Thanks for Helping us Translate iFixit.com!
Four Golden Rules for Translating
Written by you—Please do not copy and paste machine translation—you’re much smarter than algorithms.
Modern and informal style—Write as if you're explaining how to change a light bulb to a friend.
Complete and accurate—Make sure you've translated all words, converted all measurements, researched technical terms, etc.
Comprehensible—Would your neighbor/niece/grandpa understand?
Translating the Various Parts of iFixit
Certain content, like wikis, can be translated directly on iFixit.com. For wikis, all you need to do is create a user account to get started. If you'd like to translate guides as well, please send an email to translate@ifixit.com, introduce yourself, and describe your language skills. We will contact you to get the process started.
To translate the iFixit.com user interface, we use a tool called Crowdin. If you want to know more about that, head on over to the Crowdin guidelines.
Fluency
If you're thinking about becoming an iFixit translator, here are a few questions to ask yourself: How often do you speak, read, and write in the language in question? Can you have a philosophical conversation? Watch a documentary? Read a novel? If you answered NO to any of those questions, that's okay. We don't require translators to have any formal training, but we do ask that you take the role of translating seriously.
If you’re working outside your area of expertise, be sure to research terminology or ask someone in the field. If you’re struggling with a particular phrase or term, be sure to ask for advice from other translators.
Machine Translation
Machine translations are translations made by a computer, instead of a human—usually through services like Google Translate. They’re quick and convenient. In fact, we even have a button users can press to machine translate parts of iFixit that haven’t been translated by our translators yet. We see machine translation as a stop-gap. It’s not a solution and even the best machine translations tend to be pretty bad. We give users the option to see machine translations only as a last resort. Human translations are more nuanced, more accurate, and much better. That’s why we ask our translators not to use services like Google Translate to translate material on iFixit. Our proofreaders will reject these entries and you won’t get any reputation points for them.
In short: Machine Translation is out, your brain is in!
Style
Informal vs. formal
When in doubt, go with formal. However, use your best judgement when interpreting a phrase. If a phrase is very friendly and casual, then it's okay to go with informal, colloquial terms.
Modern vs. traditional
Modern terms and phrases should be chosen over a phrase that is old-fashioned or idiomatic. Translators should strive to be up-to-date in the topics covered.
Personal vs. generic
Sometimes, we use colorful, informal language on iFixit, which can be hard to translate. Translators should strive to match the tone and flow of the original content as closely as possible. Rather than produce a hyper-formal, word-for-word translation, translators should aim to find the color, energy and "poetry" of the original style and emulate it in the target language, using words and phrases that match the gist of the points.
Characteristics
Idioms
As you translate, you might encounter some idioms—such as puns, culture-specific phrasing, and metaphorical expressions. A phrase like “It’s raining cats and dogs” or “Catch us on the flipside” wouldn’t make any sense if it were translated word-for-word. Rather, an equivalent or similar expression should be found and used as a substitution. If no such equivalent can be found, translators should opt for a translation that gets the same point across, even if the language you choose is less colorful than in the original phrase.
iFixit
That’s us! iFixit is always written as "iFixit" and should not be translated. Likewise, if you see a mention of Dozuki, that’s also us. It should remain as "Dozuki" and should not be translated.
Proper Nouns
- People's names: If the target language uses a non-Latin alphabet, always translate people's names—using the closest corresponding letters of language you are translating the material in to.
- Places: Use the name of the place that is in most common usage in your language. If the name is not found in your lexicon, transliterate—using the closest corresponding letters of language you are translating the material in to.
Punctuation
Try to find the punctuation that best enhances readability while keeping as close to the original flow and direction as possible. Always use the target language's native punctuation.
Character Sets
Please use standard unicode characters and avoid those that are platform-specific.
Units of Measurement
You may convert units of measurement to make them more understandable to speakers of your language. We recommend the Google unit conversion tool. Please remember to add a no broken space between a number and a unit of measurement so that they won’t be separated with a line break. (Depending on your operating system, you may have to try different ways: f.e. press Alt + Space (on Mac), or Ctrl + Shift + Space, or hold Alt and type 0160 on the numeric keypad on the right of your keyboard.)
Translating Guides and Wikis
When translating a guide on iFixit.com, choose your target language with the help of the flag and use the “Translate” button in the upper right corner to open the translation interface. First, translate the guide information and then translate the guide steps. If you aren’t quite sure how to translate some of the content in the guide steps, it can be helpful to refer to the pictures paired with the English step for more context.
Translation of wikis (like this one) is even more straightforward: Go to the Wiki page you want to translate, choose your target language and hit the "translate" button in the upper right corner. Provide your translation on the right side of the page. When choosing the wikis you want to translate, keep in mind what’s relevant for your folks. The “Careers” page, for instance, is probably not relevant for international users.
Translating Links
First, check if the content of the link is useful for people who don’t speak English—if not, look online for something similar in your target language.
The easiest way to translate a link is to add a new one. You can do this by clicking on the button “Insert a link”. Enter the link URL in the upper box of the pop up window. In the lower box you can enter an optional link text. To save click on “Insert the link”.
If you’re copy-pasting and translating a link from the original text, please don’t translate the word, “link” at the beginning of the square bracket. It’s part of the code and is not displayed in the text.
Pro tip: Include the magic code (without quotation marks): "|new_window=true". Now the link will be opened in a new tab and your readers are more likely to return to your translation afterwards.
In Wiki Formatting and Syntax you can find more information about link formatting.
39 Comments
Très bon tuto, très complet, bravo !
Juste deux toutes petites remarques :
1) Dans la partie "J'ai %1 de réputation," la première phrase devrait indiquer "%1 supplée à un nombre" et non pas "suppléé."
2) Le titre suivant, "Voici un %1lien%2 vers Google," est au même niveau hiérarchique que "Ce qu'il ne faut pas traduire," dont il est pourtant (à mon humble avis) une sous-partie.
Encore bravo et merci, et probablement à bientôt dans l'équipe de traduction !
Maxime Regaert - Reply
Bonjour Maxime ! Merci pour ces très bonnes remarques. Nous les avons prises en compte.
Fabienne Detoc -
Hola qué tal ! Excelente me gustaría colaborar con traducir
Nelson Marcelo Rios - Reply
Sobre qué otro tema se puede traducir? Electrodomésticos? Solo por saber.gracias
Nelson Marcelo Rios - Reply
Hola Nelson! Bienvenido! Puedes traducir sobre varios temas en nuestro sitio incluyendo Electrodomésticos. Simplemente navega a una pagina que deseas traducir para empezar.
Walter Galan -
Hola, he traducido una guía y las relacionadas con ella, pero no veo publicada la traducción a español, debo hacer algo más. La guía en concreto es:
MacBook Pro 15" Core 2 Duo Models A1226 and A1260 Logic Board Replacement
Oxer - Reply
Hi Oxer, thank you for all your translations, we will patrol them during the next weeks. You don’t need to do anything. Sorry for the long delay, cheers!
Jasper Fleischhauer -
Hi, I am from South East Asian country , Malaysia to be precise. I hope to able to translate into my mother tongue Bahasa Malaysia similar to Indonesian. So if there is a team or anyone translating into the language, I'm in. If not I will try to start doing this if permitted. We can work to gain wider users by translating into natives. Thanks in advance.
abdrahman - Reply
Hi @abdrahman! Thank you so much for your comment and your offer to help us in completing our translations! We really appreciate it!
We have not yet started localizing the iFixit Guides and Wikis into your language, I would suggest you to fill in ++this form++ to be one of the first to be contacted as soon as we get started and bring forward our mission to share how to fix anything with the entire world.
However, a team of volunteers has already started localizing the iFixit user interface into Indonesian, so maybe you feel prepared to help there? We are using an open web translation software which is called "Crowdin". If you'd like to begin right away and take a look, you can just follow this link and create an account to start translating: https://crowdin.net/project/ifixit++, but I would recommend that you read the iFixit translator guidelines first: Translator Guidelines Crowdin. I stay at your disposal for any further questions or concerns!
Sandra Hiller -
Hello, I’m Japanese and I translated some guides. They were approved, but my translates don’t seems to be reflected. A few days or months are needed to reflect them after approving?
runa - Reply
Hi, Runa san,
Thank you for the question and spending your time to translate our website. Regarding the website update of your translation, if you mention about Airport Time Capsule, up to Step 5 is translated so far. In order to be reflected on our website, the whole steps need to be done. If you mention about JBL Flip 4, it looks the whole contents are done but “Guide Prerequisite” which means “Shell Replacement” has to be translated also. Does this make sense? Please feel free to ask me if you have any further questions! Thanks!
Midori Doi -
How to start translating?
Rogayah Bachmid - Reply
Hi @bachmid! What language would you like to translate to? Drop me an email at translate@ifixit.com and I’ll make sure to set you up.
Sandra Hiller -
Hi! I “picked up” American English about 30 something years ago! It’s still my favorite language. I don’t write much that’s why I give so many spelling errors, but since I know how to use a dictionary (besides the of autocorrection), errors come down to zero. My question is, do you guys reward translators with a screw driver? :)
Killerbytecorp - Reply
Hi! Thanks a lot for thinking about becoming an iFixit translator! I wouldn’t consider your spelling errors in English a problem, as long as you don’t make them in your native language / the target language you’d like to translate to from English? The most important would be that you understand the original English text, also if there are buns for example, and have great ideas on how to get their meaning accross in the target language or find other funny expressions that fit. We’d usually reach out to our contributors offering the first gift when they gained around 500 reputation points, if ever we forgot you, don’t hesitate to get back to me at translate@ifixit.com.
Sandra Hiller -
Hello!
I am a 19 year old Italian who had experiences abroad. I spent a year in the US and i speak fluently your language. I would like to become a translator!
Leonardo - Reply
Hi @leopallo! Thank you so much for your offer to help us with our translations! We really appreciate that! Italian is already open for volunteer translations, here's a list of popular guides that still need translation to your language: https://it.ifixit.com/Traduci. Clicking on the "Traduci" button on the top right will lead you straight to the translation interface. Reach out to me at translate@ifixit.com if you have further questions or concerns!
Sandra Hiller -
e um praz conhecê ifixit
paulosergio240482 - Reply
Oi, você aí! Se quiser nos ajudar a concluir nossas traduções, ficaríamos muito gratos a você!
Ainda não começamos a realizar a localização dos guias iFixit para a língua portuguesa, mas a tradução das wikis já deve estar disponível para você. Você pode encontrar uma lista de wikis requisitadas que estão à espera de uma tradução aqui: ++https://en.ifixit.com/Translate?filter=w...). Para começar a traduzir, mude a configuração do idioma para "PT" no topo à direita e o botão "edit" ou "translate" se transforma automaticamente em um botão chamado "INICIAR TRADUÇÃO".
Udo Baingo -
لماذا موقعكم لا يدعم اللغة العربية ؟
لم اجد مكان للتواصل معكم فكتبت استفساري هنا بأمل ان تحضى اللغة العربية باهتمامكم
تحياتي لكم
Fawzan Al Fawzan - Reply
Arabic is indeed on top of the list of languages we'd like to take a deeper look into within the following years. We currently support an NGO with Arabic Translations: https://noplacelikehome.dozuki.com. Maybe you’d like to contribute to this?
We have not yet started localizing the iFixit Guides and Wikis into Arabic on our own platform, but a team of volunteers has already started to translate the user interface here: https://crowdin.com/project/ifixit, you'd be more than welcome to join them!
Sandra Hiller -
Hola hola
just a gringa que puede hablar español. Studying to be a translator so I’d love to help and it’ll be great practice!
Kayne - Reply
Hi @tig701 , Thank you so much for your offer to help us with our translations! We really appreciate that! Spanish is already open for volunteer translations, but there is still lots of work to do and you're of course very welcome to join our volunteer team. You can directly go to any guide you'd like to translate (here's a list of popular guides that still need translation to your language: https://es.ifixit.com/Traducir). Clicking on the "TRADUCIR" button on the top right will lead you straight to the translation interface. I stay at your disposal for any further questions or concerns! Best,
Sandra
Sandra Hiller -
Iwant translate into arabic. Mail. Midoelsisi484@gmail.com
الحكاية اليوم - Reply
You have mail ;-)
Sandra Hiller -
So how do I translate everything to English?? Not clear
Wayne 73 - Reply
If you don’t have a specific guide or wiki in mind, we have some recommendations for the most needed translations over at https://www.ifixit.com/translate.
Here, we display a list of popular pages which would be most relevant to translate to your language. You can double-check if you’ve correctly set your language as the respective flag will show up under “translate” and you’ll have the flag of the source language displayed on the left. Please do not try to translate from a source language that you don’t speak. You may sort the list by Guides or Wikis.
Once you found a page that matches your language skills and ideally field of expertise or at least interest, simply click on the respective link. In the guide view, click the “translate” button on the top and you’ll be taken to the translation interface.
Sandra Hiller -
Me encantaría dedicar algo de mi tiempo de vida a traducir estos conceptos a mi idioma nativo.
José Pío, Braojos. - Reply
Hola José.¡Bienvenido! Nos encantaría que nos ayudes a traducir guías. Cualquier duda que tengas no dudes en contactarte. Soy la coordinadora del sitio en español. Aquí tienes una lista de las guías que necesitan traducirse.
https://es.ifixit.com/Traducir
Mariana Roca -
I know that many Koreans, including myself, are active here, so it would be nice if you could support translation into Korean.
여기에서 저를 포함한 많은 한국인들이 활동하는 것으로 알고 있는데 이제 한국어로도 번역을 지원해 주시면 좋을 것 같습니다.
UiJun Lee - Reply
Hi @bp_t628 ! , thank you so much for your comment, we really appreciate it! We’re glad to confirm that we already support translation into Korean! While the translation of guides isn’t yet open for volunteers, the translation of Wikis should already be open for you. You'll find a list of popular Wikis that need translation here: https://ko.ifixit.com/Translate?filter=w.... To start translating, change your language setting to "KO" on the top right and then the "edit" button will automatically also change into a button called "번역”. If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to reach out to translate@ifixit.com!
Sandra Hiller -
I want have it in Swedish
Sune - Reply
Dear @sunevune,
While we haven’t yet started localizing the iFixit Guides and Wikis into Swedish, a team of volunteers has already started localizing the iFixit user interface using an open web translation software which is called "Crowdin". If you'd like to help us in completing our translations, you can just follow this link and create an account to start translating: https://crowdin.net/project/ifixit++, but I would recommend that you read the respective guidelines first: Translator Guidelines Crowdin.
If you have any further questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to drop us a line at translate@ifixit.com!
Sandra Hiller -
Hola. Soy de Venezuela y me gustaría traducir al español siguiendo sus pautas. Y ojalá en un futuro pueda trabajar con Uds. y ayudar con mis colaboraciones a la humanidad. …más finoooo! ( Modismo venezolano que se puede traducir como cheverisimo…jejje otro modismo venezolano…que significa biennn ! Me gusta!)
Elieser Romero Milano - Reply
Bienvenido Elieser!! Gracias por tu comentario y por ofrecernos tu ayuda con las traducciones. Como ya sabrás, nuestro idioma español ya está abierto a las traducciones voluntarias, pero aún queda mucho trabajo por hacer y, por supuesto, estás muy bienvenido a unirte a nuestro equipo de voluntarios. Todo lo que necesitas es crear una cuenta en ifixit.com (si aún no lo has hecho) e ir a la guía que te gustaría traducir (aquí hay una lista de guías populares que aún necesitan ser traducidas a nuestro idioma: https://es.ifixit.com/Traducir). Si haces clic en el botón "TRADUCIR - BUSCAR EN EL IDIOMA RESPECTIVO", situado en la parte superior derecha, accederás directamente a la interfaz de traducción. Antes de empezar a traducir, te recomiendo que leas primero las directrices del traductor de iFixit: iFixit Translator Guidelines
Cualquier duda o comentario, te puedes comunicar conmigo! Gracias por tu entusiasmo! Saludos a todos los hermanos venezolanos de esta argentina ?
Mariana Roca -
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
lassen Sie diese Vergewaltigung der Deutschen Sprache bleiben und kehren Sie auf die normale, allgemein gültige Schreibweise zurück. Es wird langsam unerträglich bzw unlesber mit der Genderideologie, die nur aus Hirnfürzen nichtsnutziger Sesselfurzer entsprungen ist.
Pfui Teufel
Hochachtungsvoll
Fritz Moier - Reply
Uns ist bewusst, dass die Debatte ums Gendern derzeit sehr emotional geführt wird und hier jeweils extreme Einstellungen in beide Richtungen geäußert werden. Mit dem kurzen Abschnitt, den wir hier eingefügt haben, wollen wir dem Rechnung tragen und erläutern, für welche Vorgehensweise wir uns - zumindest vorläufig - intern entschieden haben. Die meisten unserer Texte werden aus dem Amerikanischen übersetzt und es wäre uns auch lieber, wenn die Übertragung zum Beispiel der dort gebräuchlichen neutralen Berufsbezeichnungen ins generische Maskulinum ebenso selbstverständlich auch im Deutschen als neutral empfunden würden. Da dies jedoch scheinbar nicht für alle so selbstverständlich ist, wollen wir sicherstellen, dass sich auf unserer Plattform niemand ausgeschlossen fühlt. Die Entscheidung, wie Sie ihre Beiträge formulieren möchten, bleibt jedoch Ihnen überlassen: Wir würden keine Beiträge ablehnen oder beim Lektorat ändern, nur um beispielsweise Sternchen einzufügen.
Sandra Hiller -
Labdien, ar prieku gribētu tulkot IFixIt uz latviešu valodu!
Hello, i would love to translate IFixIt to Latvian!
Krists Ģēģeris - Reply
Dear @biglad [br]
thank you so much for your offer to help us! We really appreciate it! [br]
We have not yet started localizing the iFixit Guides and Wikis into Latvian, I would suggest you to fill in this form to be one of the first to be contacted as soon as we get started in Latvian and bring forward our mission to share how to fix anything with the entire world.
However, a team of volunteers has already started localizing the iFixit user interface into Latvian, but there is still lots of work to do. We are using an open web translation software which is called "Crowdin". If you'd like to begin right away and take a look, you can just follow this link and create an account to start translating: https://crowdin.net/project/ifixit, but I would recommend that you read the specific guidelines first: https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/Crowdin. [br]
I stay at your disposal for any further questions or concerns over at translate@ifixit.com.
All the best!
Sandra Hiller -