When sending us your software strings for translation, it can be helpful to provide reference material for the translator, as strings can often appear confusing or vague when divorced from their context. Sending reference material such as a manual can be a great help for the translator, providing context that is needed for your project. Likewise, if you already have existing software translations, these can also be used to match terminology that you need.
Context for the strings, for instance what follows a partial string, can also aid the translator when it comes to grammatical structures that don’t exist in English, but which will affect the translation. For instance, wider context can affect the grammatical gender – whether a word is masculine or feminine in a language such as French. If the translator is looking at a sentence such as “Not found”, they may need to know what it was the system couldn’t find for the grammatical agreement. Providing this information to a translator also allows them to give you a translation that is correct and suited to the task.
It can also be useful to let us know if there are any line length limitations, since the number of characters in a string will change once it is translated. Other factors to consider are whether your translation will retain English terminology, for instance if buttons on machinery will still be in English in other countries, or if measurements should be listed in metric or imperial.
If you need software translations, MTT is happy to help. Email us at [email protected] or call us on +44 (0) 844 856 1086
