Metadata in Two Languages?

[mbaginy]

Being an American living in Germany, I can’t quite decide, in which language to write my image keywords, captions and titles.  Both languages would be great but I’d like to somehow separate them.  I thought of writing English in one and German in another color or one language cursive but I haven’t found a way of doing so in LR.

Has anyone found a satisfactory way of writing such metadata in various (two) languages?

[john beardsworth]

It's a difficult problem and I've never seen anyone with a satisfactory solution (except in high end DAM programs). The happiest seem those who enter the other language's keywords as synonyms - smart collections can find images using keywords and synonyms.

[RikkFlohr]

That is what I do. For living creatures, common name in English, Latin Genus/Species and local language names go in the Synonyms.

[mbaginy]

Rikk and John, thanks for your comments.  I'll give your suggestions more thought - seems the only practicable solution, albeit with compromises.

I had thought of creating two catalogs - one for German, the other for English but I fear that course would be too involved when processing images and having to update the other catalog.  A mess seems inevitable.  Or maybe someone can offer advice how to keep my image processing in sync across catalogs?

[john beardsworth]

I had thought of creating two catalogs - one for German, the other for English but I fear that course would be too involved when processing images and having to update the other catalog.  A mess seems inevitable.  Or maybe someone can offer advice how to keep my image processing in sync across catalogs?

A mess is indeed inevitable. Syncing the processing will also sync the metadata.

Are you able to cope with simple scripting? It would open up some opportunities, but I think the next step is to air this problem and see if a good solution becomes obvious. I don't think one will, but there's no harm looking around.

[mbaginy]

Are you able to cope with simple scripting?

John, fear that exceeds my abilities.  I guess I'd best stick to what I'd been doing - some English, others German and a few in both.  Lengthens my keyword list or should I say, es verlängert die Liste meiner Schlagwörter.  Maybe LR will some day offer a better method.  I imagine this should be an issue many users have encountered.

[john beardsworth]

Well, synonyms have the benefit of not lengthening the keyword list, Mike.

[owinthomas]

Have you thought of using a virtual copy?

Do all the post processing first. Add your key wording etc. in your primary language, create a virtual copy using  your secondary language after removing the primary language if you don't want it.

Just a thought.

[mbaginy]

John, I'll use your suggestion (and Rikk's) using synonyms.  That will keep my list as short as possible.  I need to rework my list anyway, I fear it got out of hand and I've gone too far into detail - never really used it as I had once envisioned.

I'll also give closer though to the use of visual copies.  Maybe I could color code all in one language as well - that would allow quick filtering.  Thanks for your suggestion, owinthomas.