If I wanted to translate an entire app (with button names and labels, and long text), is it better to just make a different app? Or is there a translation api I can use?
The reason I ask is that I tried going to the Goolge Play store and searching it in a different language, and it basically didn't understand what I wanted. So is there a different Goolge Play interface for different languages? Or some setting which I need to turn on?
How does this generally work?
Thank you!
use all your strings from a file instead of hard coded way. the name of the file is strings.xml in values folder, and for another language what u need to do is to crate values-ru values-ch etc. folder and put your strings.xml inside the folder. and change the values. this was a fast approach to explain your solution. for expanded, detailed solution is here : http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/localization.html
You don't want to make multiple versions of the application. In general this is accomplished by using a locale-specific dictionary for each translation you want to use, so instead of hard-coding strings in your application you would reference an element in the appropriate reference database instead, which is basically a list of all the strings you use in your application.
Here's some information I found specifically for Android development: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/localization.html
As for translating, natural language processing isn't far enough along yet to give good translations automatically, especially without context. You can try Google's translate API (https://developers.google.com/translate/) which uses some statistical methods, but even that will likely give you erroneous translations (I'm sure you've probably used Google or another service to translate something and out came something you could be pretty certain wasn't accurate). You might be able to use that as a first step to converting the application to different languages and, if your application is open source (or even if it isn't) ask for user input as to the accuracy of the various translations.
Hopefully that is helpful.
Related
I have a full-fledged working Flutter app. Now, I want it to support multiple languages, such as Spanish, Hindi, Urdu, etc. (primarily Indian Languages which are available in Google Translate).
I have searched about this, but all of them mention about "arb files" in which I believe, I have to manually write each and every translated string of the whole app.
I would like to build a package with a class (or just a method) which may require 2 parameters, string and the locale in which translation is required.
Kindly suggest me the best way to achieve it and how can I do it. A link to tutorial would be appreciated.
Flutters own step by step walkthrough to i18n is literally the first result that pops up when you put "Flutter localization" into Google.
https://docs.flutter.dev/development/accessibility-and-localization/internationalization
If for some reason you don't want .arb files, you can roll your own. But be prepared that you will find out along the way what is missing and ending up with a home-brewn solution that is worse than Flutters own to achieve the same thing.
There is no magic function to translate text. Even if you could translate on the fly with a translation service, translation services have become really good in recent years, but they (as any human you could hire) are only as good as the context they get. If they get only single words or half sentences, as is common in an app with headlines and buttons, the result will be horrible. As if you just put every single word into a dictionary. That is not translation. It will feel artificial and laughable.
So... give the existing packages a try. Start with Flutters. It might seem complicated, but it's complicated for a reason.
I want to know whether it is possible to translate any android application in any language.
Like all application is in English language can it is possible or any API available to convert it into other language.
Let's say example like in setting menu we have Wi-fi,Bluetooth,Call Setting,about phone etc.are in english language. so with the help of any translator can we convert it into any language?
I already go through this link http://android-developers.blogspot.in/2013/03/native-rtl-support-in-android-42.html
To translate an application to another language you need a human translator, that is, a human being knowing what the application does, knowing the target language, knowing the rules of translation to the target language (*), and preferably knowing the language that the application was originally developed in.
(*) For example, Polish software always says "thou, do this!" because otherwise it would have to know who is reading the text: a man, a woman, several women, or several persons including at least one man. Your translator must follow common practice for the target language (for example, it would be wrong to re-phrase Polish to use nouns instead of verbs).
If you have a human translator, you can translate the application. First, make sure that no user-visible text is hard-coded, and no phrases are composed programmatically. Then, you just let the translator translate the resources. Resources for different languages will reside in different directories of your project. But the translator must know the context of each phrase, know what the application does before showing a message and what it will do after a menu item is chosen. If the translation is poor, a native speaker may get puzzled and will never choose the menu item that he/she is looking for.
There are companies specializing in app UI translation. They will want your money and you will not be able to evaluate the quality of their job by yourself, but probably this is the best you can do. (PS do not forget to ask them what happens if you change/add one or two messages.)
This might help:
Google translate api:
https://developers.google.com/api-client-library/java/apis/translate/v2
I have an application that was build with all the text in English. I would like to add more support for other languages, but am concerned about my users who don't necessarily care about the application now having support for Spanish or whatever new language I have added needing to update. Also, if I am correcting bad translations on a daily basis this would be really annoying to users.
One idea is to make calls to a web service that provides the content for there specific local, which would allow for easy changing if there are bad translations and what have you. The concern with this is of course the speed.
So is there a right way or a better way to add/change values in the localization without forcing people to update?
I understand your problem. And I have one question. Do you think that it will not be annoying for users if your application requests the external service every time when, for instance, new activity is opened?
To my point of view, you should add support of a language, test the correctness of your translation (for instance, you can ask a user from another country who use your application to check the translation) and only then update your app in the market. If all your string resources are in xml files it is not very difficult to support several languages.
So my proposal for you is at first extract all your string resources into strings.xml file (for default language folder), and then just make several values folders with additional language support.
Adding localization is usually (if you followed the good practices) a matter of upgrading a few XML files. So even if the users upgrade, it won't take long at all and they will probably not notice (if they use autoupdate) from the market.
Check this out for more details.
so I am starting to learn how to develop Android Applications. I have experience with Java and C# from school, and I would say that while I am not a pro, I definitely have a fairly good handle on Object Oriented Programming.
So one thing I don't understand about Android is resources. For example, let's say I have a TextView in my GUI. Why do I have to define a string "Hello," then make the value that string called "Hello" = "hello?" I don't understand why the software development kit doesn't just let users make that string value "hello," and be done with it. What is the purpose of storing numbers and strings and stuff into resources? I know that there must be a solid explanation for this, but I just don't know what.
Also, I am experimenting with an Addition program (where I prompt the user with a randomized math problem, and they can input their answer, and my program will check if it is right or wrong, and restart). So I have a TextView for the problem (i.e., 1 + 1). When I create the TextView, I had to create a problemString in the resources, and then assign the problem TextView to the problemString. However, in my program, when the user has gotten the math problem right or wrong, I write over the problem with a new problem by simply changing the text of the textview. In no way do I interact with the problemString from the resources. And this works. So again, my question is, what is the purpose of having application resources and what role do they play in an application.
Also, how do I access, write over, and do stuff with the application resources.
Sorry that this is a really long question, but I really think Android dev. is really cool, and I am very eager to learn. Any help is APPRECIATED! xD
Thanks!
Imagine your application with a thousand different strings to display to a user. If you need to change 30 of them, do you want to dig through all your code, or one file?
Also localization is another reason for having different sets of string resources, as well as other resources, specific to a locale. Take the above scenario, a thousand different strings, AND three different languages. How would you handle that? Three different version programs? No.
I have an idea to let users translate my application to their own languages.
I imagine this in this way:
If application is not translated to user's system language, English version of UI is displayed and user is asked for help in translation (it's obvious)
Next, user is asked for translate some phrases from English to his mother tongue. And asked to check some others translations. (it's a bit of work, but nothing sophisticated)
Hard part of my idea is:
User presses "update translation" and text resources for this application are update to latest editions.
Of course it's possible to make frequent updates, but this approach has some disadvantages:
1. I have to make all of those updates frequently, and not all of users will be happy with it.
2 Even if updates will be done weekly, time from make effort to get results will be too long form most of users, and probably, response will be not as good as it can be.
Have you any idea how to load translations "on-line"?
Android currently doesn't support this. To accomplish what you want, you'd need to insert your own resource handling code to return strings everywhere they are used in your UI. This means you couldn't let the framework load strings itself (for example no use of android:text="#string/something" in your layouts), and calling your own function to retrieve a string that wraps Resources.getString()/getText().
And you'll also need to deal with the fact that resource IDs are not stable and can change with every build of your app.
So you are looking at something quite non-trivial.
I have done some internationalizations using:
launchpad with android2po
getLocalization
I will first check if they have some kind of api. If there is no API, I would check the gettext's java implementation and handle translations with it.
You could cache any of the current user's translations in a file on the SD/storage, and show it to that specific user. Then, when it gets its weekly update, remove the cached file and start again?