Help:Content translation
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Content translation is a tool that helps editors to translate pages between languages. The tool provides a fluent translation experience where editors can create a translation right next to the original content, easily explore relevant contextual information to decide how to better translate the content, and, when possible, having details automatically inserted such as formatting, links, categories, references and more.
Content Translation is focused on creating the first version of a translated page. After it's created, it can be edited further just like any other wiki page.
Before you start
As with other editing tools, you will be the author of the content created with them. Keep the following tips in mind when creating a page with Content translation.
- Review the content before publishing. Do not rely on machine translation alone! It can make mistakes, even in languages that are supported well. Always read everything that you write and correct the mistakes that machine translation makes before publishing. If you publish the article without correcting them, it is likely that your translation will be deleted.
- Check the translation process for your language. If there is a page in your wiki about translating articles, read this page before you start. It will have more tips and policies that are special to your wiki. In the English Wikipedia, this page is w:Wikipedia:Translation (you can check the corresponding pages in other languages).
- Pick only languages you know. Translate only if you are confident that you can write in the language into which you are translating. If you can write in the language but you think that you don't write it perfectly, ask your friends who know this language or other editors who write in this wiki for help. Talking to your friends about choosing the right words or improving your grammar is fun!
Machine translation
In Content translation, automatic translation is available for a limited number of languages through several machine translation services. When available, machine translation is provided as a starting point for the user to actively review and correct.
Publishing machine-translated articles is not the intention of Content Translation, and it is actively discouraged to publish articles without modification and review. Users are shown warnings if they try to publish unmodified content.
Enabling Content translation
At the moment Content Translation is a beta feature in most Wikipedias. To use it you need to enable the feature in your beta preferences. To do this, log in to your account, click Beta at the top of the page, check Content Translation, and click Save, at the bottom of the page.
Overview
This help documentation covers the general activities Content translation supports:
- Start a translation describes the ways you can chose a page to translate.
- Translating a page introduces the available tools that will help you during the translation and how to use them effectively.
- Publishing a translation describes the options and considerations when completing your translation.
- Solving issues captures common problems you may find and provides guidance on how to solve them.
- Common uses describe general examples of use and how to better support them.
A brief description of each activity is provided in the sections below with links to the pages where they are covered in more detail.
Starting a translation
You can access to the translation dashboard from the contributions menu by clicking on the "translations" option.
In the dashboard you'll find options to start translating an article of your choice, browse suggestions of articles that need to be translated, or continue previous translations you started earlier.
There are other entry points to start a translation:
- From the Contributions page, clicking on the "Translation" option.
- Grey links may in the list of languages of a page you are reading to indicate that the page is missing in a language you may know. Clicking on them allow to start a new translation.
- Searching for Special:ContentTranslation in your wiki's search box.
Translating a page
The tool will assist you in the process of creating a translation of a page. You can learn more about:
- Machine translation provided as a starting point for users to review and edit further. Check which services are available for each language, and how to improve or expand their support.
- Editing the translation. Starting from an initial translation or from scratch, you will be responsible for the final content of the translation. So it is important to review thoroughly the translation. Check the support provided by the tool and some considerations when you are editing the translation content.
- Limits to machine translation to ensure quality. The tool keeps track of how much the initial machine translation is modified. Based on that the user can be encouraged to review the contents further or prevented from publishing. Learn how the current limits work and how to help them to improve in general or for your particular language.
Publishing your translation
Once you are happy with the contents you can publish your translation. After publishing your page will become a regular wiki page that you and others can review and keep improving in the usual way. Translation is a quick way to create an initial version, but the page is expected to evolve and keep improving with more contributions. Learn more about publishing, including the available options, the destinations available and additional considerations.
