Language data

Now that we have an initial set of data (sure, it's less than a week,
but it's something), here is some statistics on language settings in our
visitors browsers (I've added all the different Spanish into one group etc):

English 57.1%
German 5.8%
Spanish 5.3%
Brazilian-Portuguese 5.2%
Japanese 4.2%
French 3.9%
Polish 3.0%

nobody else breaks over 3%, but there are a total of 107 different
language combinations present.

From this, I read that it's correct to say that English only represents
a little over half our browsers primary language. But it's also true
that adding translations will not buy us much more *per translation*.
But if we do get both German and French (per discussions in the past
week), that would buy us almost 10%.

Now, looking at geographical distribution, it's quite different:
United States 21.5%
Germany 7.0%
Brazil 6.5%
Japan 4.6%
Poland 4.1%
France 4.0%
United Kingdom 4.0%

Adding up English speaking countries in the top list (US, UK, Canada and
Australia), we have about 30%. Which clearly shows that a lot of people
outside English speaking countries have their browsers set for English
as their primary choice - just like me ;-)

Not particularly surprising, looking at archives.postgresql.org shows
more English browsers - about 68.5%. Noticeable other changes are that
German is now only 3.6%, Brazilian Portuguese down to 2% but Spanish is
up to 10.3%.

Regardless of this, given that two people have expressed interest in
translating what's there now, I'll make sure that the translation
continues to work as good or bad as it previously had. Then we can
improve on that in the future, once we see actual needs from actual
translators.

//Magnus

Magnus Hagander a ecrit le 18/02/2007 12:28:
> Now that we have an initial set of data (sure, it's less than a week,
> but it's something), here is some statistics on language settings in our
> visitors browsers (I've added all the different Spanish into one group etc):
>
> English 57.1%
> German 5.8%
> Spanish 5.3%
> Brazilian-Portuguese 5.2%
> Japanese 4.2%
> French 3.9%
> Polish 3.0%
>
> nobody else breaks over 3%, but there are a total of 107 different
> language combinations present.
>
> From this, I read that it's correct to say that English only represents
> a little over half our browsers primary language. But it's also true
> that adding translations will not buy us much more *per translation*.
> But if we do get both German and French (per discussions in the past
> week), that would buy us almost 10%.
>

I see a different way to look at your statistics. This is just
percentage numbers. Do you have "real" numbers ? I mean, 3.9% of the
people visiting www.postgresql.org speak french. OK. But 3.9% of how many ?

Looking at wikipedia, the United States' population stood at an
estimated 300,000,000. France has an estimated population of 64 million
people. So France has 21.33% of the population the United States has. So
having a 3.9% french people visiting the www.postgresql.org web site
seems a bit huge to me. Of course, there's other countries where french
is an official language
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_French_is_an_official_language
... hmmm, much more than I thought :) ).

And how many french people are interested in PostgreSQL ? I can't say
but if more than 50% of the french people interested in PostgreSQL are
visiting www.postgresql.org, we absolutely need a french translation on
this website.

I just hope my explanations were understandable.

>
> Now, looking at geographical distribution, it's quite different:
> United States 21.5%
> Germany 7.0%
> Brazil 6.5%
> Japan 4.6%
> Poland 4.1%
> France 4.0%
> United Kingdom 4.0%
>
> Adding up English speaking countries in the top list (US, UK, Canada and
> Australia), we have about 30%. Which clearly shows that a lot of people
> outside English speaking countries have their browsers set for English
> as their primary choice - just like me ;-)
>

Or they are just using default options. That's what they have when they
download an english Firefox or a beta release.

> [...]
> Regardless of this, given that two people have expressed interest in
> translating what's there now, I'll make sure that the translation
> continues to work as good or bad as it previously had. Then we can
> improve on that in the future, once we see actual needs from actual
> translators.
>

So we can start working on it ? that would be pretty cool :)

Regards.

--
Guillaume.

Guillaume Lelarge wrote:

> I see a different way to look at your statistics. This is just
> percentage numbers. Do you have "real" numbers ? I mean, 3.9% of the
> people visiting www.postgresql.org speak french. OK. But 3.9% of how many ?

Magnus probably doesn't have much net access at the moment, so...

From 15/02 - 21/02, 3.95% of the visits to www.postgresql.org have their
language preference set to French. That equates to 5105 of around 130K
total visits.

> Looking at wikipedia, the United States' population stood at an
> estimated 300,000,000. France has an estimated population of 64 million
> people. So France has 21.33% of the population the United States has. So
> having a 3.9% french people visiting the www.postgresql.org web site
> seems a bit huge to me. Of course, there's other countries where french
> is an official language
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_French_is_an_official_language
> ... hmmm, much more than I thought :) ).
>
> And how many french people are interested in PostgreSQL ? I can't say
> but if more than 50% of the french people interested in PostgreSQL are
> visiting www.postgresql.org, we absolutely need a french translation on
> this website.
>
> I just hope my explanations were understandable.

Yup, understandable. I don't necessarily agree with your guess that 3.9%
is too high though

>> Now, looking at geographical distribution, it's quite different:
>> United States 21.5%
>> Germany 7.0%
>> Brazil 6.5%
>> Japan 4.6%
>> Poland 4.1%
>> France 4.0%
>> United Kingdom 4.0%
>>
>> Adding up English speaking countries in the top list (US, UK, Canada and
>> Australia), we have about 30%. Which clearly shows that a lot of people
>> outside English speaking countries have their browsers set for English
>> as their primary choice - just like me ;-)
>>
>
> Or they are just using default options. That's what they have when they
> download an english Firefox or a beta release.

Quite probably I would guess.

>> [...]
>> Regardless of this, given that two people have expressed interest in
>> translating what's there now, I'll make sure that the translation
>> continues to work as good or bad as it previously had. Then we can
>> improve on that in the future, once we see actual needs from actual
>> translators.
>>
>
> So we can start working on it ? that would be pretty cool :)

Of course - you've seen the howto?

/D

>> From this, I read that it's correct to say that English only represents
>> a little over half our browsers primary language. But it's also true
>> that adding translations will not buy us much more *per translation*.
>> But if we do get both German and French (per discussions in the past
>> week), that would buy us almost 10%.
>>
>
> I see a different way to look at your statistics. This is just
> percentage numbers. Do you have "real" numbers ? I mean, 3.9% of the
> people visiting www.postgresql.org speak french. OK. But 3.9% of how many ?
>
> Looking at wikipedia, the United States' population stood at an
> estimated 300,000,000. France has an estimated population of 64 million
> people. So France has 21.33% of the population the United States has. So
> having a 3.9% french people visiting the www.postgresql.org web site
> seems a bit huge to me. Of course, there's other countries where french
> is an official language
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_French_is_an_official_language
> ... hmmm, much more than I thought :) ).
>
> And how many french people are interested in PostgreSQL ? I can't say
> but if more than 50% of the french people interested in PostgreSQL are
> visiting www.postgresql.org, we absolutely need a french translation on
> this website.
>
> I just hope my explanations were understandable.

Sure, that's definitly an interesting discussion. If you're interested
in doing some "real analysis" along that line, I'll be happy to give you
access to view the statistics reports for www.postgresql.org, as long as
you promise to report your findings to the list :)

>> Now, looking at geographical distribution, it's quite different:
>> United States 21.5%
>> Germany 7.0%
>> Brazil 6.5%
>> Japan 4.6%
>> Poland 4.1%
>> France 4.0%
>> United Kingdom 4.0%
>>
>> Adding up English speaking countries in the top list (US, UK, Canada and
>> Australia), we have about 30%. Which clearly shows that a lot of people
>> outside English speaking countries have their browsers set for English
>> as their primary choice - just like me ;-)
>>
>
> Or they are just using default options. That's what they have when they
> download an english Firefox or a beta release.

Sure, but that works the other way around in IE. For example, even if I
install *English* IE versions, it will select Swedish language by
default simply because I said I wanted Swedish date/time style. While we
have some more firefox users than IE, I think it pretty much evens out
in the end, really.

>> [...]
>> Regardless of this, given that two people have expressed interest in
>> translating what's there now, I'll make sure that the translation
>> continues to work as good or bad as it previously had. Then we can
>> improve on that in the future, once we see actual needs from actual
>> translators.
>>
>
> So we can start working on it ? that would be pretty cool :)

Yes, but please only start working on the *templates* part. The .po
files will likely be noticeably different once I commit my changes
(almost there, but a few details to go), so there's not much point in
starting with that yet.

//Magnus

Dave Page a ecrit le 22/02/2007 13:06:
> Guillaume Lelarge wrote:
>
>> I see a different way to look at your statistics. This is just
>> percentage numbers. Do you have "real" numbers ? I mean, 3.9% of the
>> people visiting www.postgresql.org speak french. OK. But 3.9% of how many ?
>
> Magnus probably doesn't have much net access at the moment, so...
>
> From 15/02 - 21/02, 3.95% of the visits to www.postgresql.org have their
> language preference set to French. That equates to 5105 of around 130K
> total visits.
>

Thanks for the numbers :)

>> Looking at wikipedia, the United States' population stood at an
>> estimated 300,000,000. France has an estimated population of 64 million
>> people. So France has 21.33% of the population the United States has. So
>> having a 3.9% french people visiting the www.postgresql.org web site
>> seems a bit huge to me. Of course, there's other countries where french
>> is an official language
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_French_is_an_official_language
>> ... hmmm, much more than I thought :) ).
>>
>> And how many french people are interested in PostgreSQL ? I can't say
>> but if more than 50% of the french people interested in PostgreSQL are
>> visiting www.postgresql.org, we absolutely need a french translation on
>> this website.
>>
>> I just hope my explanations were understandable.
>
> Yup, understandable. I don't necessarily agree with your guess that 3.9%
> is too high though
>

I don't think 3.9 is too high. There's no "too high" :)

All I wanted to say is that, despite the fact that 3.9% is small, it's
probably no that small.

Do you have any info on what french people look on www.postgresql.org ?
I think that some just went there to download releases and others will
use the english manual. Is it possible to get some statistics, like the
one Magnus blogged about, but from a specific part of the "audience" ?

(I say french people every time but some probably would be interested
for other languages.)

>>> [...]
>>> Regardless of this, given that two people have expressed interest in
>>> translating what's there now, I'll make sure that the translation
>>> continues to work as good or bad as it previously had. Then we can
>>> improve on that in the future, once we see actual needs from actual
>>> translators.
>>>
>> So we can start working on it ? that would be pretty cool :)
>
> Of course - you've seen the howto?
>

Magnus gave a link to a README file. I don't if this is the HOWTO you're
talking about. It seems pretty clear to me.

--
Guillaume.

Magnus Hagander a écrit :
>>> [...]
>> I see a different way to look at your statistics. This is just
>> percentage numbers. Do you have "real" numbers ? I mean, 3.9% of the
>> people visiting www.postgresql.org speak french. OK. But 3.9% of how many ?
>>
>> Looking at wikipedia, the United States' population stood at an
>> estimated 300,000,000. France has an estimated population of 64 million
>> people. So France has 21.33% of the population the United States has. So
>> having a 3.9% french people visiting the www.postgresql.org web site
>> seems a bit huge to me. Of course, there's other countries where french
>> is an official language
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_French_is_an_official_language
>> ... hmmm, much more than I thought :) ).
>>
>> And how many french people are interested in PostgreSQL ? I can't say
>> but if more than 50% of the french people interested in PostgreSQL are
>> visiting www.postgresql.org, we absolutely need a french translation on
>> this website.
>>
>> I just hope my explanations were understandable.
>
> Sure, that's definitly an interesting discussion. If you're interested
> in doing some "real analysis" along that line, I'll be happy to give you
> access to view the statistics reports for www.postgresql.org, as long as
> you promise to report your findings to the list :)
>

OK, let's do it. Of course, I'll report what I found to the list.

>>> Now, looking at geographical distribution, it's quite different:
>>> United States 21.5%
>>> Germany 7.0%
>>> Brazil 6.5%
>>> Japan 4.6%
>>> Poland 4.1%
>>> France 4.0%
>>> United Kingdom 4.0%
>>>
>>> Adding up English speaking countries in the top list (US, UK, Canada and
>>> Australia), we have about 30%. Which clearly shows that a lot of people
>>> outside English speaking countries have their browsers set for English
>>> as their primary choice - just like me ;-)
>>>
>> Or they are just using default options. That's what they have when they
>> download an english Firefox or a beta release.
>
> Sure, but that works the other way around in IE. For example, even if I
> install *English* IE versions, it will select Swedish language by
> default simply because I said I wanted Swedish date/time style. While we
> have some more firefox users than IE, I think it pretty much evens out
> in the end, really.
>

I kind of agree with you. And people downloading a Firefox beta release
are the kind of people who can read English, event if that's not their
native language.

>>> [...]
>>> Regardless of this, given that two people have expressed interest in
>>> translating what's there now, I'll make sure that the translation
>>> continues to work as good or bad as it previously had. Then we can
>>> improve on that in the future, once we see actual needs from actual
>>> translators.
>>>
>> So we can start working on it ? that would be pretty cool :)
>
> Yes, but please only start working on the *templates* part. The .po
> files will likely be noticeably different once I commit my changes
> (almost there, but a few details to go), so there's not much point in
> starting with that yet.
>

OK, I begin right now.

--
Guillaume.
<!-- http://abs.traduc.org/
http://lfs.traduc.org/
http://docs.postgresqlfr.org/ -->

On Tue, Feb 27, 2007 at 08:11:44AM +0100, Guillaume Lelarge wrote:
> Magnus Hagander a écrit :
> >Sure, that's definitly an interesting discussion. If you're interested
> >in doing some "real analysis" along that line, I'll be happy to give you
> >access to view the statistics reports for www.postgresql.org, as long as
> >you promise to report your findings to the list :)
> >
>
> OK, let's do it. Of course, I'll report what I found to the list.
>

Ok. Please send me your google login id off-list. (gmail or adwords or
any service you alerady have - or just sign up for one), and I'll add it.

//Magnus