How to Overcome the Challenges of String Translation

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by: DylanG.Major
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A common approach to creating messages in software is to assemble these at runtime from various separate sub-strings retrieved from a library. It is virtually impossible to translate truncated strings successfully. These cannot be combined grammatically at runtime in the translated version of the software. Your translation vendor will come back to your programmer and ask that the strings concerned are rewritten into full messages that make sense on their own.

Beware of Gender

Here is a recent example from the coal face: We were localising a DLL file for a large electronic document management software. Since the organisations the software was aimed at tend to use their own vocabulary for everything that is related to electronic documents, the developers thought it was a good idea to implement a naming feature, which would allow users to rename about every noun used in the interface.

While it seemed like a great idea, it caused a lot of problems. For example, the developers had wrongly assumed that nouns in foreign languages have no genders influencing adverbs that belong to these nouns. After all, in English adverbs never change: whether you talk about a new record or a new archive, the word "new" always stays the same.

For example, in Dutch, "a new archive" is "een nieuw archief" while a new record is "een nieuwe record". In Dutch, the words for archive and record have different genders, meaning that the preceding adverb is inflected.

Now, this entire program was full of strings like "new %s"; since the developers simply assumed that "new" could be replaced by the same word regardless of the word represented by "%s"

This meant that each and every one of these strings had to be rewritten by the developers - at a very high cost!

Different keyboard layouts

The keyboard layouts used for different languages can vary quite a bit from the standard US keyboard layout. Punctuation keys shouldn't be used as shortcuts - since these keys vary depending in the keyboard layout used in a particular country.

Most applications feature various keyboard shortcuts. For example, Copy and Paste in both Windows and Linux is Ctrl C and Ctrl V.

These keyboard shortcuts are in many cases assigned on a mnemonic basis - Ctrl P for Print, notably. However, this is different in other languiages - in German, for example, the shortcut for print is Strg D.

Keys on other-language keyboards do not always occupy the same positions as on English keyboards. Even when they do, the interpretation of the unmodified keystroke may be different. For example, when pressing SHIFT 8 on U.S. keyboards this creates an asterisk character. However, on French keyboards, it generates the number 8.

About the Author

Author: Dylan G. Major has extensive knowledge on technical translations in many languages and he provides premium inexpensive technical translation services.

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<h1>How to Overcome the Challenges of String Translation</h1> <p> A common approach to creating messages in software is to assemble these at runtime from various separate sub-strings retrieved from a library. It is virtually impossible to translate truncated strings successfully. These cannot be combined grammatically at runtime in the translated version of the software. Your translation vendor will come back to your programmer and ask that the strings concerned are rewritten into full messages that make sense on their own. <br /><br /> Beware of Gender <br /><br /> Here is a recent example from the coal face: We were localising a DLL file for a large electronic document management software. Since the organisations the software was aimed at tend to use their own vocabulary for everything that is related to electronic documents, the developers thought it was a good idea to implement a naming feature, which would allow users to rename about every noun used in the interface. <br /><br /> While it seemed like a great idea, it caused a lot of problems. For example, the developers had wrongly assumed that nouns in foreign languages have no genders influencing adverbs that belong to these nouns. After all, in English adverbs never change: whether you talk about a new record or a new archive, the word "new" always stays the same. <br /><br /> For example, in Dutch, "a new archive" is "een nieuw archief" while a new record is "een nieuwe record". In Dutch, the words for archive and record have different genders, meaning that the preceding adverb is inflected. <br /><br /> Now, this entire program was full of strings like "new %s"; since the developers simply assumed that "new" could be replaced by the same word regardless of the word represented by "%s" <br /><br /> This meant that each and every one of these strings had to be rewritten by the developers - at a very high cost! <br /><br /> Different keyboard layouts <br /><br /> The keyboard layouts used for different languages can vary quite a bit from the standard US keyboard layout. Punctuation keys shouldn't be used as shortcuts - since these keys vary depending in the keyboard layout used in a particular country. <br /><br /> Most applications feature various keyboard shortcuts. For example, Copy and Paste in both Windows and Linux is Ctrl C and Ctrl V. <br /><br /> These keyboard shortcuts are in many cases assigned on a mnemonic basis - Ctrl P for Print, notably. However, this is different in other languiages - in German, for example, the shortcut for print is Strg D. <br /><br /> Keys on other-language keyboards do not always occupy the same positions as on English keyboards. Even when they do, the interpretation of the unmodified keystroke may be different. For example, when pressing SHIFT 8 on U.S. keyboards this creates an asterisk character. However, on French keyboards, it generates the number 8. <h2>About the Author</h2> Author: Dylan G. Major has extensive knowledge on <a href="http://www.academyxl.com/index.php">technical translations </a>in many languages and he provides premium inexpensive <a href="http://www.academyxl.com/index.php">technical translation services.</a> </p>

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