JDOC's Translation Guidelines
From Joomla! Documentation
Having fun, working together and helping others. These are the main ingredients for awesomeness in your translations.
Our Translating Guidelines[edit]
Translate Your Native Language[edit]
Many of you are polyglots and speak more than one language but the best translations always come from truly native speakers. So pick one language and stick to it.
Translation Leadership[edit]
A few languages have someone who has stepped up to lead and co-ordinate the translation effort and that is AWESOME. Their role is not to judge translations as correct or incorrect. They should should serve as a guide or coordinator helping all translators in your language contribute, support your fellow translator's decisions, and be collaborative.
Translate Ideas[edit]
As a translator it is important to remember you are translating the author’s ideas and not seeking to produce a word for word translation. Your main goal as a translator should always be, make it easy to understand in your language to help the original author express their ideas in your language.
Translation Corrections[edit]
- We’re not yet at the point that we have so much content translated that you should be looking at correcting translations. When we reach 90%+ translation we can do that. Right now your limited volunteer time is best used to serve the community translating new documents.
- If you spot a spelling or punctuation mistake then of course you should correct it but please if you spot something bigger than that then please contact the translator directly to discuss it. Otherwise no one learns and mistakes are repeated.
Language Style Guides[edit]
As a translator you will probably find it handy to create a style guide - a list of standardised “words to use”. It doesn’t need to be complex. An alphabetical list is a good starting point. This will help you and any other new translator be consistent. A good reference to draw ideas from can be found in the en-GB user interface guide. If you already have a document started, share it with other translators of your language and start talking about it. If you don’t have one, you might find that the Joomla string translation team for your language already has one you can share.
Final Thoughts[edit]
Remember to follow the Joomla! Code of conduct and help show the “future” contributors how to be a good open source citizen. Thanks for all you have done so far and yet to do. Now go have fun CONTRIBUTING and being COLLABORATIVE.