Translation Workflow

Much of the information that was on this page is now outdated. How-Tos exist for all the common contributor tasks, including translation, both on- and off-line, and can be found linked from Tasks and Tools.

Warning

When editing pages that are already marked for translation, you will see section markers similar to < !--T:1-- >. Usually each paragraph is one section. You should not change the markers, unless you fully delete a section, in which case you should simply remove the old marker. When adding new sections, you don't need to add marker to it – the marker will be added automatically when your changes are approved for translation. If you want to move a section, move also the section marker with it. That is the only time when you touch the markers - the system will do the rest.

Guidelines applicable to all Languages

Information

This section is new, and will be controlled by experienced translators.

KDE style

The KDE voice is helpful, aspirational, and genuine. Our communications strive to be:

Efficient

Highlight the elegance of efficiency — from steps removed and labor reduced to costs saved.

Effortless

Communicate in intrinsically simple terms. Be concise, intuitive, eloquent, and fluid.

Useful

Address real needs and open up new opportunities.

Immersive

Make communications as engaging and comprehensive as the technology they cover.

Meaningful

Use real examples and genuine recommendations to make the message personal and relevant.

Know Your Skills

KDE relies on volunteer translators to help make useful KDE information available around the world. As volunteers, you are not required to have any formal language training, but we do ask that you know your fluency and get the support you need to finish a translation if you run into tricky language issues or content that lies outside your translation capabilities.

Because many of the articles on KDE wiki are technical in nature, it also helps to be familiar with—and even fluent in—KDE products. You will need to be able to distinguish between common terms and technical terms in context and determine when user interface or workflow elements that are mentioned in the articles need to be translated.

General guidelines

Expressions, jargon, and humor

As you translate, you may encounter expressions, puns, or jargon that are specific to the original language and may be difficult to translate effectively.

In such cases, translate the concept or point the article is trying to convey and not the exact words.

Take care to ensure you capture the overall message, and don't worry about losing the humor or the colloquialism.

Proper names

Company names and product names should never be translated. Proper company names and product names should always remain in English, no matter what language you are translating for.

People's names should remain in English for Latin-based languages, but you may transliterate them for non-Latinbased alphabets.

Terminology

For help with translating tricky constructions or technical terms, consult the translation-sharing site to: TAUS.

Simply enter your desired text and then choose which language to translate it from and to. Not all terms are included for all languages, but this can be a helpful tool for completing accurate translations.

Titles of works

When you run across the title of a book, program, feature, distro, or other public work, check to see if that title has already been officially translated for your language (by the publisher or distributor), and if so, use that translation.

If you cannot find a translation for that particular title in your language, do your best to translate it as accurately as possible.

Units of measurement

Convert units of measure to make them relevant for the intended language or region. For example, some English-speaking countries use the unit of inch, but other countries may prefer centimeter unit.

User interface terms

Translate user interface terms as appropriate for your language.

See here for more information:

1. http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/guide/start

2. Glossary: http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/guide/glossary

3. Another Glossary: http://www.glossary.com/category.php?q=Computer

Guidelines specific to a Language

We propose to have Team Leaders for each language. As we get leaders appointed, they will take charge of a page of guidelines for their specific language, where they will be named. They will have final say on any question relating to their language. The guidelines will be linked from Language-specific guideline pages.

Keeping up to date with developments

I propose that the Discussion page attached to this page should be used for orderly debate about issues noted, particularly issues where existing markup is causing problems. Old threads, long since resolved will be cleaned out, and once decisions are made I will update the relevant help pages. I would ask you to put a Watch on Talk:Translation_Workflow.

Getting a Better Understanding of the Process

For a fuller description of the Translate extension, read the description on the developers' website

Tip

Monitor the status of your language statistics by monitoring the page Special:LanguageStats if you have your own language set as the interface language of UserBase.

Language-specific guideline pages

All Right-to-Left script Languages

Mediawiki is not yet good at supporting RTL languages. Currently, the workaround is to add < div dir="rtl" > at the start of your translation (i.e. in the first message) and < /div > after the final category statement

Catalan

Chinese

Danish

Dutch

French

Galician

German

Italian

Romanian

Russian

Spanish

Ukrainian