Translate Organic Maps UI on GitHub

[rtsisyk]

Good morning/afternoon/evening, our beloved users and contributors all around the world! 🗺️

We are desperately looking for your help with translating Organic Maps into other languages. Organic Maps already supports 34 different languages and dialects, and this number is growing:

• ar Arabic
• be Belarusian
• bg Bulgarian
• cs Czech
• da Danish
• de German
• el Greek
• en English (US)
• en_UK English (UK)
• es Spanish
• fa Persian
• fi Finnish
• fr French
• he Hebrew
• hu Hungarian
• id Indonesian
• it Italian
• ja Japanese
• ko Korean
• no a.k.a nb Norwegian
• nl Dutch
• pl Polish
• pt Portuguese
• ro Romanian
• ru Russian
• sk Slovak
• sv Swedish
• sw Swahili
• th Thai
• tr Turkish
• uk Ukrainian
• vi Vietnamese
• zh-cn a.k.a zh-Hans Chinese (simplified)
• zh-tw a.k.a zh-Hant Chinese (traditional)

Please contribute translations for your language to make application better 🍃:

1. Drop a message in comments to this post that you are fluent in $language to get your maintainer 🎩.
2. Review data/strings/strings.txt file, correct all inaccuracies and add new translations. No special tools needed - just edit the file on GitHub or by using Visual Studio Code Online.
3. Send Pull Requests and get reviews from other people fluent in $language.

Please check more thorough docs on other translations files, helper scripts, etc.

[starsep]

I am fluent in pl Polish, I will review strings.txt file.

[vbertola]

I just started to do Italian.

[vbertola]

I did the first 6510 lines for Italian and saved the result - I want to continue working in the next few days and produce a single pull request at the end, though I'm not familiar at all with Github (especially via web) so I'm not sure how to do it. In the meantime, I have some questions and comments:

[download_resources] -> is this mandatory or optional? The English / French text seems to use a courtesy form ("please allow us...") while the current Italian translation is much more direct ("it is mandatory to...").

[fuel] -> in some languages this just says "fuel" while in others it says "fuel station", which is the correct one? Same for others in this group, e.g. [tourism]; also, should these terms be singular or plural?

[children] -> this seems to be a weird category for "family holiday", which is not a common concept in my language. I translated it "for children".

[pref_zoom_summary] -> English is "display on the map" but almost all other languages say "display on the screen".

[downloader_downloaded_subtitle], [downloader_available_maps]... -> is this singular or plural? male or female? English has no gender and also no plural in adjectives, but other languages do, so it's vital to know the context.

Colors: I must say this app has a weird choice of colours - e.g. the two grays which are almost impossible to tell apart, and in Italian there are not even common names to express them - same naming problems for "teal" or "lime". I did my best :)

[biodranik]

download_resources is mandatory, it downloads the World map.

[fuel] text is insertable when a user selects it from the Search window. It should match synonyms in data/categories.txt. Its meaning is "gas stations" — e.g. find places where you can refuel your car (plural). Or just "Gas" or "Petrol".

The same is for [tourism]: it should find different places interesting for tourists (plural).

pref_zoom_summary is a setting in preferences that toggles +/- buttons on the screen, on top of the map. So the screen sounds better.

Colors are weird indeed :)

[te2dy]

I can contribute to the French translation.

[Supaplextw]

I can contribute to the zh-tw translation

[gkalausis]

I can contribute to Lithuania translation, but I don't see it in the list 😕

[biodranik]

You are welcome to add it! Just insert lt = YourTranslation everywhere.

[gkalausis]

Should I fully translated everything and only then create PR or can it be smaller PR's? Because it takes time to translate everything :)

[rtsisyk]

English will be used as a fallback.

[Kazing]

I am fluent in French and can contribute to translations. I will review the string.txt file.

[biodranik]

There are also few more files to translate:

1. TTS sounds data/strings/sound.txt
2. Map object types data/strings/types_strings.txt
3. "What types to search" and search synonyms data/categories.txt
4. Cuisines data/categories_cuisines.txt
5. Few iOS specific strings iphone/plist.txt
6. Android stores description android/src/google/play/listings/en-US/
7. AppStore description iphone/metadata/en-US/

[rtsisyk]

Please add to CONTRIBUTING.md!!!

[pastk]

https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/blob/master/docs/TRANSLATIONS.md

[LeoAl1590]

I can help with Spanish

[matheusgomesms]

I can glad review/translate strings in Portuguese-Brazil :D

I would also suggest to make available for translation the app screenshots templates (the ones that appear on App/Play Store), if possible. Not sure how it was made, but I believe this is a nice touch to attract non-English speakers ;)

[jimcarst]

I can help with the nl-translation. Perhaps it's useful for this issue to use a tool for knowing and keeping track of which translations originate from Google Translate and which are manually corrected.

[houtari]

In the UI I've bumped into some Finnish phrases that in my ears sound a bit odd, which I'll be glad to fix. I can take a look at the Finnish and Swedish translations as I speak both fluently. Btw. is there a way to change the used language in the UI? If so I haven't found it yet. This would be handy when you do translations - specially in several languages. Is there's a straightforward trick to find possible missing translations within a single language?

[biodranik]

That would be great!

1. To switch UI language you need either to switch default system language for iOS and Android or select the app's language in the app's settings on iOS.
2. There is tools/python/find_untranslated_strings.py, but it's outdated and does not do its job very well. It would be great if someone helps fixing it (at least, to properly support plural forms like "en:one", "en:other" etc.

[pastk]

@houtari the script to find missing translations had been fixed, e.g.
tools/python/strings_utils.py --languages fi,sv --missing-translations
Please check types_strings.txt file also if you have time: tools/python/strings_utils.py --types-strings --languages fi,sv --missing-translations

[LaoshuBaby]

I can contribute to zh-CN/zh-Hans strings.

I'm a native speaker of Simplified Chinese and now living in China. I've already have experience in iD editor's localization in zh-CN, and also contributed strings to taginfo, JOSM, and somethings other.

[rtsisyk]

=> https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/teams/translations-zh-hans

[matheusgomesms]

Is this going to be handled in Weblate/any translation tool in the near future or shall we work on strings.txt file directly?

[vbertola]

Indeed Github is problematic for those of us who do not use it normally (not everyone here writes code). A couple of weeks ago I spent quite some time to edit strings via the web interface, I saved the result but I did not send a pull request because I wanted to continue working on it and just send one. As a result, apparently my edits (even in my fork of the project) have disappeared completely...

[biodranik]

Please contribute in parts, that's ok. We're still experimenting with weblate, unfortunately it doesn't properly handle our current workflow.

[pastk]

Indeed Github is problematic for those of us who do not use it normally (not everyone here writes code). A couple of weeks ago I spent quite some time to edit strings via the web interface, I saved the result but I did not send a pull request because I wanted to continue working on it and just send one. As a result, apparently my edits (even in my fork of the project) have disappeared completely...

Hey, I think I found your lost translations! Is that it?
vbertola@5321dd5

[vbertola]

Yes, thanks! But how do I continue editing that file so that I can then submit the complete translations? (also in that version there is an error that I need to fix)

[pastk]

Yes, thanks! But how do I continue editing that file so that I can then submit the complete translations? (also in that version there is an error that I need to fix)

Go here https://github.com/vbertola/organicmaps/blob/patch-1/data/strings/strings.txt
and click the edit button - continue editign, fixing previous things etc.
When saving choose the default option to save to the same branch (your branch is called patch-1).
Then you can edit one more time and again and again - its a good idea to save from time to time so that you don't lose your work.
When you think you're finished create a Pull Request from your patch-1 branch - it will include all your commits / save points. See https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-pull-requests/proposing-changes-to-your-work-with-pull-requests/creating-a-pull-request

[pastk]

And actually making a few smaller pull requests instead of one big PR is better. Because someone else with a knowledge of Italian will need to review your changes and this is also easier to do in smaller batches :)

[rtsisyk]

@organicmaps/translations-de, I started translating web-site to German. I know that you are thedream team and fix my broken automatic translation very quickly ;)

organicmaps/website#69

[rtsisyk]

@organicmaps/translations-fr, please help us with translating web site:

organicmaps/website#74

[rtsisyk]

Let's talk about moving website into Weblate to make translations easier: #4076 (comment)

[rtsisyk]

It would be nice if somebody can volunteer to translate Organic Maps website and app to Hindi. I realized that English is not such widespread in India as I expected. There are too many regional languages such as Tamil, Marathi, Bengali, Urdu, Kannada, and others. Majority of people usually know at least two or even three languages. My expectations that Hindi + English can cover 60-70% of people. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[proxygeek]

I'd love to translate it to Hindi and can get started this weekend. OrganicMaps is one of my favorite ones and would love to help out.
(Btw, I know it's planned - but being able to record / export / import a track - is one of the most frequently used features by me, which is what is keeping me from using OM more often).

[JohannesDeml]

If there are any more people needed for German, I'm happy to help :)

[rtsisyk]

I've invited you. It looks like that we already need a coordinator for German team, 7 people already.

[Karalynx]

I am fluent in Lithuanian and have 2 years of experience in translating.

[rtsisyk]

I've created @organicmaps/translations-lt team and invited you.

[tkbremnes]

I can help out translating into Norwegian $nb
I've got a PR in the making filling some holes, as well as some adjustments to existing strings.

[rtsisyk]

I've invited you into @organicmaps/translations-nb team. You will be first!

[rtsisyk]

Let's continue about Weblate here: #4515. Please take a look!

[proxygeek]

While the discussions continue on Weblate and a decision is pending, are there some translations I can still offer directly in the strings.txt file - especially for Hindi?

[j13m126]

Hi @proxygeek , I opened a pull request for Hindi a few weeks ago. It would be great if you could have a look at the open suggestions and review it.

[rtsisyk]

yes, please follow existing process for now.

[NLBRT]

I'm native in Bengali [bn] and can contribute to translations. I'll fix up any translation errors from previous editors/translation attempts and continue with the unfinished portions.

[biodranik]

Let's start with adding translations to strings.txt

[j9d3it]

Hi I am fluent in Japanese, please add me to the maintainers. I've noticed a lot of mistakes.

[j9d3it]

Thank you. I think using something like Crowdin may be good in the future. It's a nice platform for translating software and websites and is free for open source software. They have a Global TM (translation memory) which allows fast translations of common words so that the more difficult sentences can be focused on. It also presents one word or phrase at a time which is easier than editing a big file and messing something up.

[biodranik]

We have already discussed it in the past. Crowdin is better than Weblate, as it supports editing markdown files that are used on our website.

The disadvantage is that there are not so many users there, so we need to tell translators to register there.

It would be great if someone can try to setup a demo/trial project with our website markdown files and check if it's possible to integrate OM's workflow with strings translations and their reviewing.

[j9d3it]

You can log in to Crowdin with Github, no need to make a new account. https://accounts.crowdin.com/login

[biodranik]

What we need from Crowdin or another system for our website translations:

1. The source en language for content automatically comes from our Github.
2. Any translations are contributed back as markdown files.
3. If already translated en content was changed, or a new en paragraph was added, translators should be notified/aware of it and update the translation.

[j9d3it]

1. They support either file or string based translation with the Github integration.
2. Markdown is supported
3. Translators can sign up to be notified when new strings are added. I think a changed string counts as a new one.

[fitojb]

I'd like to start gradually translating the app to Asturian. It's my fifth language and I'm becoming fluent in it:)

[biodranik]

Not sure that our current localization system will support pdt language code. Do iOS and Android support it natively? With which locale/code?

[CharliePlett]

Hi I'm fluent in Plautdietsch (pdt) and I would like to contribute translations to the app.

[biodranik]

Not sure that our current localization system will support pdt language code. Do iOS and Android support it natively? With which locale/code?

[schembriaiden]

Hiya, I am fluent in Maltese, are you considering adding it to your list?

[biodranik]

You can check existing files in data/strings/ and add mt translation there.

[muralito]

Galego should be added, to improve the support for this languages and try to reduce the level of conflict with toponymy in Spain. Euskara an Catala are already supported.

[danamoh0mmed]

Hi, I'm fluent in Central Kurdish (CKB) "کوردیی ناوەندی" and really excited to translate this app for CKB speakers. Please guide me.

[biodranik]

Hi and welcome! Here are the instructions: https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/blob/master/docs/TRANSLATIONS.md