Help Translate Journaly!

Journaly is currently accepting translations in 8 languages other than English. We'd love to have your help improving these or translating the UI into new languages!

To help translate one of the existing languages, find it in the table below, download the linked template, fill it out and email it to hello@journaly.com.

To translate a language that isn't listed, drop us a line at hello@journaly.com. and we'll look at adding it. Since not every language has the same usage among our userbase, and because each translation requires maintainance effort, we may wait to add some languages until we find there is a significant demand, but generally we're open to translations. Contact us if you're not sure!

Some terminology

The section that follows contains some specialized language, if you've worked with software translations before it may be famililar, but just in case here's some of the terms we use and what they mean.

• "Strings" are simply pieces of text that are used in the site.
• "Copy" similarly refers to text, although "a piece of copy" may consist of multiple stings (e.g. several paragraphs may collectively be called a piece of copy, but each paragraph will be its own string)
• "Source" refers to copy as it was first written (in the case of Journaly all our copy is written in English, so the English copy is also the source copy)
• "Target" conversely is the language that copy is translated to from English.
• "Tone", "Register" and "Style" are related concepts that describe, roughly speaking, the emotional content of copy. Two sentences may mean the same thing (e.g. in English "hi" and "good afternoon" mean more or less the same thing, but have different tone, the later is more formal).

Filling out a Translation Template

The translation templates are CSV files, which is a simple spreadsheet format. There are a number of tools for working with CSVs, the most widely known is probably Microsoft Excel, but there are several free tools like:

• Open Office (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Table Tool (Mac)
• Google Sheets (Web)

You can use any program you like to edit CSV files, just keep in mind that some (including Google Sheets and Excel) will convert the file when you open it. So be sure to save/download your edits in the CSV format before sending them back to us.

To fill out a template, simply look at the "Source String" column which contains the original English text, and enter the translation in the "Translated String" column. Some strings contain variables which are represented as "{{variable_name}}", which will be substituted with a value on the site. For example the read time string is "{{minutes}} min. read" in English and "{{minutes}} Min. Lesezeit" in German. Use the same variable name in your translation, move it around if that's appropriate for the target language (e.g. it does not need to be at the start of the string in the target langauge, just because it's at the start in English), but keep the name the same.

The "Translator Notes" column is not processed by the system, but it's there as a way for you, the translator, to communicate with us as developers. Feel free to ask questions, explain a particular translation, or generally record your thoughts. Your TL notes won't be revealed to anyone besides the core Journaly team.

Please do not edit any columns other than "Translated String" and "Translator Notes" as this affects our ability to automatically process your submission.

The "status" column records what the system has marked the translation as, e.g. is the translation missing, or has the English copy changed since the last time a translation was submitted. Sometimes translations will be marked out of date, even if they're still valid. If this is the case, simply add a translator note indicating it, and we'll mark it as up to date.

Also feel free to review translations that are marked as being up to date. We generally trust the submissions we get and do not independently verify every translation, we've found that trusting people is generally warranted, but if you find a translation that could be improved, don't be afraid to do so.

Tone in Translations

Translation is difficult and inherently subjective. We generally leave it to the discresion of translators to determine what's appropriate. As a general guide, our English copy is usually written in a semi-casual tone, within the UI we usually avoid slang, but allow contractions and casual constructs. We try to make copy clearly communicate function, but avoid stiff or clinical language.

In your translations, first consider what is natural for web content in your language. If your language has strict distinctions between registers, use whatever register is typical for websites. If there aren't hard and fast rules in your language, try to replicate the "semi-casual" tone from the English copy where possible.

When translating copy that's idiomatic in English, don't be afraid to go off-script to come up with something that sounds natural in the target language. For example, the placeholder text for post title is "The Greatest Story Never Told...". This is a little tongue-in-cheek and if you think of something that's in the same spirit, but has a different literal translation, go for it! For informational text, like error messages, try to keep the translation more literal. Where literal translations vary from the English copy significantly, please leave a TL note to help us understand the change and how it will read in your language.