[Request] - Sticky Post for Documentation Translation Service

Hi,

I've been helping some times with translations in the Unity Manual to Spanish with the translation site.
I'm here to ask to talk about the Documentation Translation Service.

For those who don't know it, is this: http://translate.unity3d.com/

Documentation Translation Service allows any Unity user to contribute the official documentation by translating the contents in English to any other language supported.

Currently the supported languages are:

• Russian
• Chinese (China)
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Spanish
• Korean
• Japanese

So I would like to make a poll to ask if Forum users do know it and think it could be improved so we can get more from it. Please answer to the poll (and ask others to answer it too if you want to make this more open).

So could we add a sticky post here so all the users that want and can help with the translation find the site quickly and know about it?

This way the community could help to translate the official documentation quicker and help people that at first can't understand english well to know Unity so after that they can start helping others.

Because I find that there are a lot of features requested in the Issue Tracker but we need to improve the docs so the users can spread the voice to others and say: Hey! Look at this, you can help to translate and add improvements in your language. Let's make Unity more popular , it be great to talk about how to improve this services.

I don't know exactly how this is implemented but we can agree that if there are better ways to do translations or other community driven aspects of Unity we should discuss about them and take the moderators and admins in too. I will add a section below for this and keep it updated with new items.

Also,I think there should be also a monthly (for example or maybe in a predefined set of days) discussion where the users can vote in a poll here so we can discover which problems they find in the documentation so we can lead the source of problems to a more detailed Issue Tracker Ticket so all the users can vote to that.


Now, if you allow me, I will do a little intro to how to use this service:

INTRODUCTION TO DOCUMENTATION TRANSLATION SERVICE​

When you enter the site you will see the contents shown in the above image. There are you main sections and a footer in the site:

• The sidebar

This section contains the parts of Unity documentation that can be translated by the users.
This parts are the following ones: Website, Manual, Scripting Reference and Terminology.
There you can find the different sections with its respective percentage of translation done.

​

The colors in the bars represent the following states of the contents:

• Green: The contents have been translated by users and accepted by moderators. Be aware that this doesn't mean that you can write a new suggestion for those contents.

• Red: This means that these contents have been translated but the user that provided the suggestion wasn't sure that it was completely correct. (Don't worry, you will know how to do this later below).

• Grey: The grey ranges are contents that haven't been translated yet. There are a lot of these in some languages so go ahead and translate them.

• Yellow (with number): Finally the yellow zones mean that a number of suggestions (marked by the number) have been submitted but they have to be reviewed yet.

​

• The main window

Here you will find the intro with indications on how to do the translations and how the service work. In my opinion, this section should be improved yet to have a clear idea of the way the suggestions have to be done and which parts remain intact.​

• Footer

In this part you will find, on the left side, the filters to help you find the contents you want to translate and a Night Mode if you prefer it. On the right side you will find two buttons.
​

Ok, then how we start translating any content?

It's easy. Just click on any of the dropdown lists in the sidebar and again do click on the section you want to start translating.

For example, I'm going to open the Raycasters section that has less than half of the content translated.

​

When you open that section, you will see that the main window changes and shows a table with rows marked in different colors.

This rows are the contents that can be translated into the language that you have selected in the language dropdown at the top of the page.

​

I'm translating into spanish so the table will show:

• In the first column, the contents of that section in English.
• In the second column, the suggestions for those contents translated into the new language (in this case spanish).

Then, we just have to click on the row we want to translate and a window like this will appear:

​

The way to translate the content is simple:

1. Write your suggestion for the content in English in the rectangle below following the instructions you received in the intro page.
2. If you're not sure 100% of your suggestion, check the Fuzzy control below. This will mark the suggestion in red on the table so other users can find it and try to translate it with a better suggestion.
3. Finally click on the Suggest button. Then the window will close and you will see your suggestion appear in the row (or if it has been already written by another user, you will find it under the other one).

Don't worry for the side panel that appears, it just shows words from the terminology section (that you can also translate) and allows you to introduce the corresponding translation of the word you click into your suggestion.

That's all, see! Very easy! Now you can help translating more contents and make Unity documentation better.

But wait, you could have checked the documentation and now you could be thinking: Where is my translation? I don't see it.

It's normal, your suggestion won't be accepted automatically, because first the reviewers have to check it and decide if it's valid and if it's better than the current suggestion. Anyway, if you suggestion gets accepted, you will receive an email and after some days your suggestion will be applied to the documentation.

The next part will be about the footer buttons, so stay alert.​

​

SUGGESTIONS / IMPROVEMENTS

I want to start this section by giving some topics that we can start developing, so feel free to write your own ones and we will discuss its priority and how it can help to the service:

• Little introduction to the Language Translation Service:

• The intro is very poor and users need a detailed approach (with images if possible or gifs maybe) on how to do translations. For example, which way to express the concepts (like an impersonal way or refering to the reader as if you write to someone in the forums).

• Also there should be an intro in each language that the Unity documentation can be translated and currently there are some missing.

​

• List of suggestions given for a phase or word by other users so they can vote for that suggestion. I am thinking in this more like Duolingo forums where they discuss the meaning and think about a way that fits in different locales for a given language.

• ...

 

Great! I've been searching for this for so long. I'm doing a TP for my master's on the current state of affairs of the Spanish translation for this docs. XD Pitty Unity won't pay us for this job... because it is a job...