Notes and Recommendations for Translators
We have pages on the MBT Wiki for translations of Tom's books as you have seen. This kind of translation is a major project and I thank you for committing to the effort. You know the potential value to the world of this information and therefore of your efforts. I (Ted Vollers) consider what I do for Tom Campbell's projects in administering the Wiki and the Bulletin Board to be the most valuable things that I have done in my life. Providing a translation that allows this kind of understanding to become readily available to speakers of a whole new language is extremely valuable to our present world society with all of its present problems.
Tom Campbell's trilogy is available on Google Books to read freely in English. There are however three PDF files of the three books which are high quality PDF files. They are available for download from a DropBox account to which you can be provided links to download the files to your computer. They can then be converted within Adobe reader and exported as MS Word files. This will be much more convenient than working from a read only version on line or from a paper version. Let me however suggest that to work on them for translation, both for your convenience and for Wiki Editors in later putting them on line on the Wiki, that you break them down into chapter files and further load them into OpenOffice.org Writer files. I suggest that you also read the page for Editors on this Wiki where download information is available for OpenOffice.org programs. Instructions for Wiki Editors You can do in OpenOffice what you can do in MS Word and the OpenOffice software has an export function that does a lot of the conversion to Wiki format in preparation for posting on the Wiki. An account on DropBox is free for individuals that would allow ready transfer of this volume of files for eventual placement on the Wiki when translation is complete.
Looking at the pages for various language translations will give you some ideas as to what is possible. We are open to suggestions. Looking into page size recommendations on WikiPedia, there is a discussion of browser limitations and reader limitations in terms of how large to make Wiki pages. It has been concluded that it is optimal for individual chapters or equivalent to be made into individual Wiki pages. Pages as chapaters can link to pages in sequence, so it is convenient to just page through the books when reading as if reading a book with chapter sized pages. Alternatively, the reader can return to the common linking page for the translation to move through the books out of sequence of chapters.
Let me further suggest some other things. You can create a FaceBook page for your translation efforts if you have multiple translators to coordinate. One thing that will probably arise fairly quickly is questions of how to translate colloquial idioms from American English into equivalent idioms in other languages rather than strictly word for word translations which would not mean the same thing and are likely to just sound 'stupid'. Are you aware of what I mean? I (Ted Vollers) will be glad to help with this and any other questions of meanings as you may be aware that Tom trusts me to do so. I am more available than Tom if you have any such questions. The accuracy of the conveying of Tom's meaning will be entirely dependent on the quality of your work and your integrity as neither Tom nor I have any knowledge of these multiple foreign languages to check up on you. So if there is any uncertainty in terms of getting something properly translated as to convey the proper meaning, please ask about anything. If I am not sure, then we can always ask Tom.
Your suggestions as to other material to add to this page are solicited.
Return to the page, Translations of My Big TOE Materials
