Multiple languages

[Walddk]

Several times in the past 2 years or so, during vugraph presentations with two table coverage, we have been offering commentary in multiple languages. They are:

 

English, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Turkish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.

 

Needless to say, this creates a heavier workload on the vugraph coordinator. However, I am happy to do this if the audience thinks it's worth it when possible.

 

Is it, or should we go with English all the time, assuming that everyone understands the comments? What do you think?

 

Roland

[guggie]

English is fine for me, dont need dutch commentary. But when there is italian or french commentary i go there to get some much needed improvement on those languages. So <blush> I use it as a free language course.

[mrdct]

I think non-English commentary at one table when two-table coverage is being undertaken is a fantastic, and perhaps a necessary, service to bridge fans. However the BBO software isn't particularly well suited for it in several ways.

 

As Roland points out, organising the non-English commentators can be quite a hassle and on the few occassions I've had to do, I've pretty much blindly ungagged any player with a country flag from the country involved. That worked reasonably well in terms of getting a reasonable flow of commentary in the closed room in the desired non-English language, but the downside was we had a dozen or so commentators that possibly weren't up to the usual standards of the "official panel" floating around other vugraph matches after those matches had finished.

 

The software features I would like are:

 

1. Multiple chat channels that users can select from. These would include the "official BBO commentary in English", "free-for-all unrestricted kibitzer comments" and "non-English commentary". Indeed, users could choose which commentary they want and could even watch more than one at once. It could be user selectable through "ignore chat" options - i.e. add extra check-boxes for "ignore official commentary", "ignore free-for-all commentary" and "ignore non-english commentary". The advantage of this approach would be that dual-language coverage could be provided for a match with single-table coverage.

 

2. Operators to have an open to derestrict spectator chat at their table only. This would probably be quite easy to implement and if, for example, Polish commentary is planned for a closed room in a match, the operator can simply derestrict spectator chat and periodically announce that comments in Polish are welcomed and others should keep quite or watch the other room.

[Walddk]

So <blush> I use it as a free language course.

Splendid idea. Maybe people from English speaking countries should be denied access to the room with English commentary when we offer French, Italian and Spanish commentary.

 

In fact, people from smaller countries are the lucky ones. We can't travel around the world expecting others to understand Dutch and Danish, so what did we have to do when we were younger? Sit down on our behinds and learn English among other languages. And we did.

 

Since I am supposed to be nice, I would rather not comment on what the situation is in for instance USA, United Kingdom and Australia. Honestly, how many languages, other than English, do people speak there?

 

Roland

[sceptic]

Since I am supposed to be nice, I would rather not comment on what the situation is in for instance USA, United Kingdom and Australia. Honestly, how many languages, other than English, do people speak there?

 

what languages should we in england learn Roland, my attempt at learning Danish was ok, my friend taught me a basic Danish greeting, that I could use at the bridge table "Hejsa Store patter" I have since dropped that from my Danish skills and my polish comprisses of "ja nie mowie po polsku"

 

The trouble with learning a different language in an insular place, is practice, you are lucky in europe, lots of people are using other languages and it is quite a cosmopolitan place, I can't remember the last time I met anyone that did not speak english to some degree, we are a lazy bunch when it comes to learning other languages

[Walddk]

what languages should we in england learn Roland

 

<snip>

 

we are a lazy bunch when it comes to learning other languages

French or Spanish perhaps? We do not expect people outside Denmark to speak and/or understand Danish. Accordingly, we take the time to learn a world language. We have no choice actually, since English is compulsory in Danish schools from the 4th grade.

 

As to your statement about being lazy:

 

I couldn't agree more. The reason for it is obvious: You don't have to learn another language because you expect everyone else to speak/understand English. Most of them do as you rightly point out.

 

Roland

[mink]

For Germany, I would think that all who might enjoy the vugraph know English reasonably well so that there is no need for a German commentary.

 

Maybe this is different in France, Italy or Poland.

 

Karl

[Walddk]

Maybe this is different in France, Italy or Poland.

 

Karl

You can delete "maybe" and add Turkey, China, Japan among many other countries in most instances. That's why I think it's rather selfish if some people think that English is all we need.

 

I would rather not hear the same people complaining if for example German was the only language we offered, let alone Polish or Turkish.

 

Roland

[Resaz0]

Luckily not everybody is selfish, yesterday I received an e-mail in the office from Georgia, and they wrote "Apologies for not communicating in Italian" ... I was moved by this unusual courtesy.

 

I have spent a lot of time in learning languages (with poor results) and, if I were 18 years old now, I think I would rather employ this time in some other way; there are a lot of much more interesting things to study. So I do not blame the many italian players on BBO that are unable to speak English: they are good lawyers or medicians or engineers ... or very good bridge players!

I am sorry for the many foreign people who do not speak Italian and are unable to communicate with them.

 

I hope you will continue to offer a multiple language commentary on the vugraph.

 

Ciao

 

Patrizia Resaz

[guggie]

Its not bridge but.. if you want to be a good doctor, you have to be able to read English, as all leading journals are in that language.

[helene_t]

This forum is - for obvious reasons - dominated by people who can communicate in English.

 

So maybe, instead of this poll, it will give you more information to look at the attendence in the non-English rooms.

 

Allthough the English-commented rooms are much buzier, the attendence in the non-English rooms is quite significant.

[Walddk]

Well, I had a vain but apparently naive hope that even all people from English speaking countries would understand that not everyone on this planet speaks English.

 

So why not give them commentary in their mother tongue when possible? Rest assured, English will always be one of the languages we offer.

 

Roland

[helene_t]

It's a matter of interpretation, Roland. I voted "indifferent" because I don't need non-English commentary myself. I could have voted "Excellent service" as well because that's what it is. But that goes without saying, I suppose. What do you wanna know? How much need there is for non-English commentary? Or how much sympathy there is for people who don't understand English?

 

Btw, actually I like the non-English free language course as well (along with the free English course, lol), it's just that it isn't that important to me.

[coyot]

IMHO this poll should be split for individual languages, or, better, ran system-wide on all users. I don't know if that would be technically possible, but it would provide the best results for decisions. Imagine the following options (for every player whose country does not generally speak english as their primary language):

 

a) I don't watch vugraph any often

 

;) I watch vugraph often and:

ba) My bridge english is good enough so that english commentary is sufficient

bb) I would really welcome commentary in my primary language, thank you.

bc) I would really welcome commentary in my primary language and I am able and willing to provide it occasionally.

[Checkbox]: I would want my language commentary for every vugraph if possible, as a separate channel selection.

 

c) I don't care

 

d) If my language does not raise significant interest, I would prefer commentary in another language (selection/checkboxes)

 

Of course, this message better be translated so those who don't understand english at all don't just close the window :)

 

Running this poll on every user would certainly tell what is the real demand for commentary. You would get both absolute and relative numbers and would therefore know which groups it is worth to satisfy.

 

I guess that English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Turkish and Polish would be among the groups with a high demand, while i.e. Dutch and Danish are both small enough and english-speaking enough so that the amount of people who would need native language commentary is very low (=not worth the hassle, meaning that if the commentator is available, we'll use him, but if he is not, we will not search for him actively).

 

Technically, language filters could be implemented easily hopefully. Don't have internal knowledge of BBO messages, but if any property could be added to the structure that carries the message, each user could then have .language property checked against his filter - and non-matching messages would be filtered out (lobby chat, kibitzers, non-TD tourney chat etc.).

[Walddk]

I agree with all you are saying, coyot. I was just hoping that all users from English speaking countries and people from elsewhere, who speak and understand English well or adequately, would care to say something like:

 

Single-table coverage: English.

Two-table coverage: English + another language if needed and practically possible.

 

Roland

[Brandal]

It's a matter of interpretation, Roland. I voted "indifferent" because I don't need non-English commentary myself. I could have voted "Excellent service" as well because that's what it is. But that goes without saying, I suppose. What do you wanna know? How much need there is for non-English commentary? Or how much sympathy there is for people who don't understand English?

 

Btw, actually I like the non-English free language course as well (along with the free English course, lol), it's just that it isn't that important to me.

Another interesting thing is,how many who don't understand

English will understand this topic/poll?

 

;)

 

Keep up the good work Roland & vugraph-crew,your dedication

is remarkable and much appreciated.

[coyot]

Single-table coverage: English.

Two-table coverage: English + another language if needed and practically possible.

I assume that quite a lot of people would say this. I mean, English is no problem for me but if there's a Czech team in the VuGraph, it would not hurt to have Czech commentary as well. But I know this ain't practically possible.

 

(There are about 1000 players in CR, about 100-200 of them might have a BBO account - and of these, my guess would be that 90% have a good bridge english, mainly because all the good bridge books we can read here are either English or Polish :)

 

That's why I suggested the language-specific survey - most people would want it but this survey should show which language groups have a significant real demand for it (and would be worth the hassle of trying to pre-arrange the commentators).

[Brandal]

Several times in the past 2 years or so, during vugraph presentations with two table coverage, we have been offering commentary in multiple languages. They are:

 

English, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Turkish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.

 

Needless to say, this creates a heavier workload on the vugraph coordinator. However, I am happy to do this if the audience thinks it's worth it when possible.

 

Is it, or should we go with English all the time, assuming that everyone understands the comments? What do you think?

 

Roland

I think it's important to offer this wide variety when players

of these countries are involved.

 

It is so easy,even for those (like myself) who understand English,

to assume everyone from i.e. Norway understands but that's not

really the case.

 

Not when it comes to commentary anyway,with abbreviations and

bridgeterms we don't normally use.

 

I tried watching vugraph with Polish commentary.....it's just not

quite the same experience for me :)

[Finch]

English, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Turkish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.

I'm sure I noticed both Hebrew and Mixed Scandinavian over the weekend.

 

For what they're worth, my thoughts are:

- where there are multiple tables, I would like to include tables in non-English languages, but this would come second after my desire to have decent commentators. So if i had 3 good Italian speakers available, I'd have an Italian table, but I wouldn't be spending hours begging people to give Italian commentary.

 

- I would concentrate on langauges where they are many bridge players and not much English spoken (Italian is the obvious country, but then French & Spanish; most Dutch, Hebrew & Scandinavian bridge players speak English). I'd also have Polish tables because there are so many Polish speakers it should be easy to put it together.

 

- I wouldn't have a non-English table just for the sake of it. I'd try harder to get one in place when the relevant country is playing (e.g. Norwegian commentary for the Norwegian Bridge Festival, Hebrew when Israel are playing).

 

- Multiple chat channels would be good, but in fact I think it would (more or less) work if you had, say, one person giving comments in Polish when there is overall English commentary. The commentator probably should understand the English speakers, but he/she could then put the most important information into Polish as well - i.e. his own comments + stuff other people say that is worth repeating. It would probably get too confusing if you had more than two languages at once. As a spectator, I assume you could ignore all chat from anyone other than that person, or ignore chat from that one person?

 

p.s. I'm English but I read and sort of speak French, however I doubt I could give decent Vugraph commentary in French which is a much harder challenge.

[Walddk]

I'm sure I noticed both Hebrew and Mixed Scandinavian over the weekend.

 

<snip>

 

- Multiple chat channels would be good, but in fact I think it would (more or less) work if you had, say, one person giving comments in Polish when there is overall English commentary. The commentator probably should understand the English ....

You noticed Mixed Scandinavian, but you did not notice Hebrew over the weekend. We had Israeli commentators, yes, but no Hebrew commentary. We actually never had Hebrew commentary, and I am pretty sure that our software doesn't support Hebrew yet.

 

We need someone to write a programme first, because it's a different alphabet. Maybe Migry Zur Campanile, Michael Barel or Ilan Shezifi (the latter is a computer freak and organises our broadcasts from Israel).

 

As to your comment on multiple languages at one table, Fred and I have agreed that it should be avoided for one obvious reason: The commentators must be able to understand each other. It's not enough that, say, the Polish commentator understands English, the English speaking commentator must also understand Polish.

 

Example: The Polish commentator makes a point in Polish. Other commentators may not agree and may want to tell the audience why they don't. The problem is that they don't get the chance, because they don't understand what the Polish commentator said.

 

Besides, my personal opinion is that more than one language at one table will create chaos and nothing the majority of our spectators would appreciate.

 

Roland

[slothy]

Since I am supposed to be nice [you thought of trying a bit harder Roland hee hee Ed.], I would rather not comment on what the situation is in for instance USA, United Kingdom and Australia. Honestly, how many languages, other than English, do people speak there?

 

Roland

I did meet an Aborigine once who taught me how to say "That Lizard heart was tasty." and "How long will it take us to dig a 14-metre deep hole to get water?" in Aborigine. (the word for hole is the same as pickled banana so may cause confusion)

 

One never knows...one day it may save me...

 

So they can speak other lingos :)

 

anyway

 

Da Ingliz peepul (and Yanks for that matter) are LAZY, FULL STOP and arrogant in the presumption that they expect other people to make the effort to learn English and even scoff at them if they dont speak it properly!!!

 

I enjoy languages and have made substantial eforts to make myself communicable in other languages...not simply as a mental exercise but because it smacks of hypocrisy and dispassion if we expect others to make an effort yet no do so ourselves

 

(amen)

[Limey_p]

Roland, I am a big fan of the viewgraph broadcasts, and I want to say "thank you" for all your efforts. But beyond my own amusement, I feel they do a great deal to promote the game of bridge worldwide. Certainly you have opened my eyes to not only bidding systems but also tournament arrangements that differ across the globe.

 

I've not voted in this poll, however. I'm a native english speaker so broadcasts in other languages are, broadly speaking, irrelevant to me personally.

 

two thoughts:

 

1. You, Roland, know much better than me if it's worth the trouble. (Some of us perhaps prefer to live in a benevolent dictatorship rather than a democracy?)

 

2. The benefits of non-english broadcast go beyond the number of spectators who make that choice. It makes a point to the whole community, and to the english speakers in particular, that bridge is an international game that has transcended its anglophone roots.

 

 

A.

[fifee]

I agree with all you are saying, coyot. I was just hoping that all users from English speaking countries and people from elsewhere, who speak and understand English well or adequately, would care to say something like:

 

Single-table coverage: English.

Two-table coverage: English + another language if needed and practically possible.

 

Roland

Roland, I think the multi language coverage is terrific but I think it should be left to the people who use this coverage to tell us if it is advantageous to them and if it is worth all the time that you and the vugraph coordinators invest. I am not qualified to speak to excellence of service, those people who use the service should be the ones to vote on that issue.

 

Why would anyone vote indifference? Its obviously a valuable asset if there are those who benefit by it. The question is: does this put too much of a burden on our volunteers? I think we are all here because we love the game and we love to "enhance" our bridge experience and our friends' with the best possible technology available.

 

Kudos to our vugraph volunteers from Roland to all the vugraph coordinators and operators. They are "in the trenches" and we all appreciate the effort and the truly amazing result. Who would have thought this possible 15 years ago?

[Walddk]

Roland, I think the multi language coverage is terrific but I think it should be left to the people who use this coverage to tell us if it is advantageous to them and if it is worth all the time that you and the vugraph coordinators invest.

Agreed, but they are not here to tell us, because their English is inadequate or even non-existent. I am 100% convinced, however, that an overwhelming majority of users from Poland, Turkey, Italy and probably France too would appreciate their mother tongue when possible.

 

The best evidence I can give is that we have several hundreds of spectators at the tables where we provide Polish and Italian commentary, and about half of those numbers when we offer French.

 

Roland

[geller]

I am an American (joke: Q. what do you call someone who speaks 2 languages? A: Bilingual, Q. 3 languages, A: trilingual, Q:　4 or more languages? A: multilingual, Q. only one language? A: American) who's lived in Japan for 21 yrs and along the way become fluent in spoken and written Japanese, so I can see both sides of the question.

 

First, very few people in Japan are really fluent in English, and Japanese players really appreciate having commentary in their own language . I suspect this is true in many countries

 

Second, if each Federation has a vugraph coordinator who can arrange for the commentators in their respective languages that actually makes Roland's job easier, not harder. (Note: that person doesn't have to be from the federation, a suitable BBO member who plays internationally from that country could be fine.) At least for the moment I seem to have become the defacto vugraph arranger for Japanese language broadcasts.

 

Third, I agree completely with Roland that languages should not be mixed in one commentary stream. This would drive everyone nuts except maybe completely bilingual people.

 

Fourth, right now the commentary is made with chat. Perhaps Fred could upgrade the vugraph chat to function in the same logical way (obviously the implementation is completely different) as SAP (second audio program) where you push a button to select English or Spanish commentary on a baseball game (in the US), or English and Japanese in Japan (for US baseball games shown here). Except that for BBO there should be as many languages as possible, depending on the importance of the event.

 

For example, in the last playoff for the 3rd berth in the Bermuda Bowl from Zone 6, Japan was playing Indonesia. We had English commentary at one table and Japanese at the other, but it would have been nice if we'd also had the facility to offer commentary in Bahasa Indonesia (the national language of Indonesia). And perhaps to have all 3 languages at both tables, provided the Japanese and Indonesian Federations could arrange the commentators. In order for this to work Fred and Uday would have to upgrade the software to provide a special facility so the vugraph audience could click on the language of the choice (from the available languages) and also the commentators could click on the language they were commenting on.

 

In my case I mostly did Japanese commentary of the PABF, but every so often I dropped in on the English commentary in the other room to inform the audience about the foibles of the Japanese players. This would probably be fun for all the specs at other events as well.

 

The finals of the soccer World Cup are broadcast to the whole world in over 100 languages. Maybe some day the same can happen on BBO for the finals of the Olympiad or Bermuda Bowl, or at least there can be 10 or so languages. This would probably help make bridge more of a spectator sport than it is now. It was really a lot of fun watching Fred and Brad vs. Zia and Rosenberg on the hand where Zia sacrificied in 7C in the Spingold. (Congrats on the win Fred!)

 

Anyway, as the number of broadcasts increases there will be more and more events primarily of local interest only, so it will be natural for those events to tend more and more to be broadcast in the local language only, I would guess.