L10n:Teams:mr/styleguide
Mozilla L10n Style Guide
Intro Style guides define the standard against which we determine a translation's quality. They contain rules that are both defined by Mozilla and by Mozilla's localization communities on how to best translate text in Mozilla products, websites, and other projects. Style guides are used to both translate and evaluate a translation's quality. By following these rules, a translator has a better chance of producing a high quality translation that represents Mozilla values and culture. Some examples of international style guides created by other organizations are:
https://help.apple.com/asg/mac/2013/ASG_2013.pdf
https://www.microsoft.com/Language/en-US/StyleGuides.aspx
https://www.facebook.com/translations/style_guides
This style guide is broken up into two main parts: the first contains rules that are language-specific and must be defined by each Mozilla l10n community (covering language-specific style, terminology, and units); the second contains general rules that Mozilla has defined for translators of all languages that can help you translate well (covering principles of accuracy and fluency). Please adapt part one of this style guide to your l10n community's rules for style, terminology, and units. Wherever possible, refer to existing national standards for units, spelling, and grammar in your community's adaptation of the first part of this style guide.
Language-specific Mozilla style
Style
1. Formality and Tone should be respectable. For example yours should be translated as ‘आपला’not as ‘तुमचा’
2. Natural expression should be considered before translating in order to have an easy understanding for the user.
3. Handling cultural references, idioms, and slang
4. For style consistency we use FUEL
Terminology
1.Difficult concepts/ terminologies should be made easy to comprehend otherwise should be transliterated.
2.New term bases should also be given a thought as it gives a new perspective to a difficult word.
Units and Grammar
1.The Units and Unit Conversion should be as it is. It should not be converted from Romans as the numbers are taken by default. And there is currently no mechanism to consider the numbers is Marathi
Spelling And Grammar Checks
Tense, Word Forms,Pluralization, Abbreviations, Acronyms, Punctuation, Emphasis, Hyphens and compounds, Prepositions and articles, Diacritics and Special characters, Quotes, Whitespace.
User Interface Elements
Titles : Should be brief and precise. Localizers can assume that source content reaches 2/3 of the total available line space. This allows localization text to expand and not be truncated or resolved through ellipsis. Title on the final page (meaning no more click through) should allow enough room to display full text.
Buttons: Capitalize the first letter of each word. Limit to one or two words. Use verbs that precisely describe the button's action. For example, "Cancel", "Clear History", "Add Email", "Select All", etc. Value Selector Lists: Capitalize the first letter of the first word and the first letter of any proper nouns. Limit to one or two words.
Articles: Avoid them where possible. Articles (such as the word "the" in English) should be avoided wherever possible. User interface elements have limited space available for text. Avoiding articles will help ensure that your translations will be accommodated within the user interface.
Ellipsis: Ellipsis are often inserted automatically in the UI where strings are truncated. Ellipsis should only be used at high level of UI pages, but not be on the final page (after a series of click-through) where detailed instruction is given. Ellipsis should not be used as a way to solve truncation issue. Focus on making the UI short and precise. The sequence of the sentence structure in another language may not translate well, when a sentence is half finished as such.
General Mozilla l10n style
1. Accuracy
2. Meaning-based translation
3. Should not be translated
4. Shortcuts and accesskeys
5. Variables
6. Brands, copyright, and trademark
7. Legal content
8. Fluency
