PraveenDhinwa's blog

Your opinion on quality of english translations of codeforces problems
By PraveenDhinwa, 13 years ago, In English
I am feeling  this quite a long time that the standard of english language in codeforces is weak . It takes me a lot of time to understand what the problem is asking me . Is this a common problem ,,please voice your opinion on it .
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13 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +28 Vote: I do not like it
Because I was author of one of the contests - I can say that problemsetters try to do everything possible to make statements clear. They work in cooperate with professional translator (delinur) to perform such a job. I think it's better than nothing :-)
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    13 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it
    I agree: they are usually fine. However, maybe some additional effort could be made to improve problem statements after the contest is over. For example, http://mirror.codeforces.com/contest/139/problem/B became very difficult just because of the problem statement.
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    13 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it
    Yes I really agree with you. As most of the problem writers on codeforces are russian users , So
    sometimes in div 2 in problem A and B (I  mean to say problems with less points), As they are most of the 
    time implementation related , So a writer  usually tends  to write big paragraphs So that it takes some time 
    to solve that problem , Sometimes as it is the limitation of translation of one language from the other that we can not translate it completely , So in such type of situations this kind of problem occurs
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13 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +13 Vote: I do not like it
There are many native english speakers on Codeforces. Maybe the Codeforces team can add one to the set testing team for each match to help make sure the English statements are clear. I find that the translators do a great job and feel most of the problems with clarity can be solved by this extra step.
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13 years ago, # |
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I think lot of competitors read the statements in english, but they are not native english speakers. My english level is about intermediate, and sometimes I feel the statements level is higher than mine ( if I don't know lot of words than I try use dictionary). Sometimes I skip a problem because I don't understand the story clearly and we've got lot of problems so I try to solve some simpler statements problem. Sometimes if I have time I comeback that hard to understand problem. Maybe it's my fault because of the beginning of the competition I am little bit precipitant.
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13 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +12 Vote: I do not like it
I think English translations in the recent contests have been very nice and much improved then before. It used to be a disaster some months back. But I think it has also to do with very unnecessarily long statements that problems used to have in the past. Thankfully now the problem statements have become shorter too. I mean seriously, we all enjoy a bit of a story around the problem, but let the problem be a contest problem, and not a piece for short story selections. ;)
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