Basics[edit source]
- browsing language is the language you're browsing the wiki in (English by default). You can change this by using the language selector in the top right dropdown (currently buggy, but with some page reloads it will work)
- page language is a language of currently viewed page. You can see the language of a page you're reading by looking at the url: if a page is not in English, it will show the language code at the end (like /fr, /pl etc).
- when clicking on any link, the wiki will try to show the page in the language matching your browsing language. If a page is not translated to that language yet, it will show in English.
- to be able to translate, you need to be in a Translator group. If you see a Translator tag in your profile, you can translate.
- pages need to be prepared for translation by a Translation Manager (Translation_manager) before they can be translated.
Keywords[edit source]
There are certain words that should always be translated the same way, like dragon element names, or "Habitat". That's why there is a list of keywords that all translators can use as a guide.
- To translate the keywords to your language, translate the Template:Keyword.
- To view all keywords in a nice way with icons, visit the Keyword Reference page in your language. If it isn't available in your language, you first have to translate it (it's two short messages) and it will show up after a moment. Check this reference when translating! For example, if a page mentions Nature dragons, you can check how exactly you translated "Nature" to not accidentally use synonyms.
- Before you start translating in a new language, make sure Keywords are translated. Some pages like dragon pages will use keywords automatically and you need to know how you translate certain words, so it's better to have those translated first.
- Translators will be notified when new Keywords are added, so you can translate them.
How to translate[edit source]
1. Go to the page that you want to translate. If you're in a Translator group and the page is prepared for translation, you should see a small link on the top. Use it to enter the translation interface.
Links look like this (click on the images to see better):
-
page is in English, browsing in English -
page is in English, browsing in French -
page is translated, browsing in English -
page is translated, browsing in French
2. Select the language you will translate to in the top right corner (see image below). It will automatically set to your browsing language at first, so leave it if it's correct.
3. translate messages (text groups) into your language. Click on the message in the list, and then type your translation in the text box below (marked with purple below). Some messages have an additional explanation to aid in translating (marked with blue below). Make sure to keep the Keyword Reference open in another tab and use it to keep the translations consistent. Also, take a look at the Formatting for Translators guide and feel free to use it as a reference if the messages contain any formatting.
You can omit some groups and come to them later - the resulting translated page will then be incomplete until it's completely translated. Order of translating messages doesn't matter, but they appear in the same order as they do on the page.
4. Once you finshed, just exit the translation interface page. The translation bot will take a moment to create a new translated page or update the existing one if it already existed. Then, you can visit the translated page by following a link to it when browsing in your language, or adding your language code after a / at the end of the url (like /wiki/Main_Page/fr)
How to check your progress[edit source]
You can check the translation progress on the Special:LanguageStats page (It's also accessible from the Editor Hub!). If you aren't sure what's left to translate yet, take a look there.
Type the language code you're interested in, and it will show the translation progress in percentage for each page. Some pages are grouped together and collapsed for clarity, like all dragon pages - you can expand those if needed to see everything in detail. If you click on a group name, you can translate all messages from it together!
Dummy Translations[edit source]
Sometimes, a page will need to be translated even though all the translations are done automatically (for example, if a page only uses keywords), so the system recognises that these pages are translated. An example of such a page is Template:StatPentagon.
In such pages, the only message to translate is a single period (.). All you need to do is to write a period as a translation as well - it will be enough to mark the page as translated to your language. See the image below for an example:
All pages with dummy translations like those are grouped together into a "Dummy Translations" group, which you can see on Special:LanguageStats. Because "translating" them is very quick, you can do them all at once.