Numista in Spanish

Hi, my name is Javier and I was wondering if I could provide a translation of all the site to Spanish so more people can join. If you send me the labels of all the site I will be more than happy to translate them so the site can also be on Spanish.

Hello Javier,

Although this has been proposed before (not just Spanish), there is not enough effort to translate the website to a third language.

Thanks for your interest.

I want Spanish tooo!!!! would be a great addition to Numista.

Spanish is the 2nd most talked language in the world (400 million people mother language, and 80 million more as 2nd language), after Chinese (amazing 1200 million), but Spanish have few dialects (Castellano, Catalan, Vasco, Gallego), not too different, that makes possible to all Spanish-talkers understand enough to communicate between them, while (I heard it), some Chinese dialects are so different, that could be considered as different languages, because of hardness to understand between them.

English is close to Spanish on mother language (3rd place with 350 million mother language people), but of course if added second language and people who learnt it, will be much more than Spanish.

Please don't be mad at me, but French is only 16th most talked language on the world; and I think it is still fairly popular, because on past century, most of scientist and technical books were written in French; so who needed access to advanced data and material, had to learn French. I like French, I talk a few of it, and is a sweet language, that should be more extended.

Anyways, I think a Spanish version of Numista would allow to double potential users. I feel practical problem with Chinese is that uses a different set of letters, that makes more difficult to translate and communicate, but this is a problem of who talk and would want Chinese as Numista version.  

Ciao mi amigos, just adding opinion,

Its not the matter with how much ppl speak it, its how much ppl speak it and collect coins :3

Also, keep in mind that the Spanish words you decide to use must be fitting for all dialects, as "jacket" in Columbian Spanish means something quite inappropriate in Mexican Spanish (sorry... best example I could find)...

And yes, there are a lot of Spanish collectors in the world, I have met quite a few in Spain, but (no offence)... If I can read and understand most of it because it is similar to French... I'm pretty sure you guys can too.

Portuguese - related to French (A LOT)
Spanish - If you speak French, you can essentially read it
German - Combination of English, French, and a crapload of other languages

Assuming that you guys can all read Spanish easily (Obviously) then you can read French, unless you know English better.

I'm just saying that the languages are very related and it can be a pain the aß to make sure all the words fit all dialects.

Please don't take anything the wrong way... if so, I didn't mean to.

15 turtles, I am glad you express your opinion, so I can see your point of view, and I can have more and new arguments on my side.  

Yes, there are many words that are common on Spanish, and not even need to go to dialects. Mexican and Colombia speaks the same language (or dialect if you prefer), and many words can have different meanings in different countries or regions, but it is mostly cause of local variations, but the word have the same meaning in all countries, if someone of Spain say the word they use for "take", or for "funny" in Uruguay, Argentina and many other South American countries, maybe it shocks a little to locals, cause these words are used there with other meaning, but they understand what the Spain person is saying. I could find a long list of words with this characteristics.

I know same happens in English, where words used in England, Australia and the US, can have a different meaning, and some words (many 4 letter words), are used for "inappropiated" descriptions, but they are used without problems everyday, and I have seen them in Numista (like the name of a common mintmark in Netherlands coins (not fish, but the bird   ), the nickname for Richard, and some more, and I bet there are loads more.... but nobody gets uncomfortable when reading them, as coins collectors are cultivated and clean mind people, and when read the word they know they are reading the original and correct meaning. In resume, I don't think that argument is really relevant.

On the other hand Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French languages (and a few more) have all the same roots, they called "Romance languages", and are descendent from Latin; so have similar structure, and many words fairly similar too; but I must say you can understand some French, Portuguese or Italian talking, depending on the region they are, unless you have learnt some of those languages. I have experience, Brazil is our neighbour country, and we can fairly understand to people living on south of Brazil (closest to us), but people of center or north of Brazil are much harder to understand, same happens with Portugal people, they talk much similar to Vasco or Catalan Spanish dialects; I bet they have less problems to understand it.

Now my question is: maybe there are much more collectors who talk English than Spanish? or maybe it happens at Numista cause there is not a Spanish version? The reverse happens on NumisNati, a popular coins collectors Spanish-talked site, where there are loads more people who talk Spanish than English... maybe it is cause they don't have an English version? Think of it.

And I change what you said: Please take everything on the right way, I mean to. "I may not agree what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it"

Regards,
Daniel,
Uruguay.

Internet, with its great initiatives like Numista, has turned the world into a small village. In a way, everybody in the world has become each other's neighbour.

Communicating globally requires a language that everybody understands. Whether you like it or not, English has taken this place long time ago. And it's no longer American English or British English, but rather some kind of international English characterized by a lot of simplification because it is used by millions of non-native speakers (my native tongue isn't English either). Feelings that the international use of English confirms a kind of British or American supremacy are misplaced. Those days are over (which may be suprising news for our American members   ).

I'm a great advocate of linguistic diversity (I'm a schooled linguist), and stimulate everyone to keep on talking in his own language and teach it to their children. But if you start to communicate globally - just go with the flow and use English.

Mankind has gained a lot more by integration than by segregation.

Citeer: 15turtlesGerman - Combination of English, French, and a crapload of other languages

English is a Germanic language.
German---->English.

Oops, just saying that German is related... hard to word.

French also comes from German.

And in response to your question @Daniel, I think that if we did expand Numista into the Spanish world, we would have around... perhaps at least 300 more members, and it would be quite interesting to see that. But it would take a lot of work and not only one person to do the translating, we would also need to create surveys to see if there are more Latino collectors or european-Spanish collectors.

I think that at this point, I'm starting to agree with @Daniel on having a Numista Espaniol, however that could pose more problems than benefits.

We need more opinions and sides of view.

Oh, and I didn't mean "Please take everything on the right way", I meant if I said anything culturally offensive, please don't get too excited.

Citeer: kommodore

Citeer: 15turtlesGerman - Combination of English, French, and a crapload of other languages

English is a Germanic language.
German---->English.

Actually although English is German in origin, modern English it's a mishmash taking aspects of French, Flemish, Scandanavian languages, Latin etc.

True that.

It's still close to German in some ways, some words seem to be written similarly in German and English but are pronounced differently , others are spelled differently but sound similar

ie "hier kommt die Sonne" and "Here comes the sun" sound pretty similar when spoken aloud.

True, that's how I learned German... sort of... (Mein Deutsche ist nicht so gut, aber... ich kann sprech ein kleine Deutsche, lol)

Reminds me, I need to go practice German... I'm forgetting whatever bits I knew.

Only thing annoying about German is the conjugations, and the feminine and masculine words, which words to capitalize... it's worse than French, although probably simpler than Russian.

Last time I tried to speak Italian, this guy in Napoli replied to me in Spanish.

If we take a look at the list of users who have chosen country and the official language of their countries, we find that the three major languages ​​in Numista are French (4,661 users), English (4,589) and Spanish (734). I guess what determines this podium are the language of the site and the number of collectors in each country.

I'm not sure that to have more users is good, maybe Xavier has another point of view because the advertising revenues. If he had this target, there are countries with very few members and certainly with many collectors: China, Japan, Korean and Arabic countries.

We have only 67 members from Chinese-speaking countries. I think Xavier lives in China and I'm sure if he thinks it is worth the effort to translate Numista to a third language, it would be the Chinese. And if he does it, the number of users will grow enormously.

About the Spanish language, there is a website (foronum.com) for coins exchange with 4,200 members, and a forum (imperio-numismatico.com) with over 500,000 posts, 10 times Numista's forum. They are a tough competition to grow Spanish members in Numista.

Regards/再见
Paco

Citeer: 15turtlesLast time I tried to speak Italian, this guy in Napoli replied to me in Spanish.

So you are good in Spanish  

Nope, I suck at both, just more at Italian  

And Italian is harder than Spanish. I personally prefer Spanish more if I were to properly learn a 4th language.

And I would not like too much Chinese ppl on Numista, for the safety of all members (too hard to say why... but... you would understand if you've seen Chinese collectors [not saying all of them are, just the ones I've seen , which is most of em])

Also keep in mind, coin collecting is somewhat harder compared to other countries, so even with the massive population and the fact that even 0.01% of the Chinese population collected, I still don't think we could get too much Chinese members

And, keep in mind: Chinese Government censorship.

I am strongly, and I mean strongly against having a third language.

My reason is this: as a team member for some few years, I've come to realize that there's simply too much work that needs to be done on Numista- pages to be verified, new pages to be made, coins to be identified, verifications to be accepted, and so on. As general members, you may think that having a third language would help Numista and that "it won't be too much work." But no, it's a lot more work than you think, not to mention little effort to translate the pages.

If we should change to any language, it's Chinese, whether it's full-form or simplified. Numista is the ideal coin collecting website for checking in coins (have you ever found a better site?), and China has thousands upon thousands of collectors, compared to just "300" from Spanish. Over a year ago I was convincing Xavier that having German as the third language of Numista would reel in more German collectors to help with the German states. In a study that Xavier conducted, the most common numismatic website language was not English, not German (to my surprise), and not French. It was Japanese, which really surprised me. As a second-generation Japanese, I can understand full-form and barely simplified, so probably full-form/traditional Chinese would be the third language of Numista.

But, like I said, the amount of effort and work that would be put into the site would be absolutely staggering. As for now, I really think we should just stick with two of the most spoken and written languages in the world. Don't you agree?

Point there...

Although... having Chinese ppl on Numista can bring in more problems than it could offer, with respects to all those Chinese collectors whom are at least 90% honest collectors (face it, none of us are 100%... sounds a bit harsh but tis true), we could end up with quite a bit of spam/hacks/scams if we don't watch who we're bringing on Numista.

And even if we do end up getting a Chinese translation, it would have to be years from now, when Numista is slightly more matured.

Oh, and all ppl who have the spellcheck thing enabled on your browser (Usually on IE)... right click on numista (no capital letter) and see the suggestions  

No, SmartOneKg, I don't agree with you. Reading your post for a moment it popped in my mind if your Numista account could be hacked, and it was other person who was writting. But no, I think it's really you, and think there a couple things that I can't get convinced on.

First: Teamwork is the only way to develop beyond certain points, and it means number of team members should be constantly increased, to follow the development or this site (in this case). Always things start with one or a few people who have a dream (at start people would say they are just guys who are bored, but after success they will become visionary heroes); he or they start working, and when members numbers start increasing, there is a sign of they are doing the things correctly. Then they would find there are too much things to pay attention to, so team must grow; when team grows, there is the possibility (and usually the need) to increase and diversify the features offered, that will attract more users, and again makes needed to grow administrator team. The last addition of referees, is the clearest sign that things are going fine and all is going in the right direction. Xavier showed to be wise when created the administration team, and confirmed it with addition of referees. (I bet he showed it before, but I was not lucky enough to see).

This also means each team member will be having more work, and their range of activity will be more focused on certain things every time. At this moment, some of the referees are in charge of several countries; with time is naturally other referees join and each will be having less countries to rule.

Do you ever think of a great international company will say "we will not expand because it's too much work"? instead they say "we can expand, so we will add people to our team, to increase quality of services, and thus attract more users."

This doesn't mean to take unnecesary risks, and the addition of new things should be fully studied and discussed in the team, before starting it.

And yes, I know what I'm saying, and I have the experience. I'll tell this not to brag about it, but to show that things can be done. Several years ago (think you still was not born), I became president of our National Motorcycling Federation; we are a very small country, and at that point we had less then 200 riders, and the previous year there was only 2 motorcycle lines (speed on normal circuit, and speed on dirt; this is something similar to motocross, but no jumps, just plain soil tracks), with 5 different  categories adding both. The National Championships had total 18 races on the previous year. I (we, I must say, as I created a team for administrate) started promoting activity, and after 5 years, we had more than 1300 riders, with 7 lines (speed, speed on dirt, motocross, super cross, enduro, quads, moto rally and was very close to have trial). That last year we had total 72 races for the different championships (taking into account races are disputed only on weekends, and the year has 52 weeks, there was not a chance a single person could attend all the races. The key was to create teams, commisions, or how you want to call them, that became specialized each on certain area. Our best success was to get again races for the Latin American Motocross Championship, after nearly 17 years from the last official international race we had before. It was not me, was our team who got this rolling. After that I was president of our National Tire Sellers Association, and later I was head of a games group on internet (Dominoes league). Same development in all of them, as said, key was teamwork, I always managed to make team work, and I got the applause.

About making Chinese the 3rd language, the quantity of people talking it is very tempting, and I would love to have the possibility to contact many thousands of Chinese collectors. But the main problem is the great difference of alphabet we use, since communication is written, the keyboards are totally different (sincerely I never seen a keyboard for Chinese or Japanese). As long as I know, that is not too much, structure is different, and think even direction of writing is also different. Yes, this would be a lot more of work. On the other hand, English, French, Spanish, and a lot more of western languages have the same alphabet, with some special characters each, so that is a point to make easier to contact. At least I can write words of a foreing language in a translater program, without need of using a different keyboard, or a program to have the so different characters. I still think if at a moment there is a 3rd language on Numista, would be a great thing to be Chinese, but for practical reasons it should be a western language, being Spanish, German or some other.

I agree there are thousands and thousands of coins collectors in China, but I know about 50 collectors in my country, with 3 million inhabitants; so guessing I know all the collectors (that I am sure there are several more), you say there are only 250 more collectors in 460 million Spanish speaking people? I recommend you to change your calculator's battery, it must be death.

And please check your sources of statistics; I have nothing against French, but figures say most talked languages are: 1st, out of discussion is Chinese, far away from the rest, on 2nd place both Spanish as mother language, and English as more learnt. .... French got only 16th place after Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese (6th), Russian (8th), Japanese (9th), German (11th)... Even India has 4 languages each of them more talked than French (Hindi, Telugu, Marathi and Tamil) ... sadly French is not one of the 2 more talked languages; not even shows in top ten most talked. Please understand me correctly I DO WANT French in Numista; I am only showing the statistics.

In resume I don't agree that Numista should stop developing, I don't say we must add languages right now, but if site continues growing, the adding of languages will be a natural consecuence, and a must. Do you think if Ebay would keep only 1 or 2 languages would be as big as it is now? I know you will say Ebay is only in English, but in fact Ebay owns iBazar at France, Loquo and Ebay at Spain, part of GMarket at South Korea, and MercadoLibre at several countries in South America and Portugal. Also owns PayPal, and Skype; Ebay not only expanded to different languages, but also to different activities. This makes me remind of requests of users wanting Numista had banknotes and post stamps section. Same for Ford Motor Co., VolksWagen, Coca Cola, I dare you to name a big brand or company with only 1 language... then you will have chance to convince me.

For last, thank you very much the opportunity you gave me to write all those silly things, that otherwise I would not have how to say in Numista.

Ciao Daniel and others,

In all respect, did you use a translator? (I sort of understand what you are saying and it is logical   ) but I am confused by certain parts, esp the last 3 paragraphs.

And our keyboards and text are now fitted to western standards, so that does not pose as a problem, however I still think that it is more logical to go with a Latin based language after that (massive) rant up there...

And also, @Daniel has a point there... We should expand in similar format to that of EBay, even though many of you guys out there consider me as a child... just read what I'm saying next.
- Ebay generally works like this (I'm skipping a couple intermediates...) : We have a boss of all of ebay, he/she is also the boss of the international ebay websites like gittidiyor, gmarkt, iBazar... et cetera, we then have the managers of those individual websites, one for gittidiyor, one for iBazar, one for EBay Deutschland, one for EBay GB, etc. And then we have the administration for each of those websites, so a admin team for gittidiyor, an admin team for EBayUK, etc. We then have just the regular employees whom are... (bad analogy) like the moderators in a video game, position lower than that of a admin, but still has rights. Then we have the... sellers (the members).

^Notice the structure is very similar to that of Numista's

The high-most boss: Xavier
Admin team: SmartOneKG, Ginger, Bam777 <?... and a couple others (sorry, can't remember too well)
Moderators: country refs
Members: ... members

Now, compare to EBay, you might be thinking... Oh, he forgot some things he mentioned in the EBay analogy.

NO... I didn't, its because Numista doesn't have that yet.
We need to have international managers, for example: Say we expand to Japan, Kenny can be the manager for Numista JPY, or if we expand to Germany, some other member...

but we would also need a "total" admin team that is higher than the international managers (Xavier's admin team) to control and help the international managers.
We would further need admin teams for each of those countries we have expanded into.
Referees would be moderators, and they can be selected for a country in one of the domains (just like French/English now)
and the members would still be members.

And... I'm going to sort of just slowly back myself out of this heated convo now... avoiding pissing anyone off if that case should happen.

And BTW, you both have very strong points here and there, but I think that Xavier should and will have the ultimate decision, however keep in mind that your opinions may influence his decision should we have a third language planned (expansion).

Once again, thanks for free speech @NumistaCommunity (we should really appreciate it, just like @Daniel said above :D)

To Daniel,

I'm sorry, but I will have to deny your requests, because the answer from the webmaster and the team will be no. Numista has not developed enough to include a third language, and there is simply not enough motivation to work on the 35k pages that exist on Numista. Your argument is very convincing, but I can guarantee that we cannot allow a third language on Numista.

What Numista members must understand about the team is that we are not the deciders of the future of Numista. We are simply volunteers who assist the needs and requests of our members. Even if I said, "That sounds great! We'll include [third language] onto Numista," it cannot happen because even I don't have the power to do so; only the webmaster can do this, and I am sure he will warmly decline.

I have to apologize for my statistics. Yours are based on population, mine was focused on country. English is spoken in every country to some extent, and French second; however, French is probably spoken as a second language in countries that have had some French influence (except France, of course). English and French have spread to all edges of the globe, my point (unclearly) given.

Maybe wait a few years, and we'll include Spanish as a third language! But currently, verifying pages on Numista is our goal and not a third language.

Hi Kenny:

Maybe I was not clear on my words; I haven't requested to include Spanish now; I said Spanish is a natural and strong option for future; at least on the direction Numista have right now. I completely agree with you that now is not the moment, but at the right time it will became a need, maybe in a few months or some years; I don't know when, and I don't even want to bet about it. Just like when you walk, you not only look where is your next step, but also the track ahead, sooner or later is very possible you reach there, or maybe at any point you decide to turn to side. If you have a target, you will need to pass for certain points at a time, if you decide to change your target, then those points could change.

I insist, I'm not asking for a third language; I just would like to have it, cause it would make things easier for me, and for a lot more people. Anything that could be changed in the site will have advantages and problems, the wise is to balance them. Think of translate to Latin: the only country with that language as oficial is Vatican City, and all the inhabitants have this language as second one, so it will be a lot of work, and I don't think would add a member; I am not even saying that adding a language must be the next step; maybe other thing is important after the update of catalog is fairly complete, and referees team is working efficiently. Turbinux said wanted a Spanish section added, and I said I would like it too, I also would say I'd like Numista pay post cost of all swaps... but I'm not asking for it, and I know it is 99.9999% impossible it happens. Who knows? I say I would like all members of Numista send me my missing coins ... I'm not asking for it, and for sure it will not happen. but sometimes we say would like to certain things happen, and it have a good chance to happen sooner or later.

One year ago you would say the adding of referees would happen, I bet no, or at least it was a far possibility; then things evolved and now is a reality.

I bet in a certain time a 3rd language may be added, don't know if is matter of months or years; and next I guess Spanish is one of the best options. I may be wrong, but my ideas are based on experience balance of problems and benefits, and statistics, not just in my wishes. I only explain them as I think is the way it could happen, like when I see cloud on the horizon, then I take my umbrella, just in case.

Turtles:

Yes, your description of team (and users) structure is bassically correct; usually the best results are on the COC (Chain of command) where not only is determined the position, rights and obligations of each one, but also who depends on who (more effective is when higher level is meant to help and guide lower level, whenever needed, and the COC is followed step by step up and down).

Well, regards to all, I'm heading to bed before wifey suspend me for reaching late.

Thanks for your input Dan.

I'm certain we will not input a third language in a few months, but there is a good possibility it will happen in a few years.