior would be baked into the application. All that would ever need done in maintaining the app is to supply better translations when poor ones are detected by the users.

That was obviously not the case with the CS software because I get random menu items still in German as well as many popups, so they did the quick and lazy thing of hard coding the text and hoping to come back later and fix it. In my experience that comes from lack of developer knowledge or lack of managerial support for doing the software correctly in the first place. In software development we have an old saying: "Never time to do it right but always time to do it over".

Can Marklin not employ somebody from the UK and France etc to check their software and catalogues etc and make the required changes before printing or releasing. Actually surely there are Germans who can speak other languages fluently.

We don't know if the design is poor. I hope they are clever enough to prepare everything for internationalisation right from the start - but I also think they are too lazy to translate things right from the start.
Most likely we cannot find out what the problem is.


I volunteered as a CS2 beta tester. They didn't want me. They didn't even bother to reply.

They need proofreaders with railroad and MRR expertise. I'm willing to help with brochures, but based on past experience I think writing to them would be a waste of my time.

They have a TÜV approved ISO 9001 quality control management system. Whatever that may be worth ...

Cant think of anybody better than yourself for the job. You have the MRR knowledge and understand what the customer wants.

Can everybody here say "Microsoft"?
Can people use Microsoft products without a good knowledge of English?
I can use products from Olympus and Canon without any knowledge of Japanese and Chinese.

Big brands with a good name provide understandable manuals and understandable software in both English and German even if the headquarters are in Japan and the production in China.

You have mis-quoted Tom and it has come across rather sarcastically . Hopefully that was not your intention?

Tom made the point that those two companies ALSO provided their manuals in English and German. He was not implying that he could read Japanese or Chinese.

You also can apparently read and understand English well enough to participate here regularly and this is a good thing, even though English is not your first language. Many of us (myself included) do not have any useful second-language skills so you are already at an advantage.

I only speak English (The Scottish version LOL) However I expect anybody who wishes to sell me something to provide information and instructions in English as I am the customer. To be fair the main German model rail companies are pretty good. If a website has no English version I don't buy as they are not interested in selling to me. Members on here all do very well if English is not their first language and well done as their contribution is most important and I admire the ability to speak more than one language.

Yes, and I still love the "central station"! If you buy it, you just get a normal controller. Nothing to see of a stone house with tracks and platforms.

"Central Station" is a pun. They can be intentionally funny.
Translating "PSi" (horsepower) as "pounds per square inch" shows lack of competence (they also get the German term wrong). The "mountain set" was the result of translating text out of context - the translators should have had a look at the product page before translating the editorial.

Thank god Märklin isn't a Finnish company!!!

-Åke-

Edited by user 30 January 2018 18:53:32(UTC)  | Reason: Typo

Last time I used a CS2 was in 2016 and back then its Spanish texts were a freaking joke.