Monday, June 22, 2015

Effective Modern C++ Now in German!

I'm told that contracts have been signed to translate Effective Modern C++ into Korean, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Russian, Japanese, German, Polish, Italian, and Portuguese, but the only translation that's made its way to my house is the German one.

For my past books, bilingual readers have told me that the original (English) version is the best. Even if I didn't know some German, I'd be inclined to say that the same thing applies here, too, if for no other reason than that the American version uses multiple ink colors, while the German version uses only one. (Highlighted code is still highlighted, because it's put in bold face.) If you're comfortable reading technical English, I therefore suggest you go with the English version. Wenn Sie aber finden, dass Sie technische Information besser auf Deutsch aufnehmen und verstehen, dann ist es natürlich sinnvoll, die deutsche Ausgabe vorzuziehen.

I suspect that that last sentence demonstrates why I don't handle the German translation myself :-)

O'Reilly has made the first chapter of the German translation available at the book's web site, so if you'd like to try before you buy, give it a look. That PDF is currently in black and white, but my understanding is that it's supposed to incorporate multiple colors, so you might check back from time to time to see if it's been updated.

Viel Spaß beim Effektives modernes C++!

Scott

5 comments:

Matthias Benkard said...

That sentence of yours is, in fact, not only 100% grammatically sound, but also top of the line in writing style. Maybe you should reconsider handling the translation yourself. ;)

Scott Meyers said...

@Matthias Benkard: Der Satz war richtig? Rein Zufall :-)

UnderGround or Insiders? said...

wait for indonesian language. :-)

Scott Meyers said...

@Bukhori Muslim: That'd be cool :-)

Anonymous said...

With technical translations, you have the chance of being grammatically correct but utterly wrong when it comes to the meaning.
I stay away from everything that hasn't been written by the author in a language I understand. Some translated book about DirectX/Direct3D 8 left me scarred for the rest of my life.

Not saying this is the case, and Im quite sure your book will be popular enough that these errors get corrected.

Still, I can only recommend everyone that seriously considers working as engineer to grab the source and improve your Ingleesh if necessary ;)
Heck even if you just read Wikipedia for technical stuff then learning English is worth it.