[Limey_p]

Roland, I am a big fan of the viewgraph broadcasts, and I want to say "thank you" for all your efforts. But beyond my own amusement, I feel they do a great deal to promote the game of bridge worldwide. Certainly you have opened my eyes to not only bidding systems but also tournament arrangements that differ across the globe.

I've not voted in this poll, however. I'm a native english speaker so broadcasts in other languages are, broadly speaking, irrelevant to me personally.

two thoughts:

1. You, Roland, know much better than me if it's worth the trouble. (Some of us perhaps prefer to live in a benevolent dictatorship rather than a democracy?)

2. The benefits of non-english broadcast go beyond the number of spectators who make that choice. It makes a point to the whole community, and to the english speakers in particular, that bridge is an international game that has transcended its anglophone roots.


A.

[fifee]

Walddk, on Jul 25 2005, 04:39 AM, said:

I agree with all you are saying, coyot. I was just hoping that all users from English speaking countries and people from elsewhere, who speak and understand English well or adequately, would care to say something like:

Single-table coverage: English.
Two-table coverage: English + another language if needed and practically possible.

Roland

Roland, I think the multi language coverage is terrific but I think it should be left to the people who use this coverage to tell us if it is advantageous to them and if it is worth all the time that you and the vugraph coordinators invest. I am not qualified to speak to excellence of service, those people who use the service should be the ones to vote on that issue.

Why would anyone vote indifference? Its obviously a valuable asset if there are those who benefit by it. The question is: does this put too much of a burden on our volunteers? I think we are all here because we love the game and we love to "enhance" our bridge experience and our friends' with the best possible technology available.

Kudos to our vugraph volunteers from Roland to all the vugraph coordinators and operators. They are "in the trenches" and we all appreciate the effort and the truly amazing result. Who would have thought this possible 15 years ago?

[Walddk]

fifee, on Jul 29 2005, 03:27 AM, said:

Roland, I think the multi language coverage is terrific but I think it should be left to the people who use this coverage to tell us if it is advantageous to them and if it is worth all the time that you and the vugraph coordinators invest.

Agreed, but they are not here to tell us, because their English is inadequate or even non-existent. I am 100% convinced, however, that an overwhelming majority of users from Poland, Turkey, Italy and probably France too would appreciate their mother tongue when possible.

The best evidence I can give is that we have several hundreds of spectators at the tables where we provide Polish and Italian commentary, and about half of those numbers when we offer French.

Roland

[geller]

I am an American (joke: Q. what do you call someone who speaks 2 languages? A: Bilingual, Q. 3 languages, A: trilingual, Q:　4 or more languages? A: multilingual, Q. only one language? A: American) who's lived in Japan for 21 yrs and along the way become fluent in spoken and written Japanese, so I can see both sides of the question.

First, very few people in Japan are really fluent in English, and Japanese players really appreciate having commentary in their own language . I suspect this is true in many countries

Second, if each Federation has a vugraph coordinator who can arrange for the commentators in their respective languages that actually makes Roland's job easier, not harder. (Note: that person doesn't have to be from the federation, a suitable BBO member who plays internationally from that country could be fine.) At least for the moment I seem to have become the defacto vugraph arranger for Japanese language broadcasts.

Third, I agree completely with Roland that languages should not be mixed in one commentary stream. This would drive everyone nuts except maybe completely bilingual people.

Fourth, right now the commentary is made with chat. Perhaps Fred could upgrade the vugraph chat to function in the same logical way (obviously the implementation is completely different) as SAP (second audio program) where you push a button to select English or Spanish commentary on a baseball game (in the US), or English and Japanese in Japan (for US baseball games shown here). Except that for BBO there should be as many languages as possible, depending on the importance of the event.

For example, in the last playoff for the 3rd berth in the Bermuda Bowl from Zone 6, Japan was playing Indonesia. We had English commentary at one table and Japanese at the other, but it would have been nice if we'd also had the facility to offer commentary in Bahasa Indonesia (the national language of Indonesia). And perhaps to have all 3 languages at both tables, provided the Japanese and Indonesian Federations could arrange the commentators. In order for this to work Fred and Uday would have to upgrade the software to provide a special facility so the vugraph audience could click on the language of the choice (from the available languages) and also the commentators could click on the language they were commenting on.

In my case I mostly did Japanese commentary of the PABF, but every so often I dropped in on the English commentary in the other room to inform the audience about the foibles of the Japanese players. This would probably be fun for all the specs at other events as well.

The finals of the soccer World Cup are broadcast to the whole world in over 100 languages. Maybe some day the same can happen on BBO for the finals of the Olympiad or Bermuda Bowl, or at least there can be 10 or so languages. This would probably help make bridge more of a spectator sport than it is now. It was really a lot of fun watching Fred and Brad vs. Zia and Rosenberg on the hand where Zia sacrificied in 7C in the Spingold. (Congrats on the win Fred!)

Anyway, as the number of broadcasts increases there will be more and more events primarily of local interest only, so it will be natural for those events to tend more and more to be broadcast in the local language only, I would guess.

[geller]

Quote

You noticed Mixed Scandinavian, but you did not notice Hebrew over the weekend. We had Israeli commentators, yes, but no Hebrew commentary. We actually never had Hebrew commentary, and I am pretty sure that our software doesn't support Hebrew yet.

We need someone to write a programme first, because it's a different alphabet. Maybe Migry Zur Campanile, Michael Barel or Ilan Shezifi (the latter is a computer freak and organises our broadcasts from Israel).

Actually the BBO translation page for Hebrew exists and it has 1400 or so of the 1627 terms/phrases translated now. So probably it's not software development but just translation that's holding things up. Or it may be that along with the translation there's also a certain amount of software development. But since Hebrew is a one byte per char language I'd imagine it shouldn't be that hard, even if it's right to left.

Can anyone fill in the details on the state of this?

[shoeless]

Heh? Did you really put forward this poll? When the tough Chinese teams are in Estoril there will be 45 million people back home who are bridge players who might enjoy watching a broadcast in their language.

Having experienced operating a 4 table broadcast in 4 languages in Seoul the question that I think is salient is not "Should we offer broadcasts in other than English?", that question is "When will viewers be able to click on the language of their choice, at the table of their choice?"

Clearly the challenge of finding adequate commentators will be increased, and I think now is the time to start thinking about how that challenge is going to be met, Roland. Regional or zone and/or country co-ordinators who support your work in this area might be the way to go.

[Kitta]

Having BBO Vugraph is a Joy of my Life. We all cannot thank you Roland enough for the effort you put up organizing it and also you Commentators for giving us your free time.

The last remark: When single-table coverage: Language English - Yes, obvious.

Two-table coverage: English + another language. YES, IF PRACTICALLY possible

There are so many BBO members from Eastern Europe & Medditerranean countries who do not get the full Advantage & Pleasure of the Vugraph, when NOT eloquent in English.

From a European point of view: Polish/Italian/Bulgarian/Türkish speaking commentators would be super. You already have French- & Spanish-speaking ones, so using these World-languages I am sure would be much appreciated on all Continents.

Roland, if any of the above languages are not on your e-mail list of Commentators I believe thare MAY be BBO Stars in these countries who could be of Help.

Thank you again
Kitta

[ecepal]

Hi Roland and all.
I like to thank you for thinking other language speakers on their behalf.
I will pass the message from Turkish speaking players.
"we like to have Turkish commentating as well, we do not listen nor watch because
we do not understand .
Number of the kibitzers should not be the way of judgement in my humble opinion
they do not watch vugraph clearly they do not understand. If there were turkish /or polish /spanish/bulgarian/hungarian/mandarin etc/..speaking vugraph commentating I am sure there will be more attendance.
Thanks
-clicking the choice of language is excelent idea"
ece

[Walddk]

Regarding the knock-out stage at the World Youth Team Championship in Sydney, we will go for French and/or Polish at one table, provided that one or both advance to the semi-finals (seems likely at this point).

The "worst" scenario will be if the two countries will be facing each other in one semi-final. If so, we will alternate between French and Polish in the closed room. We do not approve of having both languages in the same room simultaneously. That would be chaotic for everyone involved.

English is guaranteed at one table no matter what.

Roland

[spwdo]

hi,

im able to understand most english words that are beeing said, when one day u offer dutch vugrph comments i simply pick the best commentator.
If Fred(i like him on vgrph, amoungst others) speaks french its to me an incentive to learn french.

im not into native comment`s, im into good comment`s

marc

[Walddk]

spwdo, on Aug 12 2005, 02:02 AM, said:

im not into native comment`s, im into good comment`s

marc

Fair point, Marc, but a condition must be that you understand the language spoken. Several million people worldwide do not speak one word of English. Many thousand BBO members do not either.

Roland