Translating our app store descriptions

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Translating our app store descriptions

(30 posts) (12 voices)

Started 1 year ago by jptsetung
Latest reply from Chris Peterson

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jptsetung
Member

I know there are many languages represented in this forum.

What about translating our app store description ? I think it increases the sales if the description is entered in your own langauge (even if the game itself is not translated).

Here are the languages available on the app store :

English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Japanese,

Maybe we can post our requests here and translate also the requests of others.

I start with my update waiting for approval, let's see if it works :

"
2 more levels
Fast deletion & 2 fingers scrolling
New icon
New welcome screen
"

Posted 1 year ago #
patrickC
Member

I think that's a good idea.
Here's your text, translated into Italian:
"
2 nuovi livelli
Cancellazione veloce e movimento a 2 dita
Nuova Icona
Nuova schermata di presentazione
"
cheers
Patrick

Posted 1 year ago #
Codemattic
Moderator

Maybe we could come up with a list of common phrases and terms that would be useful to everyone. We could make it part of the cocos wiki:

http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/

so devs can add terms and translations. Im thinking of generic things like:

Start Game
End Game
Restart Game
Pause Game
Menu
Back (as in going back from a menu choice)
High Scores
Options
Sound On
Sound Off
Music On
Music Off
Buy Game
Buy Full Game
Visit Website
Go Online
Help
Controls
Easy
Normal
Hard
Fast
Slow
You Died
You Lost
You Won
Tutorial
Credits

anything else you guys would find useful?
(yes its shameful I can only speak english!)

Posted 1 year ago #
slipster216
Moderator

I think another option would be to create a forum where you can post your text and have it translated by users nice enough to do the translation. For most games, you only need to translate the app store description and a few in-game words (which the idea of common word translation covers). In a way, this could be another way for people to give back to the cocos community and project, aside from donations and code.. And those who have larger translation loads (ie, making an RPG or something) could work out deals with those that do regular translations on the site..

Posted 1 year ago #
Clain
Member

@jptsetung :
That's a great idea. Here's your text in French :
"
2 niveaux supplémentaires
Suppression rapide et défilement avec 2 doigts
Nouvelle icone
Nouvel écran d'accueil
"

@Codemattic :
That's a great idea too. I would add the following to your list :
New Game
Resume Game
Main menu
Exit / Quit
Yes / No
OK / Cancel
Ranking
Sound effects
Instructions
(You) Failed
Score
Points
Bonus
Life / Lives
Health
Energy
Level
Previous / Next
Arrow
Up / Down
Left / Right
Button
Player 1
Computer
Difficulty
Activate / Deactivate
Active / Inactive
Target
...

I also second splister's idea of a translation forum.

Posted 1 year ago #
riq
Key Master

@clain @codemattic:

I've created this wiki page:
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/resources:translations

Please, add any word / phrase that you want (you need to register a user to edit the wiki).

The idea is to have the most common words / phrases on the wiki since it's easier to maintain.

@all: If you don't mind I would prefer to start doing the translations in this forum.
You could start a thread using a subject like: '[translate] game: XXX]'. If there is a lot of demand, I will create a special forum for the translation.

Posted 1 year ago #
Clain
Member

@riq :
I've added a lot of words on the wiki but I think we'll run into problems quickly :
- it will be a nightmare when we add another language (the iPhone supports 20 languages)
- some words have to be translated differently depending on the context (for instance the word start in "that's a good start", "start game", "ready... start !", or the word "number"), maybe we should add an extra column specifying the context
- the table hardly fits in the screen now, it won't fit anymore if we put phrases or translate in other languages (Portuguese, Chinese, and Korean are empty for now)

Posted 1 year ago #
riq
Key Master

@clain:
perhaps the table can be split in 2:
10 languages + 10 languages.

I've just added some random translations and the table grew as needed, so that's not a problem with 10 languages.

ideas, suggestions ?

Posted 1 year ago #
Clain
Member

I don't know if in the future the iPhone will support more languages (for now it's 20). But I don't think we will have all of these languages in the wiki. We can keep the table we have now (we can change the name of one of the empty languages in case another one pops up, like Dutch for example). That's 9 different languages. If we ever reach 10, we can add another table like you suggested.

I was thinking maybe we could organize the table in categories like :
- menus & buttons
- settings & options
- controls & instructions
- score & points
- ranking
- self promotion
- player profiles
- etc

It would probably be better than alphabetical order because we could group words used in the same context. For instance, in the "settings & options" category, we could have a row with the word "size" and in the following rows, the words "small", "medium" and "big".

Posted 1 year ago #
riq
Key Master

I was thinking maybe we could organize the table in categories like :
- menus & buttons
- settings & options
- controls & instructions
- score & points
- ranking
- self promotion
- player profiles
- etc

yes, I like the idea of categories.
+1

Posted 1 year ago #
OldJames
Member

I'd like to be in on this, great idea. I wish I could put up (at least) an app description in other languages. However, I only speak english so I'd be taking advantage a little bit. I could translate any other language to English with the help of google tho.

anyone who's checked out my game (touchCopter) and is interested in providing a app description translation to another language, let me know :)
or if you could use an english proof reader...

Posted 1 year ago #
ob1
Member

Is it possible in some way to make a script or something that could generate lproj files from the wiki ton include in cocos (I haven't used lproj files yet so I don't know how it works).

I wanted to make a few modifications, but I don't know how to indicate context.

Posted 1 year ago #
Thomvis
Member

In Dutch:

2 nieuwe levels
snel verwijderen en scrollen met twee vingers
Nieuw icoon
Nieuw welkomstscherm

Posted 1 year ago #
riq
Key Master

I've created the categories, although there are still some words without a category.
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/resources:translations

Posted 1 year ago #
jptsetung
Member

Thanks for the translations so far. @Clain, thanks, sorry I should I've told that I'm french and french translation was not necessary.

@riq, maybe I should create another topic for my request with the title pattern you suggested ?

Posted 1 year ago #
coolman
Member

On thing.

I just reviewed the words, and in Spanish there are some wierd words that are not used (or not common) in the official Spanish, maybe due latin american variations. How are we going to handle this?

Wierd words in Spanish (in the left( and better alternatives in the right

Prendido -> Encendido, although in this context woul be better Enceder / Apagar
Puntaje -> Puntuación

Posted 1 year ago #
riq
Key Master

@coolman: I think we should use the official Spanish (non Latin American) words. Could you fix them ?

Posted 1 year ago #
coolman
Member

Agreed,

Sure, will do now.

Posted 1 year ago #
coolman
Member

Fixed. also it woul be fine to know the form of the word. For example:

Buy

If it's a noun in Spanish is Compra
If this is a verb the Spanish word is Comprar

Yes, just one letter but can make the difference. I sugget to have in the first column qhich kind or form is the word.

Posted 1 year ago #
Clain
Member

@coolman :
That's what I suggested earlier :

- some words have to be translated differently depending on the context (for instance the word start in "that's a good start", "start game", "ready... start !", or the word "number"), maybe we should add an extra column specifying the context

@jptsetung :
C'est pas grave, il n'y avait pas grand-chose à traduire. Par contre oui, ce serait bien de dire les traductions que l'on a déjà.

When you request a translation, let us know what languages you already have and/or what languages you need.

Posted 1 year ago #
ob1
Member

Pas mal de francphones ici. Suisses, Français, Québéquois ?

Posted 1 year ago #
Clain
Member

I worked on the wiki translation page. I've reorganized (a bit) the categories, added a few words and most importantly reorganized words that are linked together. For example, right after the word "Difficulty", there is now the word "Easy", the word "Normal" and the word "Hard". To no break the alphabetical order, I added an arrow sign in front of the connected words. I think it's easier to read now. I hope you like it.
Also, when words need a context, we can add a short description or an example next to the English word, in squared brackets and in italic. For instance, the word "Buy" is now "Buy [buy this]". So we know it's the verb.

There's one more thing I'd like to change : the way we handle nouns (I mean singulars and plurals). But I haven't found anything smart for that. Sometimes (well, most of the time) it's easy, we just have to add an s at the end of the singular noun to get the plural. But sometimes it's not the case. Some examples :
English : life/lives
French : jeu/jeux
Italian : scenario/scenarii
German : most of the time the singular and the plural are different and it's specific to (almost) each noun
Chinese and Japanese : I believe there's no such thing as singular and plural in these languages (and maybe for Korean too) so for them there's no point in distinguishing singular and plural.
Spanish : sorry, I don't know about Spanish...

Ideas anyone ?

Posted 1 year ago #
riq
Key Master

@clain: I like the way you organized it.
Plurals in Spanish are really easy. You need to add the suffix 'es' or 's'.

But I don't know what's the best way to handle the plurals. As it is now (both words in the same "box"), I think it's a good-enough solution.

Posted 1 year ago #
Clain
Member

I let the singular and plural version of a noun in the same cell. If the plural consists of just adding one or more letters to the noun, I put the extra letter(s) in parentheses. If the plural is a bit more complicated (like "enemy" > "enemies"), then the whole plural noun is put in parentheses.

New words have been added recently, it would be nice if some people could translate them.

Also, I'd like some Spanish translations :
1) How do you say "sound effects" in Spanish ? (to put in an options menu)
2) In one of my game, I used "vuelta" for the word "back" on a button. In the wiki, someone put "volver". For my information, what's the difference ?

Posted 1 year ago #
riq
Key Master

@clain:
"Sound effects" -> "Efectos de sonido"

Yes, it's better to use "volver". "volver" is the verb in infinitive. It means "go back".

Posted 1 year ago #
riq
Key Master

Sorry, I think it's better to use "Efectos sonoros" than "Efectos de sonido"

Posted 1 year ago #
Clain
Member

Thank you riq.

Posted 1 year ago #
woebtz
Member

1. Are you posting the translated app description as new localizations in iTunes Connect?

2. Is that what controls which languages are displayed under the description's LANGUAGES: heading?

3. Does this then require your app to support localizations in-game (e.g. different text and graphic buttons depending on device Language setting)?

Posted 1 year ago #
jptsetung
Member

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No

Posted 1 year ago #
Chris Peterson
Member

The wiki has grown considerably. Very cool!

Would creating a game localization library be useful? Everyone who uses the translation wiki is going to do the same thing: copy/paste text into their code (and worry about string encoding problems, keeping up to date with revised localizations or new languages). A code library would make adding localization easier and give your game support for many languages "out of the box".

Posted 11 months ago #

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