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German translation: status and integration question

Open mmunin opened this issue 4 months ago β€’ 15 comments

Hi @sumn2u,

Not sure if it was just overlooked, but a quick β€œthanks” would’ve been nice – I’ve translated over 1000 lines into German and reported several bugs.

Before continuing with the remaining files, I’d like to know when German will be officially added. It’s not in LANGS.md, and most other languages are incomplete. Even English has some inconsistencies.

Without proper integration, any new language will face the same issues – no structure, no testing, no clear path.

Looking forward to your reply, @mmunin

mmunin avatar Aug 07 '25 08:08 mmunin

Thank you for raising this question and for your contribution. We’ll begin rolling out the merged chapters for German translation starting next week.

In this project, English is used as the source of truth, so there may be cases where some topics haven't been translated yet. As new topics and chapters are added, the translations may require updates or fall out of sync.

To help with this, we have a GitHub workflow that monitors changes in the English folder and automatically creates translation issues whenever updates are detected.

sumn2u avatar Aug 07 '25 10:08 sumn2u

Hi @mmunin, I've merged the German translation; readers can now access the translated chapters thanks to your contribution! We'll be releasing the PDF version once the remaining content has been translated.

sumn2u avatar Aug 08 '25 12:08 sumn2u

Hi @sumn2u, thanks for merging – great to see the German translation live! How about a tracker issue? I could set it up like this:

Translation Progress Overview

Total files in English: 183

Remaining files per language

Language Remaining Files
πŸ‡©πŸ‡ͺ German (de) 137
πŸ‡³πŸ‡΅ Nepali (np) 92

... Just an idea – I could add it here in the comment,
or set up a separate tracker issue that contributors can help update.
Whatever works best for you!

mmunin avatar Aug 11 '25 15:08 mmunin

Hi @sumn2u, thanks for merging – great to see the German translation live! How about a tracker issue? I could set it up like this:

Translation Progress Overview

Total files in English: 183

Remaining files per language

Language Remaining Files πŸ‡©πŸ‡ͺ German (de) 137 πŸ‡³πŸ‡΅ Nepali (np) 92 ... Just an idea – I could add it here in the comment, or set up a separate tracker issue that contributors can help update. Whatever works best for you!

Wow, this is helpful. I think it would make more sense to create a separate issue and use that as a base.

sumn2u avatar Aug 11 '25 15:08 sumn2u

Hey @sumn2u, check out #302 - Maybe we can link the existing translations issues or set them up as sub-tasks.

mmunin avatar Aug 11 '25 21:08 mmunin

Hey @sumn2u, check out #302 - Maybe we can link the existing translations issues or set them up as sub-tasks.

I think the sub-task makes more sense.

sumn2u avatar Aug 11 '25 21:08 sumn2u

I initially thought using subtasks would be ideal. But with more than 10 subtasks, it quickly becomes hard to manage β€” and we can't link them individually. I’ll give it some more thought β€” how are you thinking of linking it?

mmunin avatar Aug 11 '25 21:08 mmunin

I initially thought using subtasks would be ideal. But with more than 10 subtasks, it quickly becomes hard to manage β€” and we can't link them individually. I’ll give it some more thought β€” how are you thinking of linking it?

I think we can split the translation into:

  • Part 1: Core Basics includes the Preface, Introduction, and foundational chapters such as Basics, Numbers, Strings, Conditional Logic, Arrays, Loops, Functions, Objects, Date and Time, JSON, Error Handling, and related exercises.

  • Part 2: Extended Topics covers intermediate and applied concepts including Modules, Regular Expression, Classes, Browser Object Model (BOM), Events, Promise/async-await, Miscellaneous topics, and Server Side content.

  • Part 3: Bonus Sections contains advanced and supplementary material like Interview Questions, Design Patterns, File System, ES6 Concepts, Animation Resources, Complexity, JavaScript Behind the Scenes, and Document Object Model (DOM).

  • Part 4: Wrap-up wraps up with References, Resources, and Credits.

This prioritizes the core essentials first for translation, while allowing bonus and advanced chapters to be done later or in parallel, maintaining consistency and manageable workloads.

Let me know what you think?

sumn2u avatar Aug 12 '25 10:08 sumn2u

Hi, I've been thinking a bit about the project – especially about structure and how we could make progress more visible. Splitting the book into modular sections seems like a good idea. After that, translations could be merged more systematically. That might also help attract new translators or re-engage previous contributors.

Right now, it's hard to tell how far along the book is in each language. My suggestion would be:

a separate tracker issue for each language, link them to the main issue Tracker

Later, Use a GitHub Action to update progress automatically, visualize everything in the project board

How do you envision the workflow? At what stage would merging translations make sense – and when would generating a PDF be appropriate? I might be able to show you the structure I had in mind later this evening.

mmunin avatar Aug 12 '25 13:08 mmunin

The ideal case for releasing a PDF would be once all the text has been fully translated. However, there are situations where the translation is complete but out of sync because new content has been added to the English (main) version. Let me know what you were thinking.

sumn2u avatar Aug 12 '25 20:08 sumn2u

here the structures:

Original Language: English (en) Total Files: 183

Translation Tracker – German (de)

Progress by Language

Language Missing Files Progress Language Issue Board
Spanish (es) 30 βœ… 84% Issue 101 Board
Indonesian (id) 63 🟑 66% Issue 102 Board
French (fr) 81 🟑 56% Issue 103 Board

*Maybe leave out the board for now, but it could look like this.

This structure for each language: Translation Tracker – πŸ‡©πŸ‡ͺ German (de)

Status: 137 out of 183 files missing

Progress

Section Total Files Remaining to Translate
Part 1 – Core Basics 50 35
Part 2 – Extended Topics 60 45
Part 3 – Bonus Sections 50 40
Part 4 – Wrap-up 23 17

*List existing issues as subtasks underneath. Numbers are illustrative, Possibly notes on how to contribute, some information, and appropriate labels for it. What do you think?

mmunin avatar Aug 12 '25 22:08 mmunin

Nice work. It's clear now. BTW, how did you count the files that are missing translation, is there a script for it?

sumn2u avatar Aug 12 '25 22:08 sumn2u

It’s still doable manually for now β€” I’m using Total Commander like in the good old days. Haven’t written a script for it yet.

mmunin avatar Aug 12 '25 23:08 mmunin

I can try it out, but because of the exam it won't be until next week

mmunin avatar Aug 13 '25 10:08 mmunin

I can try it out, but because of the exam it won't be until next week

Thanks. I think we can skip the automation part for now and revisit this once the translation is complete.

sumn2u avatar Aug 13 '25 10:08 sumn2u