Re: translation of Emacs manual into Japanese

[Takesi Ayanokoji]

Hi!

> The only difficulty I can see will be maintaining this document to include
> future changes, since few of us speak Japanese.

I didn't translate texi manual directory.

Instead, I extracted translatable string from emacs-24.5's texi to PO  files by using po4a utility, and then translate these PO file.
After translation, I generate translated emacs-24.5's texi files from original texis and translated PO file by using po4a utility again.

Up to that, this was a heavy work for me because I translated over 600 pages manual from nearly scratch.
But after then, emacs-25.1 was released, updating translated manual was easy.

I extracted translatable string from emacs-25.1's texi to PO  files by using po4a utility, and then translate these PO file from emacs-24.5's translated PO files by using gettext's merge utility.

At this point, this merged emacs-25.1's PO files ware almost Japanese but a few part that made changes in this release remain English.

I translated untranslated part of PO files, and then generate Japanese manual in fact.

But if I did not translate these PO manually, this cause emacs-25.1 manual almost Japanese a few English.

This not means that the manual is outdated, it means up-to-date but not completely translated.

So, if distribution includes translated PO files instead of translated texi files, and if  any process(make's installation or maintainer's hand) generaate translated manual from these PO files, maintain cost caused by future changes will be reduced, I think.

1) gettext and po4a are used by GNUnited Nations that handles GNU's websites internationalization.
See https://www.gnu.org/software/trans-coord/manual/gnun/gnun.html#Concepts

2) I maintain translated PO files by GitHub.
See https://github.com/ayatakesi/emacs-25.1-doc-emacs

Thanks.
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Ayanokoji Takesi <address@hidden>