Translators - even professional translators - usually make these error when translating computer software.
Wrong: no capitalisation in translation
Correct: translation follows translation language
capitalisation convention
Translator could not decide which word was more appropriate
Wrong: two translated words for one original
word
Correct: choose one word if you have two
options
Wrong: translating program function name like
get_file_attributes()
Correct: leave program syntax or function names
untranslated
Wrong: variables left out of translation
Correct: variable in translation in the correct
order for the language
Wrong: environment variable names (eg. EDITOR)
and possible fixed values (eg. COLOR, TRANSPARENT) translated
Correct: left in English and perhaps surrounded by
single quotes to indicate that they are not in the target language
on purpose.
Wrong: leaving out end punctuation and
whitespace (eg. “File: ”
)
Correct: copying end punctuation and whitespace
almost exactly as the original into the translation.
Wrong: adding missing fullstops to translated
sentence
Correct: if full sentences do not contain a
fullstop in the original do not add one to the translation.
Wrong: adding exclamation marks (!) to the
translation when they occur in the original
Correct: use exclamation marks to correspond with
the tone of the application and the convention of the translated
language. Ie you may leave them out of the translation.
Wrong: leaving out ellipses (…)
Correct: always add ellipses to the
translation
Wrong: leaving out accelerators (either _&~
depending on the application)
Correct: if the original has an accelerator so
should the translation
Wrong: placing the accelerator exactly in the
same position as the original
Correct: place the accelerator on the word /
syllable / part of the sentence that is accented in its
pronunciation or is the focus of the sentence.
Wrong: using the same letter for accelerator
keys
Correct: try to vary the letters chosen as the
accelerator key (in some languages almost all words start with U or
I. In this case make an effort to choose other letters)
Wrong: HTML tags are
translated
Correct: HTML tags are not
translated
Wrong: translatable HTML entities are not
translated
Correct: translate items that will be viewable. Eg
HTML img tag's
alt entity <img alt=“translate me”>, a tag's title entity
<a href=blah title=“translate me”>.
This recommendations are from Translate Toolkit & Pootle Project under cc-by-sa license.