Here's some of my experience, would love to hear more from others: I've had the fortune of having some passionate users voluntarily translate one of my apps so far into 9 languages, from English. In addition there's an iOS version with slightly different text here and there. I've used the free google translate toolkit (http://translate.google.com/toolkit/) which accepts strings.xml files as well as html files, etc. I converted the iOS Localizable.strings format to a strings.xml format (and then back). The first few translations were done manually, with no toolkit, and it was tough. The toolkit really helps, as the UI is pretty nice, and it fills in some default machine translations which can be edited. In addition there's the ability to add comments, etc.
I really started this after the app was relatively mature, but there have been changes in the text over time, and I've found that the best way to keep track of that is to simply create new files with the new text, for translation. If there's quite a bit of change, then I wait until all the translations come back before I put out a release. It's hard to offer advice as far as whether you should wait or not, it really depends on how important reaching more users are to you, vs. having a stable app. It's probably not the end of the world to have some strings in english, but it can also be jarring to a user. One thing that i've realized in hindsight is that, a picture truly is worth 1000 words, and now I think very carefully before adding any text to the application that can't otherwise be represented more "universally." In fact, the structure of some languages, such as German, has wreaked havoc on several critical UI elements which had text in them for which English words were compact. So that may be something to consider. I'm also coming from a place where people have voluntarily translated the application text, for which I am extremely grateful, so I hesitate to frivolously reach out to them constantly. If you're paying for translations from professionals, then I'm sure it will be different. Please, anyone else with experience on this, chime in. I'm curious about this Get Localization as well, has anyone else used it? How is the quality of the translation? There's a few languages I'd love to get some translations in and I'd love to hear what works and doesn't. On Friday, November 23, 2012 11:13:03 PM UTC-5, UgglyNoodle wrote: > > I am planning to add translations to my Android app. I have created a Get > Localization <http://www.getlocalization.com/> project for users to > translate my string resources. However, I have some concerns. My app is > still under constant development, and I typically add features every week > or two. Often these features will contain some new strings. So it seems > that either I would have to wait for users to translate the new strings > before updating the app, or else release an update with incomplete > translations (in which case the users will see the English strings for the > new features). > > I feel like there is not a good solution and this is making me very > reluctant to incorporate the translations. I'm wondering whether I should > wait until my app becomes more stable in terms of features, but this could > be a while away. I'm just hoping that some of you might have some advice > for me - perhaps there is some solution I haven't considered. Thanks. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
