Machine translation in app and website localization

We can trace the idea of Machine Translation back to the 17th century, in the work of René Descartes. But it’s the 1970s which saw Machine Translation used for its actual purpose, initially in institutions like the European Commission, and later at big corporations. The advent of the Internet sped up the evolution of MT significantly and resulted in advanced technologies like today’s Statistical Machine Translation.

In software localization, we can use Machine Translation (or Automatic Translation) in a number of processes.

Google and Bing machine translation engines for automatic translation- POEdtior localization platform
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Free localization with the POEditor translation platform

The online localization platform POEditor is free to use to translate software projects collaboratively in the following circumstances:

With Free Accounts

If you register to the POEditor, you get an account with a Free plan by default. The free account can accomodate software localization projects summing up to 1000 strings, which is usually enough to translate a small app or a WordPress theme into a few languages.

Also, you can use your free account to contribute without any limitation to localization projects owned by other users. The strings you translate for others are counted against their account.

Free plans, like all the other POEditor plans, can host an unlimited number of projects, languages and contributors. But, unlike accounts with paid plans, free accounts don’t come with a Translation Memory feature.
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Crowdsourcing translation for a localization project: how to manage everything

So there’s a software product you want to localize into some languages, and you decided on crowdsourcing translation to achieve this.

If you’re working with any of these localization files, you can easily set up a crowdsourcing project at POEditor. Just create an account, and you’ll have access immediately to awesome localization management features that will automate your workflow.

This article is an overview of the steps to creating a crowdsourced translation project and the essential features to manage it.

A public join page for crowdsourcing translators - POEditor localization platform
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Translator’s guide to software localization

If you want to help with the localization of a software product using the POEditor translation platform, but you’re not quite sure what you should do, you can browse this article to gain insights into how our collaborative interface works.

How to join a localization project

Joining depends on the project type. If the project is private, the project owner or an administrator must add you, and you’ll be informed by email of this. If it is a crowdsourced localization project, you’ll have to go to the public join page and select the language(s) you want to contribute to.

Join public localization project - POEditor translation management platform
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How to integrate Slack or HipChat into your localization workflow

Connectivity is essential to a flexibile and efficient localization workflow. Being connected to your team at all times and also being connected to the constant flow of events during the localization process, you can react on the spot whenever something needs attention, increasing productivity and saving a lot of resources on the way. With this in mind, and somehow as a logical step to offering you a better solution for collaborative localization, we’ve decided to add two more options to the list of integrations available with the POEditor localization management platform- Slack and HipChat.

The walkthroughs below will help you connect your POEditor account to Slack or to HipChat. Make sure you log in both to the POEditor localization platform and to your preferred communication service before you begin.
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How to get professional human translation services for your software localization project

The POEditor localization management platform is mainly designed as a productivity tool for localization teams that want to use their own translators in the process of localizing software strings.

Despite this, we know that not everyone who reaches our localization platform has translators to assign to their l10n projects, or a community to crowdsource translation. For them, we provide quick access to professional translation services. Following the steps described below, you can easily order translations for your software localization project, directly from your POEditor account.

Step 1: Go to the Translation Orders page, choose your values and get a quote

In the Project page, click on the Translation Orders button to reach the New Order page. Here, select your desired values, then press Get Quote to find out what the translation price is.
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How to track the translation progress in a software localization project with POEditor’s rich statistics

Whether you’re translating something with a few strings, like a theme or an app, or dealing with something with a zillion strings, like a big website, there’s one thing that will always come in handy to the localization manager: statistics.

Statistics can be helpful for many things, among which evaluating the general translation progress of the software localization project and calculating fees for translators.

The POEditor localization management platform comes with two categories of stats: for project owners and administrators, and for contributors.

What stats pages look like

At the top of every Statistics page, some general information about the localization project is available, such as the project name, the amount of terms in it, and the total of words and characters these terms sum up. Some users can see more information in this area, as a result of their role in the localization project and the Stats page they are on.Date Range Picker (Statistics) - POEditor localization platform
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Recovering translations with the History module

The History module is one of the features that makes translating software strings with the POEditor localization management platform a safe and easy process. What the History module does is store translations that are one hour old in a database, so that they can later be recovered individually (with the History link), or in bulk, for a particular language (using the Recover from history feature). Below we will describe how the History module works.

Consulting previous translation versions for individual termsHistory link (Language page) - POEditor localization management platform

In any Languge page, you can find History links next to each previously translated string (remember – the translations must’ve been one hour old to be recorded). If you click on one of these links, you will see all the translations that have been made in that language for the corresponding term, as well as who made the translation and when.
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Updating translations in labels-based software localization projects

If you want to translate an app that uses language files such as .strings, .xliff, .resx, .xml or .properties with the software localization management platform POEditor, it’s very likely your localization process will be a little different than if you were using any of the other supported language files. This is because these language files contain labels.

As a developer/localization manager/someone else handling a labels-based project with POEditor, you will start your software localization process by importing strings from a language file and setting a Default Reference Language.
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