Fortius linguarum/Preparing translations
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Chapter 1: The basics!
Bringing text onto wiki
Simple enough to do :-) Copy the source text you want translated into a wiki page.
The box of languages and <languages /> tag
You need to enable the language box that sits at the top of the page. This links to all in-progress and completed translations.
To do this simply add:
<languages />
or
<languages/>
The space before the slash is optional and may be added or removed without changing how the page will be rendered (this can be useful for translation admins as a pseudo null edit if you want to mark again the same page to update translation statistics in all languages when they get out of sync).
If the page to translate is a template, or if it's any page intended to be transcluded into another one, this tag should be placed in a noinclude section (avoid adding a linebreak after closing that section):
<noinclude><languages /></noinclude> (the rest of the template code follows here)
Units and <translate></translate> tags
Translations are broken down into discrete units breaking up a much larger request into more manageable chunks. Lets take the following block of text:
The 'Principia' deals primarily with massive bodies in motion, initially under a variety of conditions and hypothetical laws of force in both non-resisting and resisting media, thus offering criteria to decide, by observations, which laws of force are operating in phenomena that may be observed.
To make this a translation unit simply add <translate> [...] </translate> like so:
<translate>The 'Principia' deals primarily with massive bodies in motion, initially under a variety of conditions and hypothetical laws of force in both non-resisting and resisting media, thus offering criteria to decide, by observations, which laws of force are operating in phenomena that may be observed.</translate>
Numbers, Hyperlinks and Wikilinks
Fixed variables such as Numbers, Hyperlinks and Wikilinks should often be included through the use of translation variables or <tvar name="..."> tags.
These tags consist of three parts as you can see in the diagramme below. These are:
- the tags
- the name of the variable
- the variable itself
Here is an example:
To contact us, either see our contacts page, [www.twitter.com tweet us], phone us on 555-1212 or email us at info
wikimedia.org
This is how you would handle the four of them:
To contact us, either see our [[<tvar name="mainpage">Main page</tvar>|contacts page]], [<tvar name="tweeturl">www.twitter.com</tvar> tweet us], phone us on <tvar name="phonenumber">555-1212</tvar> or email us at <tvar name="infoemail">info
Wikilinks and URLs are very similar in that the target page is contained within variable and will remain fixed whereas the text can be localised. The phone number and the email however are entirely static and should not be change in anyway by translators.
Caution: although most translators do this correctly, errors can be made.
Mark for translation
After saving the page, you will see a link at the top of the page saying "Mark this page for translation" (or "This page contains changes which are not marked for translation." if you are not a translation administrator). Click on that link.
- Click the "Mark this page for translation" link.
You will see that your text has been split into translation units. The first unit is the title of the page, the second is the first paragraph or line, the third is the header of the second paragraph and so on. You can give names to the translation units but it is often best to simply stick to the default numbering. - Ensure that your text has been split up appropriately. That there aren't any unnecessarily long units.
- Click the "Mark this version for translation" button.
Chapter 2. What to do next – Notify your volunteers!
Getting people to translate
You've set up your request and marked and ready for translation, but now we need to get people translating. :) At this point you need to move on the chapter 3 where the various forms of seeking translations are discussed in depth. :)
Appendix 1 – Complex requests
Tables and images
When dealing with images and tables, you want to handle them in a similar fashion. Tables can often contain complex markup which should at all cost be excluded from translation units. They key is to have the contents of the table as units and not the table itself.
So here is about as complicated an example as you could really expect to have to translate. I am sure it could be more complicated but the theme effectively remains the same.
{| style="border:2px solid #eeeeee; background:white; margin:auto;"
|-
| [[File:WMF Annual Report 2011–12 EN cover rgb 300ppi.png|250px|border|2011–2012 Annual Report|link=//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/WMF-AR_2011%E2%80%9312_EN_SHIP2_17dec12_300dpi_hi-res.pdf|center]]
| [[File:2012-13 Wikimedia Foundation Plan FINAL FOR WEBSITE.pdf|435px|link=//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf]]
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|
Download the 2011–12 Annual Report:
* '''[[Media:WMF-AR 2011–12 EN SHIP2 17dec12 300dpi hi-res.pdf|
PDF version (3.9 MB)]]'''
||
'''<translate>Download the 2012-13 Annual Plan:</translate>'''
* '''[[Media:2012-13 Wikimedia Foundation Plan FINAL FOR WEBSITE.pdf|
PDF version (400 KB)]]'''
* '''[[2012-2013 Annual Plan Questions and Answers|
Annual Plan questions and answers]]'''
|}
We can break this down into its various components.
Tables
{| style="border:2px solid #eeeeee; background:white; margin:auto;"
|-
| Some text
|}
In this instance you place the translate tags within the cell so that it appears thusly:
{| style="border:2px solid #eeeeee; background:white; margin:auto;"
|-
|'''<translate>'''Some text'''</translate>'''
|}
Images and files
Here is some markup for a file:
[[File:2012-13 Wikimedia Foundation Plan FINAL FOR WEBSITE.pdf|435px|The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan|link=//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf]]
Unlike in a wikilink where we used a <tvar name="...">...</tvar> variable for the page, image markup is slightly more complicated. Since normally all we need to translate is the caption rather than including the entirety of the image. the translate tags should be used inside the image markup like so:
[[File:2012-13 Wikimedia Foundation Plan FINAL FOR WEBSITE.pdf|435px|<translate>The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan</translate>|link=//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/4f/2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf]]</nowiki>
Appendix 2 – Some cautionary words
Complex translations
Keep translation units as simple as possible. Complexity means the increased likelihood for errors, it raises the bar to translator participation reducing the amount of complete translations you will get. It may mean that links get broken which means time and effort fixing links. Simple = efficient. :)
Long translations – Translator time
It takes time for volunteers to translate, time that could be spent taking photo's, writing articles or news stories. The longer the translation, the more effort and resources it will use up. Ask yourself, does this page need to be translated into every single language. Are there more important priorities? More of this will be touched on in the communications chapter.
Long translations – Admin time
Be aware that pages like Fundraising 2012/Translation/FAQ take a long time to set up and this particular request isn't even the best set up. Keep it as simple as you can get away with when dealing with such cases.
Appendix 3 – Making changes to a request page
Marking a new version for translation
You might find that you may need to make some changes to a translation. This may be slightly altering text or adding new swathes of paragraphs. Either way you need to know how to update your translation request. :)
It's fairly simple actually when you make a change, you will see that at the top of the page it will now say "This page has changes since it was last marked for translation.". Click on last marked for translation and simply follow the steps above for marking for translation. :)
Does your new text really need retranslating?
As will be constantly reiterated throughout, we want to keep unnecessary work down to a minimum. If the change you made is merely a stylistic one, or spelling or grammar correction its important you mark "Do not invalidate translations". If you don't it will say that the unit needs translation.
If however the changes you make are extensive and important then of course it may make sense to invalidate the old translation and request a new one.