Translating User Interface

User Interface Translation

We are using a web based tool named Transifex to manage and simplify user interface translation. You can go to our Transifex project page, and click there Help Translate "And Bible" to get started. You need free Transifex account do the translation.

Please also send us email so that we recognize you in the project and get your email address: help.andbible@gmail.com. Transifex does have "private messages" inside the platform, but I feel that sometimes email is more reliable to reach people.

To be able to translate And Bible successfully you need:

• to have experience on And Bible and know more or less how it works and what it is
• to know English well enough
• to have proficient skills in your own language (written form)
• As And Bible is an ongoing project which evolves all the time, you should also have some commitment to keep on updating translations of And Bible in the future version updates

AI-assisted translations (new workflow)

With the rapid progress of AI tools, the translation process has changed significantly. By default, new and updated strings are now pre-translated by an AI tool for all languages that are well supported by modern LLMs (roughly Tier 1 and Tier 2 quality levels). Modern AI translations take context into account and are no longer the nonsensical machine output of a few years ago — the Finnish translation, for example, has been reviewed and found to be of good quality.

This does not mean that volunteer translators are no longer needed — quite the opposite. AI is known to make mistakes, and errors are especially to be expected in less-resourced languages. The volunteer translator role has shifted toward quality assurance and refinement, which remains just as important as before. A human reviewer who knows the app and the language is the best safeguard against subtle AI mistakes.

What to do in Transifex:

1. Review the new, unreviewed AI-generated translations for your language.
2. Mark good translations as reviewed so we can see they have been human-verified.
3. Fix any mistakes you come across — terminology, awkward phrasing, context errors, etc.

Transifex is therefore used primarily for review rounds rather than as the primary translation method. If you prefer to translate from scratch (e.g. for a language not well supported by AI, or simply because you prefer to), that is still very welcome.

Priorities in translation

There are 4 translatable resources in Transifex: strings.xml, bibleview.yaml, BibleNames, Play Store texts.

Translation priorities are like this:

• strings.xml contains all Android side user interface texts. Please translate short items first. All of this is important to be translated, but if translation takes time several weeks, please prioritize your work such that easy and short strings will get ready sooner.

• bibleview.yaml contains all javascript side user interface texts that are shown in features that are implemented directly on document views ("BibleView"). This is as important to be translated as strings.xml.

• BibleNames contains Bible book names and abbreviations. If these are missing in your language, please translate basic names and abbreviations of bible book names. Apocrypha is second priority (especially if there are not any documents that support those available in your language). About BibleNames and their Alt entries see below

• Play Store texts are texts for Google Play Store and F-Droid. Play Store main description will look like this in Play Store: Play Store main description.

BibleNames Alt names

This resource has traditionally been used to only display Bible book names or their abbreviations in various contexts. So called “Alt” names (that JSword library supports) have not been used, so it has not mattered how they are translated if translated at all.

Version 5.0 adds support for Epub files. Those files might contain bible references, that AndBible tries to parse and convert to clickable links. In those references, those “Alt” names are heavily used.

For example, it is important that AndBible detects various abbreviations of “Psalms” in references, like

• Psalms 1:1
• Ps 1:1
• Psalm 1:1

In this case, “Alt” names should be comma-separated list of options, i.e. Psalms, Ps, Psalm (spaces between entries or capital letters do not matter, it could be psalms,ps,psalm as well.

Now those “Alt” names are available for translations in Transifex BibleNames resource.

If for some book there are no alternative names available, you can leave it what it its by default, i.e. something like "#Gen.Alt" (important is # in beginning).

Another example:

   # This is full name of the book.
   Gen.Full: Genesis
   # This is short version of the book.
   Gen.Short: Gen

   # This is list of alternative names for the book. Leave default, i.e. #Gen.Alt if not defined. 
   Gen.Alt: #Gen.Alt
   # In Finnish, this would be something like this:
   Gen.Alt: 1moos,1 moos,1. moos

Tips to get translations right

To translate many of the user interface strings, you need to know the context in which the string is used in And Bible. We have added context instructions to some of the strings in Transifex. If some context still is not clear to you, you can

• See earlier context screenshots that I post when releasing new versions: 5.0, 4.0 3.3, 3.2, 2.13.
• raise an issue within Transifex

Sometimes existing strings get changed. In that case, you can utilize translation history to get translation done more easily.