This was really interesting to read, thank you so much for sharing! Are there any texts that are particularly difficult to translate? And if someone tags a work with existing tags but in, e.g., French, do the tag wranglers ask the translation committee for help?
It depends on who you ask, whether one kind of text or another is more difficult. Some translators have said that texts related to Legal Advocacy are difficult due to all the legal jargon (while other translators are lawyers themselves and didn't have as many difficulties with the jargon), others have mentioned more technical texts about AO3 issues that contain a lot of tech jargon. And as a committee we bonded over our shared headaches when it came to certain terms that appear in the AO3 FAQ, like "pinch hitter" or "undefault". Did you know that "pinch hitter" comes from baseball, a sport that may not be as popular in many places outside of the US? It's not a well-known fact for people who didn't grow up with baseball as a common sport in their environment.
For non-English tags (or even tags in English that tag wranglers are unsure about for one reason or another, in the context of a non-English work), we have established shared channels between Translation and Tag Wrangling where tag wranglers can ask for help, though Tag Wrangling also has their own share of multilingual volunteers!
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TheMotionlessAlbatross Tue 01 Jul 2025 07:19PM UTC
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