Using automated translation

[Korb]

I noticed that for many languages, particularly Russian, the Goodtime translation project on Crowdin lists translation completeness values ​​around 100%. However, as a native Russian speaker, upon launching the app for the first time, I understand that the translation was performed by automated means, without the use of a glossary, without segment coordination, without taking into account the context, interface limitations in the location of the text being translated, etc. The translation is poor.

On the one hand, I understand that this makes the app accessible to those who don't know English at all, or know it very poorly. That's a plus. The app becomes more popular, it gets more testers, the developers get more feedback, and there's a greater chance that some user will be able to implement a feature that hasn't been implemented before, sooner or later.

On the other hand, as a volunteer translator, I'd prefer to translate the app from scratch, knowing that the translation memory isn't filled with garbage that only confuses the user, rather than helps (which is what translation memories are for). As a result, the work mainly consists not of the translation itself, but of identifying discrepancies in each of the segments approved as correct, compiling a glossary that can be trusted, unlike translation memory, and checking and correcting all the "correct" segments against the compiled glossary, in the hope that this amateur activity is justified, and the current translations represent precisely errors, and not a design that I will destroy with my vision.

There's probably not much to discuss here, but with the abundance of Pomodoro timers on F-Droid, as a translator, I'm more interested in translating than maintaining a database that's completely useless. I suspect the developers were aware of this when they decided to implement automated translation using neural networks. Or perhaps the fault lies with the translators, who thoughtlessly used these tools without regard for the damage they caused to the product.

[adrcotfas]

Thank you for your interest in Goodtime. I'm happy to accept any changes you suggest on crowdin.