Finding the right words has some challenges. I added assistive technology for extra flavour. Have a nice meal.

Obligatory introduction

In the years after the publication, different translations were released. I fancied about translating the book Agile Testing Condensed by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory. Then Yves Hanoulle asked for native Dutch speakers for help. I volunteered.

Being able to speak different languages has some advantages.

Choosing VoiceOver

My favourite tool for writing is my smartphone. I used an iPhone and it has some great benefits for blind and visual impaired users. VoicOver is a screen reader. This tool can read text shown on the screen aloud.

If I could put the text to be translated in a file, then I could listen to it. After changing English words to Dutch words, I would be able to listen to the translated text.

Note to my fellow Dutch citizens: VoiceOver is free. It is a standard feature of the iPhone.

Choosing Notes and Dictate

Now I needed a text editor for my translation on the iPhone. My obvious choice was Notes, which had enough functionality. I added the text to be translated into a file which is called a note. I added another note for the Dutch text.

Note to my fellow Dutch citizens: the app Notes is free. It is a standard app on the iPhone.

Then I looked for a fast way to enter the text. There was a Dictate button left from the Space button on the keyboard. Another useful feature for blind and visual impaired users.

Note to my fellow Dutch citizens: Dictate is free. It is a standard feature of the iPhone.

Using Notes, VoiceOver, and Dictate

The first translation attempt was started with opening the English note. I listened to the first sentence, Then I opened the Dutch note and pressed the Dictate button. With due care. I said the Dutch words aloud. I stopped the dictation and saw something strange: there were English words instead of Dutch words.

These are not the words which I was looking for.

What had happened? I read the words and tried to figure out some weird theory. I took a small pause. Let me first take a look at the facts. Phonetically, the English words cane close to the Dutch words.

Why were English words used instead of Dutch words? VoiceOver had no problems with reading aloud the English text. Dictate still used English as a standard language. I had  set the system language to English, because I read a lot of English on my iPhone.

 Luckily, I could change the language using the Rotor. It would cost me some twists and swipes on the screen.

Finding the right sequence

Then I noticed that only one Note can be opened at any time. So, I needed to open and close note files on very frequent rate. This led to the following set of actions.

• Open the English file, set the System
  Language to English and go to the sentence to be translated.
  Use VoiceOver to speak the sentence aloud.
  Close the English file.
• Open the Dutch file, set the System
  Language to Dutch and go to the end of the file.
  Use Dictate to enter the text.
  Close the Dutch file.
• Rinse and Repeat.

That is a lot of switching of languages and files. Period.

Being able to speak different languages has some disadvantages.

To be continued.