How to become a translator
If you’re already registered on our SMF community, just use this link to proceed and join our project on Crowdin without need to additionally sign up on their page, you’ll login with your SMF account! If you’re not registered on SMF site, first of all, go to Crowdin and sign up/sign in there.
Once you have logged in, navigate to the SMF translation page. There, you will be able to choose your language and then be able to see the list of available folders/files.
You can start translating any strings you wish by clicking on the appropriate folder.
You can then filter phrases that have not yet been translated and start your translation history.
When translating, suggest your version in the text box and save it.
If you do not agree with existing translations, you can suggest your own versions. Also, you can upvote or downvote suggestions made by other volunteers by clicking the 'plus' or 'minus' buttons.
Besides, there is an opportunity to open translations in a Voting mode if you just want to rate translations.
You can find some useful tips reading the following information. Please, have a look at it.
Guidelines and recommendations
There are several things we'd like you to know before you start translating. It will not only save your time and effort, but also ensure that we are on the same page in terms of the meaning of the phrases being translated.
- Pay attention to glossary terms which are highlighted with a dotted line in a source phrase. These are usually special words (like brand names) that should not be translated.
- Apart from suggesting new translations, you can also leave comments to phrases. Use comments to inform about any mistakes in existing translations, to make notes or to ask questions. Sometimes you will find a comment left to your translation — try to react to it.
There's also a Discussions tab on the main Project page that conveniently allows you to see all comments for the specific language in this project.
- Crowdin provides a very useful and convenient tool called Translation Memory. With its help you can find the previously made translations of the same words and phrases and reuse them in your translations.
- As soon as you join a project by cliсking the "Join" button, you can see the Tasks tab on the Project page where the tasks for specific project files are created. Please pay attention to them, they usually have a higher priority.
If you have any questions about translations, you can always ask proofreaders or admins using the comments system. Also, you can reach our team and community member on our support forum and specifically our Localization and Translation board for all question you may have. Find more information on Crowdin translation system in this Knowledge base.
Proofreaders
We have Proofreaders (previously Senior Translators) for each language. What are they responsible for? Proofreaders:
- Approving the high-quality translations and disapproving the bad ones;
- Looking after the relevance of the translations;
- Participating in discussions in comment section etc.
As mentioned, you can ask proofreaders any questions regarding translations on Crowdin in comments. However, we do hope that everything for you will go smoothly and without any difficulties! Hope to see you on our team!
