Hi guys!
Today I would like to talk about localization. My native language is Russian, I tried only Russian and English UI. English localization looks much better!
What’s wrong with Russian localization:
specific grammatical mistakes (for example, “защита активирован” instead of “защита активирована”)
strange terms (sometimes directly translation is not the best choice)
different fonts for cyrillic and latin letters
even if you use Russian UI, some website will work in English (I like it, but for many users it could be a problem)
I used Maxthon for many years and Maxthon had similar problems with localization. I remember the time when official translation was so bad that some users made own localization file and shared it with community. To be honest, Maxthon and Brave are the only browsers where I prefer English and this is really bad, because your native language is always better!
When Maxthon tried to fix the issue, they went Crowdin, How it works:
the developer publishes terms to translate
some user translate the term
if someone does not agree with translation, he can add own translation
other users can vote and choose better translation
It works, but it works too slow. If the developers make too many changes, users have no time to translate and choose new terms. It mean that some even if you use Russian UI, some terms will be in English. By the way today Vivaldi has the same problems (but Vivaldi has the developer who know Russian).
A few weeks ago Mozilla released new version of Firefox (67.0). They added some new features and… Russian UI still looks fine. I’m talking about feeling: if this is you native language, you just how it should sound and look. For example they used “цифровые отпечатки” for “digital fingerprint” (instead of literal “цифровые отпечатки пальцев”). I don’t know how they did it, but Brave should do the same.
No one can prepare a perfect localization. You need to understand the language, know the context and see the interface. Brave have good translation (almost literal), but this is bad UI localization. Can someone explain how localization works in Brave / Chromium? Does Brave have a special file with translation? I want to add some fixes. Sometimes it looks like a modification from fans, but regional interface should be perfect!
Moz have many active contributors that help them with the l10n. Brave also open for contribution. But it’s not as “massive” and organized yet like Moz, IMHO.
OK, I joined the translation team on Transifex and now I have new questions:
Why are there two Russian languages: Russian (ru) and Russian (ru_RU)?
As I know, usually it means Russian for people who live in Russia (ru_RU) and Russian for all who understand Russian (ru). But Russian is not English or Spanish: people from many countries speak Russian, but this is still the same language. There are no differences in grammar or language structure. I think we don’t need two identical projects.
What about special terls like Shields, Rewards or Payments?
A few years ago I translated MX5 (fifth incarnation of Maxthon). There were many specific features: PassKeeper. Infobox. UUMail, MXNote, etc. I think terms like these should not be translated: this is something like a title. But what about Brave’s specific features? Is this a title or just a description? Should we translate “Shields” like “Щиты” оr “Защита” (current translation of the word “shields” - “protection”)? I think we can save special terms: Brave Shields, Brave Rewards, Brave Payments, etc.
Is there a way to look on new translation?
The main problem of Russian localization was long texts. I want to fix it, but sometimes I just can’t translate the phrase with no additional words. I need to check how it will look in the browser UI. Is there a way to do this?
"Shields UP for this site"
Is this a reference to “Star Trek”? Because in Russian localization it is translated as “Защита активирована для этого сайта” - “Protection activated for this site”. I think this is a good translation, because you can say “Щиты подняты” (Shields up), but “Щиты опущены” (Shields down) sounds too strange… So I like that you use “защита” (protection) instead of literal “щиты” (shields), but…
"АКТИВИРОВАН" is a mistake
In Russian it sounds almost like “Amiga bailamos” instead of “Amiga baila” in Spanish. “Female” noun and “male” verb. It mean if you still want to use this translation, you should change it to “Защита АКТИВИРОВАНА для этого сайта” (активироваНА instead of активироваН).
"Защита АКТИВИРОВАНА для этого сайта" is too long line
You use ON for “enable” and OFF for “disable”. You also can say “turn on” or “turn off”. In Russian we use only “включен” (-на, -но) / "выключен (-на, -но). But sometime this is too long works, so… You can use just “ВКЛ” (ON) and “ВЫКЛ” (OFF). Some people prepare to write this words with a point: “ВКЛ.” and “ВЫКЛ.” It’s about capital letters. If you use “вкл.” and “выкл.” you need to use points anyway. In other words, I think you should use “Защита ВКЛ. для этого сайта” и “Защита ВЫКЛ. для этого сайта”, it will look much better.
Counters and options
In English you can say “Cross-site trackers blocked” and “23 cross-site trackers blocked”. In Russian these are different phrases: “Сторонние трекеры заблокированы” and “23 сторонних трекера заблокировано”. I’m almost sure that we can’t translate it without mistakes, because “trackers” can be translated as “трекеры”, “трекер” (for 1, 21, 31, etc.), “трекера” (for 23, 34, etc.), “трекеров” (for 15, 26, 39, etc.).
I think we should forget about counters and translate it like a term in the options:
“Подключать HTTPS” (≈ “Connect HTTPS”) or “Переключаться на HTTPS” (≈"Switch to HTTPS")
“Блокировать скрипты” (≈"Block scripts")
“Блокировать сторонние кукис” (≈"Block cross-site cookies") / “Блокировать файлы кукис” (≈"Block cookies") / “Разрешить файлы кукис” (≈"Allow cookies"). You also can use “cookies” instead of “кукис”, sometimes it looks better.
Digital fingerprinting
In Russian “fingerprint” is “отпечаток пальца”, “digital fingerprint” is “цифровой отпечаток пальца”, but “digital fingerprinting” as identification by digital fingerprint is “идентификация по цифровому отпечатку пальца”. Too many words, too many letters. And I see two ways to fix it:
“Блокировать цифровые отпечатки” (≈"Block digital fingerprints") / “Блокировать сторонние отпечатки” (≈"Block cross-site fingerprints) / “Разрешить цифровые отпечатки” (≈"Allow digital fingerprints")
“Запретить идентификацию” (≈"Prevent identification") / “Запретить стороннюю идентификацию” (≈"Prevent cross-site identification") / “Разрешить идентификацию” (≈"Allow identification"). In my opinion, this translation looks better than the first one.
"Items blocked and connections upgraded"
I have no idea how to translate it. Firstly, this is because of counters too. It mean that the simpler way is translate it like a title - “Заблокированные объекты” (≈"Blocked objects"). But I don’t know how to translate “connections upgraded”, it sound to strange. “Объекты заблокированы, соединение обновлено” (≈"Objects are blocked, connection is upgrade") maybe? I can not translate it better…
Global shield defaults
This is simple: “Общие настройки защиты” (“General security settings”). For some reasons today it’s translated as “Изменить глобальные настройки щита” (“Change global shield settings”). This is the only “shield” in Russian localization.
Another thing that every Brave user from Russia and CIS see every day is a new tab. Localization for a new tab looks not so bad, but I still see many strange solutions.
That’s wrong?
In English you can say just “trackers”, does not matter how many trackers you see. In Russian you need to know this numbers: “1 трекер”, “2 трекера”, “5 трекеров” and the same for “21 трекер”, “32 трекера”, “45 трекеров”. Counters are too hard in Russian!
I think it could be just a titles:
“Заблокированные трекеры” (≈"Blocked trackers")
“Заблокированная реклама” or “Заблокированные объявления” (≈"Blocked ads")
“Подключения HTTPS” (≈"HTTPS connection")
“Сэкономленное время” (≈"Saved time")
Hours and minutes. We still can not translate it because this is a counter. I suggest using short words: “мин.” (“min.”) and “ч.” (“h.”). This is the only solution I see.
Photos. In my opinion, “Источник фото” (“Source of photo”) sounds better than “Фото сделано” (“Photo made by”).
Guys, I hoped you will update Russian localization of new tab in next versions, but in last update (.125) you broke it: now there are two terms in English (ads and trackers). You probably changed the terms and now old translation does not work.
@Asad, OK. Let me know if you have questions.
By the way, I checked settings (global shields):
Default – Общие (General) or Настройки по умолчанию (≈ Settings by default)
Your current per-site settings will be retained – Текущие настройки для каждого сайта сохраняются автоматически (≈ Current per-site settings will be retained automatically)
Ad control – Блокировка рекламы (≈ Ad blocking):
– Block ads – Блокировать рекламу
– Allow ads and trackers – Разрешить рекламу и трекеры (if you have no place, use “Разрешить рекламу” only)
Cookie control – Настройки cookies / Настройки кукис (≈ Settings of cookies) or Контроль cookies / Контроль cookies
I think you should use “cookies” for Russian too (because you already do this for Shields)
– Block 3d party cookies – Блокировать сторонние cookies
2d and 3d point are translated already.
Fingerprinting protection – Цифровые отпечатки or Защита от идентификации (≈ Identity Protection):
– Block 3d party fingerprinting – Блокировать сторонние отпечатки
– Block all fingerprinting – Блокировать все цифровые отпечатки (or remove “цифровые” if you need place)
– Allow fingerprinting – Разрешить цифровые отпечатки
Brave also open for contribution. But it’s not as “massive” and organized yet like Moz, IMHO.
They should remain as-is.