How to translate Wiki pages

After researching how to translate wiki pages on the web, the recommendations below surfaced as common themes for best practice:

Translating a Page

1. Go to the page you want to translate.
2. Click on the "Translate" link at the top of the page. This will take you to a Translate page for the specific page you are viewing. Specify the language of the newly translated page from the drop-down listbox, and enter an appropriate title for the newly translated page. Click "Create translation". The title should be a direct translation of the original title's page. For example: if you want to translate the "Getting Started" page to Russian, and an appropriate title for that page in Russian would be "Начинаем", enter that in the Name of the newly translated page field and click "Create translation".
3. You'll be redirected to the new page with an edit box. The content of the page will automatically be placed in the edit box of the new page. An indicator will be placed at the top of this page indicating that "Translation in progress." Start translating the page (and remove the indicator when done).

Choosing a good page title (step 2)

Some translators make the mistake of choosing a wrong title for the translated page.

• Let's say you want to translate the About PVD Wiki page to Spanish.
• A good title would be "Acerca de Wiki de EVP".
• A bad title is "AboutPVDWiki_Spa".
• Remember, the title you choose will be displayed in the browser's title bar! The title is supposed to be read by humans.

If the translated page title is the same as (or very similar to) the original English page title, then you should append your language's name to the page title. For example:

• You want to translate the Downloads page to Indonesian.
• "Indonesian" is "Bahasa Indonesia" in Indonesian.
• "Download" (in English) is known as "Download" in Indonesian.
• Then call the new page: "Download (Bahasa Indonesia)"

Supporting multiple languages in the same wiki page

Obviously you can have more than one language in the same wiki page. However, if you want to have the same content appear in more than one language in the wiki page, you can use the LANG plugin.

Syntax for the LANG plugin looks like this:

{LANG(lang=>fr)}Bonjour le monde!{LANG}

{LANG(lang=>es)}¡Hola, mundo!{LANG}

{LANG(notlang=>fr+es)}Hello world!{LANG}

The above example will work as follows — if the visitor has set French as their preferred language, then the French text will appear in the wiki page. If the visitor has Spanish set, then the spanish text will appear. Otherwise, if the visitor's preferred language is not French or Spanish, the third option will display.

Only the page content matching the users preferred language will appear in the page.

What not to translate

You're not supposed to translate everything. Some words are special keywords for the wiki software.

• Do not translate text like {toc}, {poll}, {content} etc. Those are special keywords for the Wiki. Leave them as they are.
• Text that have the form ((Something|Some more text)) are wiki macros. Only translate the "Some more text" part.

Tools to Assit with Translating Wiki Pages

Google Translate
Babel Fish

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