Allow us to use english instead of poorly made translations

yakka

• Translations are of poor quality:
• Terms don't translate well, native language might not have an counterpart
• App is mixing english and native language mid sentence, reading text / navigating app is a nightmare

• I don't wish to contribute by translating app. Why?
  -As a customer I don't think I am the one supposed to provide value (High quality translation add value, poor ones decrease it)
  -I really don't wanna use 1password with my native language, English is a de facto language for tecnology

• Forcing user to change system language just to please one app is not an option

I switched away from lastpass because they wouldn't allow me to use english at all even in desktop/extension.

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1Password Version: 6.8
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Android 8.1.0
Sync Type: Not Provided
Referrer: forum-search:translation android

AGAlumB

@yakka: Thanks for the feedback. I don't think that's really a good option since not everyone has English to fall back on, but it's something we can consider. I think it would be better for us to improve the localizations. It would be helpful to know which you're referring to, and if there are specific things you feel need to be addressed. "Terms don't translate well, native language might not have an counterpart" may be true of some languages, but certainly not all, so context matters. I agree that mixed is confusing though. We don't currently have plans to have 1Password for Android offer its own separate language settings, but perhaps that's something we can do in the future. Still, much less useful if the text needs to be fixed, so I'd like to look into that. Thanks!

yakka

I'd hardly call it a feature to disable localization, app had this while back back then it was called not supporting localization. One simple if-condition and if the locale should be "en" or read from system api or removing the translation file for that language until its complete to prevent mixing. It sad to see google pushing developers to google translate every app just 4 the lulz without any consideration how poor translations turn people away and affect ratings (1/5). Even 1password's google play short description is google translated(props for not translating changelog or rest of the description). Forcing power users to mask their system language with root or reverse-engineer app to remove language file from res isn't desirable outcome.

mverde

@yakka thanks for providing your feedback! Localization is both an area of active interest and an opportunity for improvement for us. Rather than using Google Translate, we've been making use of Crowdin to help with localizing 1Password. For some languages though, the translations simply haven't kept pace with the development progress in the app. This leads to the unfortunate mix of English and translation that you've observed. Out of curiosity, what is your native language?

pervel

This is one of my pet peeves too. It's a general problem in the software industry and not just with 1Password. And it's especially a problem for those of us from a small language (like Danish in my case).

I agree with most of the points made by @yakka but I will add one important point. Having an app in a non-English language makes it a lot harder to get proper support. It can be close to impossible to search for certain problems. And guides and tips are almost never available in your own language. And if they are, they are usually either outdated or poorly translated. (E.g. imagine a Danish user searching for info about sikkerhedsboks which is the Danish translation for vault.)

It's simply a lot easier to use English for me. Which is why I always keep my desktop operating systems in English. Though I do use my native language on a mobile OS.

I'm not saying there is an easy fix for this. And I do believe the OS vendors bear a lot of responsibility for this. They really should make it easy to choose language for each individual app.

AGAlumB

@yakka: I didn't tell you to change your system language. I suggested that we should improve the localizations. You're the one who suggested being able to disable them by having an option to set it to English manually. :lol:

Certainly it's possible that what you're saying about the localization being done with Google Translate is correct, or at the very least there's room for improvement. I have no idea, because you haven't told me what localization I should be looking at. The ones I work on are definitely not machine translated, but we may not have someone here who is able to translate 1Password into whatever language you're using. It would be helpful to know. It's probably not going to be something I can fix personally, but I'll be happy to advocate for it and try to find someone who can fix it.

I do think that it would be nice to have a language selector in the app. I can't promise we'll do that, but it's something we need to consider. My concern is that we should not use that as a surrogate for addressing localization issues. Thanks for your feedback.

ref: android-153

AGAlumB

@pervel: Thank you for your feedback on this. I would have had no idea that English isn't your first language. I think your English is better than mine... :sweat: You also raised a good general point:

Having an app in a non-English language makes it a lot harder to get proper support. It can be close to impossible to search for certain problems. And guides and tips are almost never available in your own language. And if they are, they are usually either outdated or poorly translated. (E.g. imagine a Danish user searching for info about sikkerhedsboks which is the Danish translation for vault.)

I can only imagine. Indeed, most of our documentation (and this forum) is in English, so it wouldn't match what someone sees in the app in their native language even under the best conditions. We'd like 1Password to be intuitive enough that users don't need help or documentation, but of course that isn't realistic. So this is something we need to improve greatly.

I don't think we can lay any of this on the platform owners. It's our software. And frankly OS multi language support is pretty good nowadays (with exceptions). We're not meeting that standard in many cases, and it's something we're not happy with either. This is something we're actively working to improve. I'm not sure we'll ever get to a point where everything is satisfactory in this area, as things are always changing. But it's something we'll continue to strive for, and there's a lot of effort behind the scenes to bring us closer to that ideal.

yakka

@mverde @brenty Okay here's the experience I'm entitled to enjoy thanks to Finnish localization. I already have 50% app in broken finglish and other 50% english, you might as well give the rest as an option:

AGAlumB

@yakka: Thanks for the illustration. I don't know anything about the language, but some things are obvious from your screenshots. And looking into the specific project on Crowdin in more detail, I believe we'll need to pull it until such time as we can get it up to the required standard. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

aivnvaquwkjxolts

It's especially sad, because from my experience, a tech-savvy Finn is likely to speak better English than many here in North America. So, yes, I would concur with these folks: just get rid of localisation until it's really ready, meaning that the app has actually been used by native speakers of that proposed translation. Forcing them to use a local version must be torture.

AGAlumB

Thanks for your feedback. That's probably what we'll end up doing.