This is part 4 of 4 on localization best practices, this particular article is primarily targeted to translators who are contributing to localization for an experience
- Planning for Localization: Lay the foundation for successful localization.
- Getting the Best Out of Localization Tools: Discover tools that enhance the localization process.
- Human Translation vs. Machine Translation: Weigh the pros and cons of each approach.
- Tips and Tricks for Translators: Insights to optimize the translation process.
In this section, you’ll get a list of time-saving tips and practices that can help with your translation process.
Organizational Tips
Context - Get as much information as possible
As you may know, localization is more than translating words from one language to another – it is the art of conveying concepts from a source locale to a target locale. It involves communicating ideas and evoking emotions and reactions.
Many translations are highly dependent on context, e.g. the formality of a text may depend on the age of the target audience, the word “back” may refer to a UI button meaning “previous”, or it may refer to an avatar body part.
Try to visit and familiarize yourself with the experience before translating. If it’s not published yet, you may need to request beta access.
Any kind of game plans, such as slide decks, may also be useful for getting a sense of the experience.
Ask for clarification
If the meaning of a string is unclear during the translation process, reach out to the developer and ask for clarification.
Test your translations in context
Translations that are entered into the Translator Portal usually go live within a few minutes, which gives you the opportunity to view your translations within the experience almost instantaneously.
You may find that some translations are truncated due to their length, or that some translations are out of context. Depending on the issue, you can either revise your translations in the Translator Portal or report the bug to the developer.
Ask for notifications about content updates
Since the Translator Portal currently does not have a notification system, ask the developer to notify you whenever translations need to be updated or added. This is usually the case when the experience title or description gets updated, or when new strings or products are added.
Small changes to the experience description can be hard to spot, so it is recommended to ask for a change log document that highlights the specific updates.
Using the Translator Portal
The Translator Portal is a translator specific page that provides access to an experience’s localization table.
In the Translator Portal, translators can edit translations for all supported languages, and see translation history, including the time the translation was added and the translation contributor.
Note on different types of content
- Title and Description - This is shown on the landing page and the first thing users see when they click on an experience on Roblox. They can be found under the “Information” tab in the Translator Portal.
- Experience Strings - this refers to any texts inside the experience, such as UI buttons, NPC dialogs, challenge instructions, etc. They can be found under the “Strings” tab.
- Products - These include Badges and Passes. They can be found under the “Products” tab.
Note on moderation
The title, description as well as products are subject to moderation filters, which can sometimes lead to texts being blocked. If that is the case, please modify the translation and try submitting again.
Filters
In many cases, the development flow of an experience is set up in a way that new strings for translation are added on a regular basis.
Depending on the workflow – whether you’re translating from scratch, or whether you’re reviewing autotranslated strings (MTPE) – you can make use of the various filters in the Translator Portal to find new strings and avoid redundancies.
Translating from scratch
Use the filter “Untranslated” to find any strings that haven’t been translated yet.
Reviewing auto translated strings
Select the filter “Machine Translated” to review auto/machine translated strings. Machine translated strings that were edited by a human translator change their status from “Machine Translated” to “Manually Translated”.
Hack: If you wish to approve a machine translated string that does not need to be edited in order to change its status from “Machine Translated” to “Manually Translated”, add a space at the end of the translation and hit “Save”. This step will prevent the string from showing up again next time you review newly added machine translated strings.
Working with mixed strings - autotranslated strings, untranslated strings and imported translations
In rare cases, the developer may import some translations, which will get filtered as “Manually Translated”, in addition to activating machine translation for other strings and leaving yet others untranslated. The best filter to use in this case may be “Recently Added Entries”, which shows all strings that were added within the last 7 days.
Translating the experience description
Line breaks that are displayed in the description on the landing page of an experience are currently not reflected in the source text in Translator Portal.
Hack: Follow the formatting on the Roblox page in your translation.
Experience description view on Roblox has line breaks.
The source text of the experience description in the Translator Portal does not reflect line breaks.
That covers some of the common tips and gotchas that you might find useful when translating. Feel free to share your own below! This also concludes our localization best practices suite - though you can follow the links below to navigate to a previous article.
- Planning for Localization: Lay the foundation for successful localization.
- Getting the Best Out of Localization Tools: Discover tools that enhance the localization process.
- Human Translation vs. Machine Translation: Weigh the pros and cons of each approach.
- Tips and Tricks for Translators: Insights to optimize the translation process.