Polish translation

[dcz-self]

I've started translating into Polish here: https://github.com/dcz-self/covid-19

I'm going to translate piece by piece, although I'm not sure how big the piece will be because there are no clear breaks in the text :)

Difficulties in translation so far:

• lockdown
• channeling fear
• contact tracing
• art

[dcz-self]

More tricky expressions: "Early release article", "serial interval", "communicable", "exponential decay".

[dcz-self]

Needed Polish equivalents of: the Institute for Disease Modeling (ang.), and Wikipedia, and https://www.idmod.org/docs/hiv/model-seir.html

Tricky: Exposed in SEIR ("zarażony"? ale Infected to "zaraźliwy"). "interventions". "Stopa" or "współczynnik" reprodukcji? Press seems to use "współczynnik", but I don't like that it hides the "rate" meaning.

[dcz-self]

Tricky: "policy makers", "high density interval", "transmissions", "ratio", "social distancing".

[dcz-self]

More: "Flatten the curve" - "Złagodzenie szczytu?", "spowalnianie epidemii?", "pooled value"

The text uses "social distancing" and "lockdown" interchangeably, while they are arguably not the same thing, which is especially visible when the respective idioms are more distant than in the original :( I'm going to translate faithfully for now.

[dcz-self]

"observational evidence" is another one. Also, "social distancing" in source material is a pain.

[jasiekkaminski]

Hey! Thank you for starting the translation.

Still need help? I had some thoughts about your tricky words:

"exponential decay" -> "zanik wykładniczy"; it's usual term in buisness, i.e. physics and mathematics. "gasnący" is sometimes used, but not "gaszenie".

"reproduction rate" -> "współczynnik reprodukcji" seems to be the actual term used by Polish epidemiologists. This paper should be helpful. In the paper there are also some terms regarding SEIR model.

"policy makers" – maybe "politycy" or "decydenci" (latter somewhat awkward, maybe...). Your "prawodawcy" also OK.

"ratio"
Whenever "ratio" is synonymous to quotient of two values (typical use in mathematical context) it should be translated "stosunek" (e.g. "signal noise ratio" = "stosunek sygnału do szumu" in electronics and telecommunications).

"flatten the curve" is colloquial term and I've seen "wypłaszczanie krzywej" in press, which I consider communicate very well the meaning, which is either to lower the curvature of logistic curve of all cases (i.e. aprroach its inflection point) or make the curve of actual cases have its peak (i.e. approach its maximum).

(Do you have some background in mathematics?)

"observational evidence"
English distinguishes „evidence” (based on experimental observations) and „proof” (based on assumptions and logical reasoning). „Dowód naukowy” for "scientific evidence" tends to mix these senses, but I'm afraid we don't have anything beter in Polish. For "observational evidence" I'd pick "dowody eksperymentalne", "wyniki obserwacji" or something similar, depending on context.

How's the translation going? How else can I help? I'd be very pleased to see the project in Polish to share with my students.

[dcz-self]

Nice to finally see someone else join :) Thanks for the expressions help. Yeah, I have some maths background, but it evaporates without active usage :(

I'm about 2/3 of the way in, and help is much appreciated. Current shortcomings:

• I didn't publish it on Pages yet,
• not finished
• the first half is based on the original version, which has been updated since
• I wasn't entirely consistent with some of the tricky expressions, especially the usage of "lockdown" and "social distancing" is a mess.

Here's the repo, and the document itself:

https://github.com/dcz-self/covid-19/blob/master/words/words.md

If you'd like to contribute, please file pull requests, and I'll start doing the same (instead of pushing to master). I suggest opening a new one before starting, with a description of what aspect/which part will go there. This way we will avoid doing the same work.

[dcz-self]

When it comes to "ratio", it's used quite awkwardly to express the percentage in the source text:

Remember also that ratio of transmissions allowed = 1 - ratio of transmissions stopped.

Oh, and another thing to do is to replace all the "gaszenie wykładnicze" :) "Flattening the curve" will need some bigger changes, as I've never used "krzywa", but rather "wykres", for some other reasons, so what is in the text is usually something about the maxima. Related trouble with expressing exactly what "overshooting" means, and saying "peak" without sounding silly.

[jasiekkaminski]

I'll try to sort out some issues with phrases regarding maths, graphs, curves etc. I read a lot about physics and maths in both English and Polish, so I know vocabulary pretty well.

Also I'll try to get help from more linguistically-skilled friends with general stuff like "lockdown" etc.

Sadly, I can't promise much contribution now, being rather busy with work and other stuff. I'll try my best to do at least something, though.

[jasiekkaminski]

Few suggestions from my neighbour, who is an English teacher and translator:

A few suggestions:

lockdown - pozostanie w domach, izolacja
quarantine - kwarantanna (izolowanie chorych lub mających kontakt z wirusem)
social distancing - zachowanie dystansu społecznego (chodzi o odległość 2 m pomiędzy poszczególnymi osobami)
channeling fear - kanalizowanie lęku
contact tracing - śledzenie kontaktów
early release article - robocza wersja artykułu (nie ostateczna)
communicable - zrozumiały
infected - zakażony
infectious - zaraźliwy, zakaźny; infectious people - zarażający, będący źródłem zakażenia
exposed - mający kontakt z wirusem, narażony na działanie wirusa
Flatten the curve - spłaszczyć krzywą
observational evidence - dowody empiryczne
policy makers - decydenci; prawodawcy to bardziej "lawmakers" or "legislators"

[jasiekkaminski]

Additional comments from her:

Widzę, że w polskich tekstach "lockdown" często pozostawia się bez tłumaczenia, dla odróżnienia od "kwarantanny", która dotyczy tylko osób szczególnie zagrożonych - lockdown ogółu społeczeństwa, chyba po polsku brak takiego słowa.

Terminy z modelu epidemiologicznego SEIR są tłumaczone różnie i przeważnie w sposób bardzo skomplikowany - lekarze posługują się po prostu terminologią angielską. Tak na common sense przetłumaczyłabym:
susceptible - narażony
exposed - w fazie utajonej
infectious - zarażający
recovered - ozdrowieniec

[jasiekkaminski]

When it comes to "ratio", it's used quite awkwardly to express the percentage in the source text:

Remember also that ratio of transmissions allowed = 1 - ratio of transmissions stopped.

Ratio can be thought of widely, as every quotient of two numbers. Therefore percentage is a special kind of ratio expressed with a fraction with denominator 100 written with customary symbol % (beste explanaition here).

"Flattening the curve" will need some bigger changes, as I've never used "krzywa", but rather "wykres", for some other reasons, so what is in the text is usually something about the maxima.

Formally "wykres" means "graph" (e.g. "wykres funkcji" <-> "graph of a function"), whereas "krzywa" means "curve" (e.g. "krzywa logistyczna" <-> "logistic curve"). In less rigorous contexts (thas is outside your maths textbook ;) terms "wykres", "krzywa" and "funkcja" can be – with some caution – used interchangeably, but usally there's no good reason for that, so best to hold to literal translation:
function <-> funkcja
graph <-> wykres
curve <->krzywa
In case of "flattening the curve" I'd stick to the convention already estabilished in media (see for example this).

Related trouble with expressing exactly what "overshooting" means, and saying "peak" without sounding silly.

Physicists and engineers say "pik" or "maksimum" for "peak" ("pik" being more informal). For "overshoot" I'd consider "przekraczać" (literal "przestrzelić" doesn't fit).

[jasiekkaminski]

"szczyt" is another good alternative for "peak". It's sometimes used when referring to graph of a function (in phrases such as "wartość międzyszczytowa" – "peak-to-peak value").

[dcz-self]

"social distancing" - this is misleading as WHO themselves pointed out. It has nothing with social but everything with physical contact, and I'd like this to be preserved. I've kind of bankrupted on this and used "zachowanie odstępów" or "izolacja", or "ograniczenia".

Other conventions I've used:

• "channeling fear" - "użyć siły strachu"
• "lockdown" - "zakazy", "ograniczenia wychodzenia z domu" (kinda mixes with "lockdown", I didn't pay perfect attention to the meaning in the source)
• "early release" - "wczesne wydanie" (just bad)
• SIR used terms from sources
• S - "podatny"
• E - "zaatakowany" (my own guess)
• I - "zarażający"
• R - "ozdrowiały"
• "flattening the curve" - "rozłożenie przypadków w czasie"
• "transmission" - "zarażenie"
• "communicable period" - "okres zaraźliwy" (ugh).

I'm most partial to "szczyt" for "peak", but "krzywa" to express a function of time rubs me the wrong way. If the battle in the common usage was already lost with "wypłaszczanie krzywej", then I won't complain. The issue is with using terms consistently across the whole text, and the terms must fit well together in the narrative, geometrical, and time progression kind of way, while also being easily understood. So far, I think the consistency suffers the most, because I've tried to adapt the terms/structure to each passage.

[dcz-self]

More editor's notes:

• author is plural
• readership is plural
• no need to translate all direct addresses: "you can" -> "możecie" or "można"
• like in the source text, "we" is the global community. "we must stop this" -> "musimy to pokonać"
• numerals use , comma as the decimal point, and the nonbreaking space   as the thousands separator (unless it was eaten up...)
• use „ and ” for quotes
• reference before period: "¹."
• capital letter after periods
• the analysis is very US-centric, so culturally embedded terms (political "left", "right", "we", ER numbers, New York climate) need to be properly contextualized or replaced with local analogues. Careful, US-isms are not labeled as such in this text and need to be deliberately unmasked. Example: "epidemiologists [link to a US group] have come to a consensus on how to beat COVID-19 [...], while protecting our lives [...]" translates context-free to "epidemiolodzy [link] zgadzają się, jak pokonać COVID-19, chroniąc nasze życie", but it's misleading due to them being only locally relevant. So let's do "epidemiolodzy z USA [link] zgadzają się, jak pokonać COVID-19, chroniąc nasze życie". Not much better - USA is a small portion of the world, so not very relevant to our destinies. It kinda implies they care about Polish lives specifically, making it read silly. Better contextualized: "epidemiolodzy z USA [link] zgadzają się, jak pokonać COVID-19, chronąc życie ludzkie". Still undue weight given to USA, but doesn't sound dishonest.
• "aplikacje, które śledzą kontakty, chroniąc prywatność"

With this, 100% of the text is covered (badly). I'll move my focus to getting it online now.

[dcz-self]

The translation is on the main page. I'm not going to close this issue, as there is some room for improvement