Sorry for having to continuously bring my site up; I will definitely try to contribute my own strength to helping learners that ask questions here. It's just that this is something that has been brought up that I think could really make the difference for my site's future.

As I begin my college years soon, I want to be able to provide like many other language sites the ability for people to read the info in their own language. Like many people have said, my language is sometimes vague and esoteric. This is not good when literally over 70% of my traffic is not from native English speakers. Although I do want some collegiate feel to the text, I definitely don't want it to be overboard in this style.

I have a list of my top languages that I would like to see my site translated into first, but I would gladly accept any help in any other language--I have unlimited pages.

Let me qualify by saying that I do not expect anyone to translate the many hundreds of pages that I have typed. Nor do I expect you to even have to translate an entire lesson. Since I have no means of paying you, as I seriously only make 40 something dollars every other day, this will be from you either wanting to learn more Japanese or just be a nice person to help in a good cause.

Say someone wants to translate parts of Lesson 1 but not all of it. They should tell me the language they're translating it into, what sections that were not translated, and have for the space that was not translated the title of the section translated and then "not available yet" in that language. You can send it to me whichever way you think is best.

Anyways, here are the languages I think would be very useful to have available.

1. Russian
2. Portuguese
3. Spanish
4. French
5. German
6. Italian
7. Chinese
8. Polish
9. Dutch
10. Finnish
11. Indonesian
12. Serbian
13. Korean--this would just be heaven for me.
14. Swedish
15. Greek
16. Norwegian
17. Turkish
18. Czech
19. Hungarian
20. Slovak
21. Romanian
22. Arabic
23. Hebrew
24. Slovenian
25. Danish
26. Catalan
27. Ukrainian
28. Vietnamese
29. Cantonese
30. Hindi
etc.

Thank you guys. I really think this would be a great way to have you guys help me spot the flaws during translation in the English version so that it can be used by more people and by a larger audience.

That's a very ambitious list. I don't know if it was supposed to be a goal or just some general brainstorming, but I think you could scale it down a bit by picking out languages that should be prioritized.

Also, we're generally much more proficient in English here in Sweden than in a lot of other European countries because of the influence of the English language we have. The same probably goes for Norway and Denmark, for example. Even if you're getting a lot of traffic from these countries, these users are in a much lesser need of a translation than users from other countries (which could explain why so much traffic comes from such a small country as ours in the first place, if that's the case). Prioritizing these countries over others could then be less effective than you'd think. Maybe that list isn't in an order of priority, but if it is I think Swedish and Norwegian are higher up than they should be. (Considering that you'd make it down all the way to 14 languages.)

At least that's what I think. I myself wouldn't even want to use a Swedish translation over the original English in a case like this.

If I were you, I'd concentrate on getting the English version as close to perfect/finalized as I could get it before having it translated into several languages. Changes you make to the English version will need to be replicated in the other versions and that might become a logistical problem.

For eg, I think you still need to revise lessons [edit 8, 9 and 10]. I realize you've been working on them, but they currently read like research notes taken from various sources which have yet to be organized and edited for consistency or clarity. Some grammar explanations have errors. Most importantly, they need to be written with the absolute beginner in mind.

So rather than keep asking for corrections, I think it would be useful to take a few steps back and think a bit about the purpose of the site and your process. Why do these problems persist? I'd be happy to give you some more feedback on the content later, but adding one more cook might not improve the broth. I think perhaps you ought to consider a new recipe.

[I had written down a whole bunch of suggestions regarding purpose and process, but as they're not related to translated, I'll move them to one of your other imabi feedback threads instead.]

I don't think that the English version has to be complete before translating. Actually doing both simultaneously would be faster (i.e. Releasing a lesson in English and then translating it while you work on the next lesson. So both happen at the same time).

What kinds of translations do you want?
Do you want someone who is bilingual to read each sentence and put it in their own words into another language (i.e. Hindi), or would you want a thorough, professional translation.

Also, for the lolz, what about a Japanese translation?

EDIT: I'm also confused as to why Hindi is low on the lists compared to something like Catalan.

Thanks for the replies. I'll try to address these to the best of my abilities without leaving anything out.

@ TwoMoreCharacters: It is a very decent list, and like others noted, some languages may not be all that necessary. How I chose the list of 30 languages was by looking at how frequent browsers were in those languages over the past 3 months with the latest traffic data that I have. Some languages may definitely have more speakers like Hindi vs say Norwegian, but I really don't know the English level of most people in these countries/regions are either. So, this was just a wide list that people could contribute to.
@Thora: Thank you for putting work into thinking up suggestions. If you could send them to me so that I can work on them in the next two days, that would be great. I know that once I do begin to offer different language versions that a logistics problem will ensue. This, though, is really inevitable because I intend to improve the site until I die. What I guess I have failed to address here is my solution to this problem. I stated on a notice about this project on my site's forums that for those members/people that were to help me with the translations that I would send notices about important changes to the English version. If I'm going to just change a word or sentence here and there, I'm not going to really worry about that reflecting 100% into the other versions. Besides, it's not like the translation is going to maintain everything 100% from the English version anyways.

I do know that some lessons are a tad bit unorganized, and with my summer job that I have now and I can't put much time towards these areas. Remember that I have many other responsibilities on the site. I have to answer questions that come in via e-mail, maintain forum responses, construct new lessons, study Japanese and Korean for myself, read books and what not, and tend to ~150 different locations in the site. If something in particular really catches your eye that you're annoyed with, I'll definitely give it priority over the other agenda matters.

As far as Lesson 7 and 8 are concerned, I don't know if you have just now looked at them, but within the last few days or so I went in there and removed probably about 3 pages of text and what not from reorganization and simplification.

As far as grammar explanations are concerned, I'm pretty dang sure that the Japanese points are right on as I have not put anything on the site directly concerning the site without verifying its validity via many (in-)Japanese sources.

The "recipe" does not to be tweaked, but to discard the correct model completely would be too time consuming and overall not a good idea as there are actually plenty of people out there that like it but just want simple but very important changes done to it, which is sort of what you're asking for--that is unless I'm missing your point, which in that case that's not a problem and you can just tell me later.

It's been 4.5 years ago since I was the absolute beginner, and I can't say that the methods that I used to learn Japanese for the first time would be a good idea for the average beginner or for even the very talented. I always had a niche for language, and I generally suck at anything else. In some ways I want to make sure that if you go to a lesson you're going to learn basically most of what you can learn about that topic without having to continuously go to other pages. In a way, this is like a wikipedia feature. In some aspects, though, I realize that some things must be talked about later simply because of the pressure of the text. I do, though, insist on a unified approach to the correct model that prevents frustration. For example, most people that I have ever tried helping personally with their Japanese studies have only a few time slots in their week to study Japanese. If they are not on generally the same topic for a week, it is very likely that they aren't go to retain the information they read the last time. So, what I came up with over many months was a framework that allowed most lessons enough information to last someone a week. This to an outsider does look too much. Trust me, sometimes I've tried to print some to do my own annotations and corrections on paper and thought, "what the *****!". Now, I'm sure that's what you've thought on some of these pages. Again, I'm am aware of this, and I just need the time to fully address it. Now, for those of you that may take this the wrong way, when I say that I "take pages out", I am not saying that I am necessarily totally dumbing it out, I'm just making the length more realistic. Say I take 3 pages worth of text out of a lesson. 1 page could just be simply me saying the same damn thing with half the words I had before. The other pages could just me discarding some items and relocating the rest.

As for Lessons 7 and 8 again, especially Lesson 8, I just recently made some significant changes. They have been scanned through Microsoft Word for grammatical errors--I know this doesn't solve everything, but with me personally reading through them afterwards these should be at a low minimum already. There will always be need to edit things if I read something in a book that causes a light bulb moment.

I am definitely trying to think like I was a beginner, but I do want the site to have some degree of logistical progression where you are expected to remember things from past pages. I think if someone was going through each one at a time and saw the same thing defined in each one that they would get irritated, or at least that's how I would feel.

I hope to hear the rest of your concerns. As far as Lesson 9, I don't know what you're talking about, and I'm not trying to be rude. I can easily conjure resources up that say almost the same things about everything addressed there. I'm not going to take a step to shrink it to a mere paragraph like some texts because I think the topic is really crucial. Some sentences may be funny, but I don't want the entire site to full of boring stuff. Anyways, I look and see what I can do for the moment.

@Marble101: You're thinking on the lines that I am. The Japanese translation would be kind of odd, but it's definitely not out of the question, especially for the Classical Japanese section. However, the English version needs to be done first before I can ever have the time to start doing the Japanese translation--that's unless the beginning works of it would be done by someone else. I seriously don't think I'm going to be able to finish the other remaining half of the project to be finishing until maybe even 2014, because it's taken me being just in high school for 2~2.5 years to make the first half, and God only knows how much available time I'm going to have in the next 2. I do hope to be able to get some sort of tutoring/teaching job for valuable experience during college, and I'm trying to get a position right now--although it'll take time--to get sent to Japan. So, things are definitely going to be 10 times better than they are now done the road. I hope all of you guys stay tuned in the mean time.

Sorry for those of you that thought this was an incredibly long message. If your eyes hurt by this point, take a nice relaxing bath--which is what I want to do right now because I literally got trash shit on my clothes and body and work today.

Update: I have reduced Lesson 7 to nearly 8 pages. This is a ~2.5 page reduction. I hope it reads better, and I'm continuing to trim it down to address all the main issues that have been mentioned.
Update 2: Getting back with you, Thora, on those other lessons. I have made Lesson 8 1 page shorter and Lesson 9 about 2 pages shorter. I hope they are better than what they were.

Sorry, I was actually referring to lessons 8, 9 and 10 (rather than 7, 8 and 9). I fixed my post. Yes, I had read the latest versions. (Before your edits above, that is.) btw, there is no rush to get this done.

Regarding translation, I wasn't suggesting that all 300 lessons should be completed before translation begins. I meant that individual lessons should be corrected and finalized before they're translated. Some changes might impact other lessons, however. Consistent outline style, formatting and terminology throughout the site would also be easier for learners and for translators. It makes sense to me to take care of such organization, formatting and proofreading before translation.

The length of each lesson isn't the issue. What topics you teach when and what info you include at the very beginning strike me as more important considerations.

L8 ABC + practice ABC J + AAAA + practice ABCDEL
L9 DEF + practice DEF,ABC vs. DDDDDDD + practice ABCDEFKL
L10 GHI + practice GHI,ABC,DEF CCCCCCC + practice ABCDEFKL

I still think you need to decide whether you want a grammar reference or a beginners' textbook. I think your interests and talents are better suited for the former and it seems there's a need for a more in depth online resource in English. You wouldn't have to worry about cumulative knowledge, order, how to teach, kanji and vocab integration, etc.

Quote:I am definitely trying to think like I was a beginner, but I do want the site to have some degree of logistical progression where you are expected to remember things from past pages.

Yes, that's what I mean by making it suitable for a beginner. An order that makes sense for learning and is cumulative without a lot of unnecessary information. You don't need to repeat definitions. In fact, I'd consider including some kind of glossary of required basic grammar terms. That'd be convenient for those who use your site more like dictionary. You wouldn't have to clutter your explanations with definitions and use so many links which prevent lesson changes.

btw, it might be an idea to make the info about historical derivation and dialects more visually distinct (text box, font color or shading?) so beginners can easily identify it as optional (less of an issue in the advanced section.) Otherwise, it's likely to be information overload to an absolute beginner who might think they need to learn it all. I think it's interesting info for students later on.

imabi Wrote:I do know that some lessons are a tad bit unorganized, and with my summer job that I have now and I can't put much time towards these areas. Remember that I have many other responsibilities on the site. I have to answer questions that come in via e-mail, maintain forum responses, construct new lessons, study Japanese and Korean for myself, read books and what not, and tend to ~150 different locations in the site. If something in particular really catches your eye that you're annoyed with, I'll definitely give it priority over the other agenda matters.

Thanks, but as I'm not asking you to do anything for me, I don't know why you're giving me excuses for why it's not getting done fast enough. And as I'm not using your site, there's no reason for me to annoyed. This is your project which you're making available to others. People will understand that your priorities right now are probably school and work and you work on imabi when you can.

Quote:As far as grammar explanations are concerned, I'm pretty dang sure that the Japanese points are right on as I have not put anything on the site directly concerning the site without verifying its validity via many (in-)Japanese sources.

Well, the last time you insisted that it was absolutely perfect, you then completely revised L8 and L9 in response to feedback from several people. :-) I can try to give you more detailed grammar feedback in a few days. Here's a few off the top of my head:

- You're mistaken about intransitive verbs in a few different places in those lessons. For eg, you state that transitive verbs are volitional and intransitive verbs are not. (I think you say intransitives are "spontaneous".) This is incorrect. There are 2 kinds of intransitive verbs: one is volitional (He runs), other other isn't (Ice melts).
- By modifying some sentences lifted from the dictionary and that はvsが academic paper, you sometimes removed what made them useful to illustrate the point.
- Something strange about が　marking the affected person with emotion verbs, and then がほうし　and が好きだ are given as examples.
- You describe "subject" as the basic unit of a sentence.
- You define particles and case particles as marking the grammatical relation b/w the word and the rest of the sentence.
- you focus on more advanced aspects of はand　が (leaving out some important ones), but don't adequately cover the basics. Again, is the purpose complete coverage or learnability.

Some things I would disagree, but that's ok since everyone has their own perspective. But, what I can say is that I have seriously considered all what you say. Exercises/practice is the least developed part of the site, and I think I have said that before. Anyways, it still is. For now, it is not a big concern for me. There are plenty of books that put the exercises at the very end, and there are those that have exercises after each section, but then there are some that are mixed style or have unique formats. The main reason that I have not wanted to do on the lines of what you are talking about is a space concern. It's something that I would just rather put off to the side for now.

I was hoping that the translation process would bring to light some of those things that you are mentioning. The inability of the translator to easily translate difficult vocabulary gives me the opportunity to make it a more suitable level for the beginner, or whatever level the lesson is in.

The lesson order, I think, really isn't that big of an issue now. I can still spread some magic dust over the site to make transitions seemingly easy.

As far as the ultimate decision, I'm not quite ready to make such a fundamental decision. I'm just going to let events shape its final form.

As far as a different color for things, they're normally already separated either via a note section or separated off with ---------- in most cases. I've done this instead only because I haven't thought of another color that would be visible and nice looking. I really don't want to change the background color because I think it goes nice with the green template.

With your points that you have mentioned, there were definitely fallacies and things wrong. Some things, though, I would have to disagree about its use. I guess there can always be compromise.

Well, if you want you can go back to 9 because I made some changes to address your points. I'm sure I'm still missing things from making it perfect, but I'm really trying.

Update Notice: Here was what I tried to do to Lesson 10 to see if it is much better.

I have taken my own steps to try to explain things more so with my own personal style that I would use if asked by someone on the street. This may lead to new errors, but it may also prevent me from misinterpreting other texts or using misinformation.

I have taken some sentences out that I thought had too much uncovered or noted information as well as sentences with Kanji that I would have flipped out at that point in my studies.

Organization has changed a bit. I've made sure to concise sections and that I'm not being too verbose, which can lead into fallacies and even smart people like Thora to misunderstand what I intended.

Some paragraphs have been taken out that did not harm the content covered. No items have been severely deleted, but some pictures were deleted.

That article I read before about wa and ga really helped myself, but a lot of the inspiration it gave was only the last section in 10. I felt like the article was meant for advanced students, and I tried to see how much of it could apply to beginners without over doing it. I mean, I can't show the detailed differences between particles like ga and to with say wa, mo, and koso at that point either. And, that was a really good point the article addressed.

I'm sure there are things that are missing from a perfectly extensive yet easy representation, but I do think the usages mentioned are broad enough to encompass some other items with thought. I could be wrong about this, which is why I'm sure you'll tell me.

Lastly, Lesson 10 has been reduced by 3 pages. Length isn't everything, but it is a measure of how I am trying to make the text more suitable for the beginner.