Launchpad Help > Translations > General Translation Guide

Overview

This guide contains specific information about translating software into your language. It contains details about what strings should be translated and what not, what are plural forms and other things you should be aware while translating software using Launchpad Translations (Rosetta) or any other tool.

This guide does not include hint and tips about using Launchpad Translations (Rosetta) as a translation tool. For such information please read Translations/StartingToTranslate.

List of language-specific guidelines

Before reading your language specific guide, please take a moment and read this general translation guide first.

You are free to translate this guide and include it into your language specific guide. You can use this information as a starting point for developing the guidelines for you language.

To assure the translations quality for your language, it is recommended to ask new translators to follow the information from the guidelines for your language, or in case it is not ready yet, to point them to this guide.

List of language-specific guidelines

Basic rules for checking translations quality

Below are listed some common sense rules to follow during the translation work in order to improve the translation quality:

• Pay attention to all section from the guidelines and always keep in touch with other translators
• When you have translated a string, read it again and see if there are any error or the translations sound right in your language.
• If the translated string does not make sense for you (or your mother/father), definitely it is wrong and you should redo/rephrase it.
• If it feasible, always ask another team member to review your translations.

• Translations consistency is an important aspect of translation quality. You can check the translation of a word / phrase in multiple free software project using the Open Tran website

• Terminology dictionary
• Before allowing new members in your team make sure they have previously done good translations and are aware of the team translation guide

Plural forms

While the English language has 2 plural forms, it might happen that your language has more or less than 2 plural forms.

Dealing with plural forms is one of the first question/problems for new translators. It is recommended that your guidelines include information and examples about the usage of plural forms in your language.

Example

Romanian has 3 plural forms:

Original text:
msgstr[0] %d thing
msgstr[1] %d things
msgstr[2] %g things

Translation:
msgstr[0] %d lucru
msgstr[1] %d lucruri
msgstr[2] %d de lucruri

Menu accelerators / shortcuts

Different development languages and frameworks use different ways to signify which key within a string should be used as a keyboard shortcut. Very often, if you see an underscore (e.g. Save _As) or ampersand (e.g. Print previe&w) at the beginning or within a word, it may well be a keyboard shortcut.

Ensuring you have a unique shortcut for each function is important and you should, at the very least, view the software in action and draw up a list of the shortcuts you plan to use before you start translating. You should place the underscore, ampersand or whichever other control character directly in front of the letter you want to use as the shortcut. If you have a program interface with the same fast access character in different options/tabs/checkboxes/etc., you will have to press the shortcut several times in the keyboard to walk through all of them.

Examples of menu accelerators:

_File
New &Tab
~Downloads

Translating DocBook (XML) files

You can translate XML files using Launchpad Translations, by converting the xml to a pot file, using xml2po, and then importing it in Rosetta.

When translating XML files please make sure you are aware of the following things:

XML tags are case sensitive

When using xml2po and then po2xml, xml tags and attributes are case sensitive: Example:

Original: See the <ulink url="http://ubuntustudio.org/">
Correct: Vea el <ulink url="http://ubuntustudio.org/">
Wrong: Vea el <UlinK Url="http://ubuntustudio.org/">

menuchoice tag

"menuchoice" tag should inlude only "guibutton | guiicon | guilabel | guimenu | guimenuitem | guisubmenu | interface" tags. Don't include other tags or text outside of these tags.

Example:

Original: <menuchoice><guimenu>Applications</guimenu><guisubmenu>Multimedia</guisubmenu><guimenuitem>Movie Player</guimenuitem></menuchoice>
Correct: <menuchoice><guimenu>Apliaciones</guimenu><guisubmenu>Multimedia</guisubmenu><guimenuitem>Reproductor de películas</guimenuitem>
Wrong: <menuchoice><guimenu>Apliaciones</guimenu><guisubmenu>Multimedia</guisubmenu>Reproductor de <guimenuitem>películas</guimenuitem>

What should not be translated

This section contains general information about strings that should not be translated and how to identify them.

Also to help you with identifying string that should not be translated, software developers usually add comments describing the intend of the text and tips about translating it. Always check the comments attached to each string.

Data placeholders and variable names

In many development languages, a developer can insert data into a string by using a placeholder such as %s or %d. You may also see more complex variations, such as %(variablename)s, $name or ${name}. Copy these variables and placeholders exactly as you see, placing them in the exact order in whichever part of the string makes most sense in the target language.

If you're in doubt, ask another translator for advice.

Examples:

Original: I found $name ethernet device.
Wrong: S-a găsit $nume dispozitiv ethernet
Right: S-a găsit $name dispozitiv ethernet

Original: Delete %(name)s ?
Wrong: Ștergeți %(nume)le?
Wrong: Ștergeți %(nume)s?
Right: Ștergeți %(name)s?

Formatting/XML tags

You may see HTML/XML tags, such as <strong>, used to format text in a string. Copy these tags exactly as you find them and apply them to the relevant part of the text, remembering to close the tags as appropriate. You may also see other tags, such as XML, and should treat them the same way.

Examples:

Original: <strong>File name</strong>
Wrong: <puternic>Nume fișier</puternic>
Right: <strong>Nume fișier</strong>

Also you should not translate the xml tags attibutes and their values (if you translate their values, make sure you know what you are doing and check the developers comments). Examples:

Original: <link linkend="desktop-themes">
Right: <link linkend="desktop-themes">
Wrong: <link linkend="temi del desktop">

Program parameters

Command line parameters should not be translated.

Example

Original: "The command line options are:\n"
          "       --quick         speeds up the processing\n"
          "       --slow          slows everything down."
Wrong:    "Opțiunile comenzii sunt:\n"
          "       --repede         grăbește procesarea\n"
          "       --încet          încetinește totul."
Right:    "Opțiunile comenzii sunt:\n"
          "       --quick         grăbește procesarea\n"
          "       --slow          încetinește totul."

TRUE/FALSE, GTK constants

Strings like "TRUE" , "FALSE" or gtk constants like "gtk-ok", "gtk-cancel" or "toolbar-icon" should not be translated.

In many cases the presence of such string in a translations files is a bug and the software developers should be informed about it and asked to remove those strings.

GCONF configuration keys

Examples:

Original: The port which the server will listen to if the 'use_alternative_port' key is set to true.
         Valid values are in the range from 5000 to 50000.
Wrong:   Portul pe care să asculte serverul în cazul în care cheia „folosește_port_alternativ” este activată.
         Valorile valide sunt între 5000 și 50000.
Right:   Portul pe care să asculte serverul în cazul în care cheia „use_alternative_port” este activată.
         Valorile valide sunt între 5000 și 50000.

Context text

In some old GNOME translations you might encounter translations context encoded into the original string. For for information please see: http://leonardof.org/2007/12/01/context-in-gnome-translations/en/

Examples:

Original: "Orientation|Top"
Wrong: "Orientare|Sus"
Wrong: "Orientation|Sus"
Right: "Sus"

If you see such text please fill a bug and inform the software developers about the existence of context.

Translation statistics

Throughout Launchpad Translations, statistics are shown for translations. These are intended to give an overview of the status, so that translators can easily see which translations are done and which ones might need some work.

Here is an example of how statistics are shown for a translation template in a particular language in Ubuntu:

Color meanings in the Status column

Depending on their status translation statistics can show different colors to indicate each particular status of the strings. Here is what the colours in the Launchpad Translation statistics mean:

• Translated strings:

  • Green: the translation imported from the upstream project and the one in Launchpad are identical.

  • Blue: changed in Launchpad. The translation was imported from an upstream project, but translator chose to change it in Launchpad. The changed string will override the upstream one and be used in the distributed translations. Translators should keep these modifications to a minimum, and manually send them back to upstream if necessary.

  • Purple: newly translated in Launchpad. The string is only translated in Launchpad. Translations imported from upstream did not have a translation for the string.

• Untranslated strings:

  • Red: untranslated. These strings have neither been translated in the upstream project nor in Launchpad

Lifecycle

During the lifecycle of translations, and while translators do their work, there are some different paths in which the colours can change. Here is a description of the most common scenarios:

• Red > Purple > Green. In this scenario, the string was untranslated (Red), the translator translated it in Launchpad and there was no translation upstream (Purple). In the next translation import, the upstream translation has been done and coincides with the Launchpad one. This was because either an upstream translator made exactly the same translation or because the translator sent the translations back to upstream.

• Red > Purple > Blue > Green. The string was untranslated (Red), the translator translated it in Launchpad and there was no translation upstream (Purple). In the next translation import, the upstream translation has been done and is different to the Launchpad one. This was probably because there was no communication between the upstream translator and the downstream one: the latter did not send his/her changes back to upstream, so upstream didn't know someone had already translated this somewhere else and translated it again, but differently. The way to get this translation to green is for the two translators to agree in a common translation, and either change it in Launchpad or upstream, depending on which one they might want to adopt.

• Red > Green. The translation has been done upstream and it has been imported into Launchpad.

• Green > Blue. A translator deliberately overrode an upstream translation. Upstream and Launchpad translations differ. These should be kept to a minimum, if necessary at all.

Running a localization team

Suggestions for sections included in your guidelines

Below are some ideas, hints, for some information that could be included into the guildelines for your language:

• A section describing the current focus for translations. What packages should be translated, their priority, due date... etc
• Create or provide a communication channel for all translators. It can be a forum, mailing list, IRC channel. The main usage of this channel is to support team work, ask for help or suggestions.
• Provide information about other team working on translations, links to other upstream projects. Try to keep in touch/sync with their work.
• Decide what grammatical mode or tense is used when translating into your language.
• Decide grammatical person and if you are going to use a formal or informal approach when translating software. T-V distinction.
• Decide a common set of terminology or dictionary to be used by all translators. This will help creating uniform translations.
• A section, or a dedicated page, containing examples of common errors, together with an explanation of the error and the suggested solution
• A section, or a dedicated page, containing examples of strings that should not be translated.

Common/Best practice

Below you will find a set of common practices for running a team

• Don't forget about other translators or translations groups. In many cases you or your are not the only one doing translation in the free software ecosystem. Always keep in touch with that other teams are doing and make sure the translation teams for your language are translating free software using the same "language". Try to create or join a communication channel channel common to all translation teams for your language and use it for talking about important aspect that affect all translations.
• Define a procedure for accepting new team members.

  • The acceptance level may vary according to the percentage of already finished translations. For languages with few translators and translations already done team acceptance could be lower than in the case of a language with many translators, translations made and the presence of GTP, OpenOffice , etc upstream translation projects.

  • Before accepting a member you may ask him/her to provide some translation. If the translations are great you may accept the new member. Otherwise giving feedback about why the translation are not good is a great help. Try to use a forum, mailinglist or IRC channel for giving feedback to potential new members.
• Create a webpage/wikipage for the translations guide. This guide should contain:
  • First rule: "If a translation does not make sense for you / your grandmother, definitely it is wrong!".
  • Second rule: "Make your translation useful and adapt to the context. Don't follow always the original text". Like for example "Tile children" may sound funny in many languages so try "Arrange windows as tile". The original text is not always the correct one.

  • a common terminology or a link to a common terminology dictionary or glossary. Don't forget about open-tran.eu . You can also install the glossary used by Romanian teams (here is the code)

  • information about what should be translated and what not
  • specific rules for translating into your language
  • a list of frequent errors.
  • explaining the plural form for your language and how to use them
  • how you should translate menu accelerators / shortcuts
  • inform the translators about other translation project and how we should cooperate and work together
• Make sure you have a good communication channel for all members of the team or subteam. Try to reach all communication types: mailinglist, forum, IRC channel.
• Let Launchpad know about your translation guide
• Create a webpage / wiki where people could find general information about your team, such as:
  • short and long term team goal
  • new membership acceptance conditions
  • translation guide
  • common terminology (ex a link to a glossary, terminology list, dictionary)
  • how to get in contact with the team (team contact or team members)
• Make sure the team act as a team.
  • Keep the team members up to date with the latest actions
  • keep in contact with team members and try to collect feedback and status
  • guide new members and help them get along with the team and translation work
  • try to recruit new members into your translation team.
• From time to time take a look at what other people are doing. In many cases you are not the only team/person translating software in your language.

Next steps

Details on joining and creating translations groups and teams