Ecosyste.ms: Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

Awesome Lists | Featured Topics | Projects

https://github.com/Pomax/nrGrammar

The Nihongo Resources grammar book: "An Introduction to Japanese; Syntax, Grammar & Language"
https://github.com/Pomax/nrGrammar

Last synced: 10 days ago
JSON representation

The Nihongo Resources grammar book: "An Introduction to Japanese; Syntax, Grammar & Language"

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

        
An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

========================================================



This is the repository for the data that is used to

generate the book "An introduction to Japanese",

previously found at http://www.amazon.com/dp/9081507117

and other stores.



I've taken this book off the market (because I cancelled

my account with my publisher and will be looking at a

new way to do publishing) but the book is still available

in PDF form.



I've been running it as a dokuwiki for a few years on

http://grammar.nihongoresources.com and that has proven

to be useful, but progressively harder to maintain as

dokuwiki changes its APIs, and my content relies on

specific dokuwiki plugins for which I don't have time

to actually update them to work with the new versions.



So, I'll be trying to rewrite it to a self-contained

website that you can file github issues for, with a

php compiler to turn the raw data into .pdf data.



Interesting fact: just because someone's front door

is open doesn't mean you have the right to take their

stuff, and in the same vein: just because I'm hosting

this on a public repository does not give you the right

to use the code and raw data for your own purposes.



This book is [free for the general public in PDF form](data/pdf/en-GB/draft.pdf),

and available as the more traditional (affordable, gasp!)

paper textbook version at book retailers, but this is

a product, not a project: all code and data is owned by

me, Mike "Pomax" Kamermans, and I reserve all rights.

You expressly do not have permission to start compiling

your own version (except to test the compilation from

plain text to .pdf), nor do you have permission to

distribute this code or data yourself.



You are, however, welcome to help improve the text,

or suggesting compile improvements, by filing issues

or submitting pull requests. Contributions deserve

acknowledgements in the book's acknowledgement section.



Live site: [https://Pomax.github.io/nrGrammar](https://Pomax.github.io/nrGrammar)



## Development



Compilation of book relies on some older technologies in

part because it was initially created back in 2008 when

PHP was still the king of "get shit done fast" scripting

langauges for people who needed one scripting language

to do everything from CLI to web content (was has since

been replaced by JavaScript), and LuaTex was still

four years away from a version 1, making the only

sane TeX choice XeLaTeX (because XeTeX is natively

utf8, rather than needing special instructions just

to understand utf8 documents).



## Localisation



Localised content is housed in `./data/pages`, where each

locale uses its own locale code as directory name. Inside

of those, all files should follow the filename convention

as used in the `en-GB` directory, in order for the compilation

scripts to find them.



Translations should follow the spirit of the text, not the

letter of text: if an idiom or illustratrive piece of text

does not work in the language you're targeting, *please do not

translate it literally*. The worst thing you can do when

translating is to take text that works in one language, and

force-translating it to a weird, clunky text in a different

language. Sometimes that might mean rewriting an entire

paragraph, or even more than one, in order for the discourse

to flow naturally in your target language: that is fine.

It is in fact infinitely preferable over a literal translation

that isn't up to whatever is considered university-level

langauge in the country/region you're localizing for.