It is not uncommon for me to be in the field with fellow naturalists who don’t share my native language. This often leads to lost-in-translation discussions. “Look a squirrels’ bread”, when seeing a Boletus edulis. In Dutch that is called “Eekhoorntjesbrood”.
I now use iNaturalist to find proper translations, but getting from one language to another requires changing the profile language setting.
Would it be possible to provide a button to easily switch languages in taxon descriptions, or ideally render multiple language set in a users profile page?
I think Andra is referring to the common name label. Maybe the feature request should be framed: “Support multi-lingual common names”? Strongly supportive of this feature request to toggle or allowing the display on common names in more than one language (which I also asked Merlin to implement). This would make it easy to communicate with people in other countries who have a ton of knowledge on local species but zero knowledge of scientific names.
Switching between language - as I did in the example above - is possible, but requires various clicks and changing the complete UI language, whereas it would be convenient if we could switch between language through some sort of toggle button next to the observsation.
Awesome, I wasn’t aware of the possibilty to have the scientific names first, this is really helpful.
my feature request would be to have next to the scientific name, not one but more (multi-lingual) common names. A bit like the fabricated example below:
I am aware and appreciate this, but going through all the clicks while out observing in the field is sub-optimal. Having a selected set of common names, next to the scientific name, would be really convenient here
Yea that make sense, however ideally the UI language should be seperated from the common names. Now changing the UI language is the only way to get to different common names.
They are separated, there is a setting that allows you to specify to show common names as used in a place. The problem is that for many names this is not entered, so while Gråand may be entered as a Danish name, it is not specified to be used in the place Denmark.
The site wants to be able to support running the UI in 1 language but names in another, as well as showing names for regional variants (ie there is no Canadian english locale on the site as an example, so Canadians have to use this setting).
But I want to set more than just one language in that setting. So that the interface shows both the Danish and Canadian English common names (if they exist)
It is a good idea to reword the feature request. The initial wording seems to suggest that it was a feature request to support multi-language common names, which is already implemented.
This request is more about having multiple common names available on one page.
An additional feature of great importance would be a tickbox “Show also common name in country concerned”
So if I am English but in Turkey and I put Malva sylvestris, I would see the English name “Common Mallow” but also see the national Turkish name “ebegümeci”.
This is particularly helpful for anyone a long time in another country wishing gradually to familiarise with the local common names.
Obviously if the country concerned matches your main language it should only show one common name.
Some countries have multiple widespread languages but I think they would be exceptions to the general principle that would need to be considered.
Countries which have only one language are the more uncommon ones.
South Africa, Switzerland and New Zealand without even looking for examples.
(Even in Turkey 10% speak 70, other languages and dialects)
You would need to make your own feature request
Show common names in 2 languages - with personal settings for which 2.
