Changed the language to Spanish

[phma]

I changed the language to Spanish, of which I’m a heritage speaker, having commented on some observations in Spanish. Here’s what I noticed.

Maples o Arces: Never heard “maple” in Spanish. Wiktionary says it is used in Mexico.

Pueraria: There is a word “kuzu”, borrowed, like the English, from the Japanese.

Y: Why is “Y” capitalized but not “o”?

Jicorias o Pacanas: Borrowed from English, which in turn borrowed them from Algonquian languages.

Asarum arifolium: This is called “little brown jug” in English. I had no idea why, as all I saw of it was two leaves, one of which detached and fell on the ground. It turns out to be the shape of the flowers. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/250881522

Abaniquillo: I was expecting the same word “anole” to be used in Spanish.

Arañas Patonas: No es una araña, es un opilión. Wiktionary glosses it as “daddy longlegs”, which is polysemous; is it the opilion, the spider, or the fly? It appears from the Wikipedia article that “opilión” is used in Spanish, but as it occurs only in the plural, I can’t tell the Latin singular (opilio) from the Spanish. Also, the ID is a genus, which should not be glossed as the general term “arañas patonas”, which refers to all Opiliones or all Pholcidae, whichever it is. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/248937411

___ añadió un(a) ___ a una observación de tu: This is ungrammatical, in English this is “___ added a(n) ___ to an observation of your”, and I’m expecting a noun to follow. I think the correct is “una observación tuya”; “una observación de ti” would mean, I think, that someone observed me.

Guacamayas, Lapas o Papagayos (Ara): Both “guacamaya” and “guacamayo” exist, so I’d use “guacamaya” only for a macaw known to be female. “Papagayo” refers to all parrots, and there are macaws not in the genus Ara. “Lapa” was new to me.

No hay fotos o sonidos: Shouldn’t it be “No hay fotos ni sonidos”?

[astra_the_dragon]

Can you show us the combination of language and locality settings you’ve chosen? Screenshots would also help determine if this is a bug, a translation issue, or merely knowledge you didn’t have before…

[ItsMeLucy]

@phma

Never heard “maple” in Spanish

Te lo juro, existe.

Yeah, Spanish is so variable depending where you are* and heritage Spanish is going to be variant as well. It is awesome that you are able to comment in Spanish, very helpful.

*the part of MX where I live has words specific to just here even. There are whole memes.

edit to add:

[cthawley]

I’m unsure what the goal of this topic is, but the forum really isn’t for individual translation issues/questions. You can read about how iNat handles translation in some other forum threads (eg, https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/questions-about-the-translation-process-tool-crowdin/8632) or the Help files describe how users can contribute to the translation process:
https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000194744-can-i-help-translate-inaturalist-

[phma]

Here are two screenshots. One shows both “Papagayos” used only for the genus Ara (AFAIK it means either all Psittacidae or all Psittaciformes", like “loro”) and “Y” versus “o”. The other shows lots of “añadió una identificación a una observación de”, but none ending in “tu”. For language and locality I chose “Español”, no particular country, and no lexicon.

I’ll check those out.

[mo0nsgreenthumb]

Maple solo lo he oído en referencia al sirop de maple.
Soy de la República Dominicana.

Estoy de acuerdo que debería decir una observación tuya (your observation)

También debería decir No hay fotos ni sonidos.

[upupa-epops]

@phma

Y: Why is “Y” capitalized but not “o”?

This seems like a bug. I assume that specific words are coded to not be capitalized (e.g. and, of, the) and those would have to be specifically programmed for each language?

Other cases might have to be dealt with by negotiating the different place names; I can imagine there are a number of species that are called different names in different Latin American countries (just like species with different names between North America and the UK).

@thomaseverest

@upupa-epops

E.g. generic names like “hover fly” or “flower fly” are applied to multiple levels of taxa from families down to species in Spanish which doesn’t seem right.

I have noticed similar problems after adding Spanish, such as the same generic name being added to 20 species. I’m not sure if this is because of a few slightly misdirected users, or if there hasn’t been as much name curation as in English. I delete them when I feel comfortable doing so.

I get the impression that Spanish common names need quite a bit of curation work, but I’m not really comfortable wading into that without being fluent.

Probably the solution here will end up being to make a flag on each species that you find issues with, to start a discussion on fixing the names. There’s a tendency to have discussions about removing or fixing English names on certain taxa, all while leaving the names in other languages that have exactly the same issues…

[phma]

Are both taxon names and text like “añadió un comentario” on Crowdin?

I just saw another suspicious taxon name. @tanker-aviator-naturalist observed a leaf of a tree called Platanus, which was called “sicómoro” in Spanish. I know this only as the name of the sycomore, a species of fig, and would call the tree “plátano”, which also refers to a cooking banana, “plantain” in English, which also refers to Plantago, which is called “llantén” in Spanish. Confused already? The Spanish Wiktionary, however, says that “sicómoro” can also be used for Platanus, and also for the sycamore maple.

[tanker-aviator-naturalist]

Huh, that’s interesting.

[spiphany]

@phma

Are both taxon names and text like “añadió un comentario” on Crowdin?

Common names of taxa are managed on the individual taxon pages (not on Crowdin as for the general website translation) and can be set for region as well as language. They are user contributed. If a taxon name is missing or wrong for a particular region/language, you can either add it or flag it for curation, ideally with an explanation and sources that the name you are requesting is in use.

[phma]

I flagged Ara and signed up on Crowdin. Can someone get me started? I’m working on a language that’s mostly translated, but there are some grammar errors and inconsistencies.

Last night at church I asked some people about guacamayos y papagayos y loros. The pianist said que guacamayos no son loros, loros are the ones that talk, and there are some guacamayos in southern Mexico. I asked him which species, and he said “the colorful ones!” As to “papagayos”, he didn’t know the word and thought it means a chicken who’s a father (papá gallo).

[ItsMeLucy]

HI. I am in southern Mexico.

As I mentioned before, Spanish varies tremendously depending where you are. So too common names. The rain lilies here are called brujitas, little witches, because they pop up as if by magic after rain. ALL of them. Every species.

I cannot even tell you how many different trees here are called Lluvia de Oro. All you can know is that the tree has yellow flowers.

Or Galán de la tarde. It smells lovely in the evening.

Iguanitos is how my favorite friend refers to all anoles and geckos, none of whom are iguanas, little or otherwise. (I would never query her though for database cleanup.)

I don’t refer to parrots as papagayos but I was able to quickly search gbif’s database and find 42 species of parrots with Spanish common names that included it. This one is my favorite. (I’m a sucker for birds that look like they woke up suddenly.)

Interviewing church pianists about their familiarity with parrot species is probably very interesting (fun fact: almost every family that keeps a parrot here names it Lorenzo) but likely not helpful as far as knowing which names should/should not be included, a decision that will affect every other country where Spanish is spoken.

To be clear, maple is also a common name for a type of tree here. Here are some for sale.

My thoughts: ideally, the Spanish language cleanup, if needed, should be left to the Spanish speakers in Spanish speaking countries, just as the French cleanup should be left to the French speakers in French speaking countries, etc. (Because there are so many Spanish variants, inclusion should be the rule, not sweeping cutting because "one person in one part of one country has never heard that term used.)

These could be designees of the Administrators of iNaturalist partners or volunteers with an interest. iNaturalist has a robust network from which to draw.

[ItsMeLucy]

@phma

Both “guacamaya” and “guacamayo” exist, so I’d use “guacamaya” only for a macaw known to be female.

I put this link elsewhere but thought I would include it here to keep things tidy: Guacamaya, from the government of Mexico. I assure you they do not just mean the girlish ones.

This is why it is very important that non-speakers do not revise a language.

[phma]

So in Mexican Spanish, “guacamaya” is used for both sexes. The original form is “guacamayo”, and the English Wiktionary (the Spanish doesn’t mention it, but does say where “guacamaya” is used) says it’s used in El Salvador and Honduras. I’ll ask my aunt.

When I was in Colombia, where they call dump trucks “volquetas”, I joked that the volquetes from other countries would mate with the volquetas and have volquetitos.