Translation

Translation is the most important aspect in localization and is not as trivial as it may sound. Metalanguage works or works that discuss language could be very difficult to translate. Comic texts could also be very difficult to translate. Translating the messages and menus in an application is a heavy budget process and inaccurate translation would result in making the application not usable in that particular language.

Below are some guidelines which we suggest should be followed for a simpler life during the translation process:  
* First of all try to find out if someone is already working on your language. If so, try to contact them to get assistance for translating the commonly used terms.
* The translator should be very well acquainted with both the source and target languages.  
* The translator should also be aware of the context of translation. For example, in the sentence ' Sita made him a duck ' , the word 'duck' can be translated only if context is understood. Such issues will come up when you are translating multiple paragraphs of texts.
* Join a mailing list. You can use this to discuss translation of difficult words.  
* It would be a good idea to create a website to tell people about your work, keep glossaries etc.  
* You should make sure that your translation consistently uses the same terms. Maintaining a glossary of terms would ensure that you don't use multiple terms to refer to the same thing. As far as possible avoid creating new terms. Try to find out a standard body for your language to get terms.  
* The gettext is a good package with tools for internationalization, managing different versions of the application etc. If you do not know about gettext you can get more informationhere.  
* Avoid word-to-word translation and try to perform sense-to-sense translation. This means that the translator should always bear in mind the intended meaning in the source language.
* The translator should take care to produce the intended overall effect with the appropriate tone by making the right choice of words.
* Be sure that you do not use terms that are jargons or slang.
* Do not use terms that have several meanings.
* Do not use the same words for different meanings.
* Person and number should be retained wherever possible in translation so that singular does not change to plural and third person statements do not change to first or second person statements.
* In some cases a sentence would be highly compressed in English but would run into 2 or 3 sentences when translated. Such sentences need special attention. In such cases also word-to-word translation would cause problems.
* Be sure that the reference to menus and buttons (like "EDIT" ) matches the term used in the localized operating system.
* Try to get the translation work reviewed by at least two translators independently - if possible.
* It would also be beneficial to conduct some usability workshops so that you are aware of whether the translations actually make sense to ordinary users.

* [Linguistic Consultation|Linguistic Consultation]
* [Style Guides|Using Style Guides]