A possible unrelated note in Zhuyin sec. to be omitted?

[ethantw]

As the issue title, the note below in sec. 3.3.3.3 (Positioning of the Tones in Zhuyin Symbols) does not seem appropriate to the document. May I omit it?

汉语有些词里的音节或句子里的词的音，需要需要以一种简短且非强调的语气念得又轻又短，因此会失去它们原有的声调。当一个音节需要被这样读出时，其声调即为轻声。

In Mandarin Chinese there are syllables that, when part of certain words or sentences, are intentionally read in a shorter and less-emphasized way, therefore losing their original tone. When any syllable is read in this way, we say that it has a neutral tone or “toneless”.

[r12a]

if i recall correctly, this was added by Angel during the translation to help non-Chinese people understand what netural tones are.
Looking at it now, it does seem to me that it would be more appropriate under bullet 3 of 3.3.3.3. If we moved it there would that work for you?

[ethantw]

I think it could belong to the glossary rather than in the main context. ;) Suggestion?

[ethantw]

The main reason is that we have neutral tones in Pinyin as well. It doesn't seem appropriate to include such note in Zhuyin positioning section only.

[r12a]

i think it would be ok to add to the glossary, with a class=termref link there from the term 'neutral tone' in useful places in the text, but the glossary is not currently organized that way. I think it would be helpful to add definitions to the glossary (like the jlreq glossary), but that's a fair bit of work. (And we'd need to do it in both english and chinese). Is that something you'd like to do?

[ethantw]

Yes, I would love to. But it would not be realistic before FPWD. I’ll first move it under bullet 3 of sec. 3.3.3.3 and start to work on the glossary.

[r12a]

great. That would also fix some of the other issues we have, such as the need for clear definitions of type area, line gap, etc.

[r12a]

@ethantw i'm guessing that you have in mind something like http://www.w3.org/TR/jlreq/#terminology Is that right? (with ids on each row so that we could link to it from the text).

if so, we should probably think about how to handle the need for zh and en versions of the information.

we could have two tables, one for english definitions and with the english terms in the first column, sorted per english alphabet, and another arranged for zh users. Or we could try to include en and zh info in a single table, perhaps with the ability to change the sort order of the column containing terms. I'm not sure which i better/easier.

[ethantw]

i'm guessing that you have in mind something like…
Yep. 👍

I think it’d be easier to have two tables, one in zh and the other in en, maybe?

[r12a]

i gave this a bit more thought this morning, after Angel mentioned that she was ready to start adding the SC translation. If we have separate tables, that will mean that the english, zh-hans and zh text content in the main body will need to link to three different anchor points (ie. one for each table) for each termref link. I think that will become a major pain for people developing content, since they'll have to change the markup twice every time there's a termref in a new paragraph. If we have one table, there'll just be one id per term, so the markup won't need to be altered.

it might therefore be better, on reflection, to have a single table, and not worry too much about the sorting. People can find terms easily enough by searching anyway, no?

in addition, given that we are likely to be adding a fair amount of text in the definitions, i think it'll make life easier for reviewing, updating and maintaining the glossary if we have a single table – people will be able to see english and chinese versions of the definitions side-by-side, and editors won't need to jump around to different table locations every time they make changes.

[ethantw]

OK. Agree 👍