Hi all, since a few weeks we have been thinking about adding a page to the Nextcloud website which would help new contributors who want to start with contributing translations. This short page would serve as an introduction with some brief guidelines or “best practices” for new translators, and links to helpful resources. This is what we have come up with so far (all credit goes to Jérôme Herbinet 
) I have not done any translation contributions so far, so some feedback from the translation community will be highly appreciated! What do you think? cc @rakekniven @jospoortvliet and anyone else who is interested!
Translate Nextcloud
Nextcloud is an open source project of international scope, translated into many languages. Thousands of community members work together to translate Nextcloud into more than a hundred different languages and dialects, and the quality of the translations impacts the experience of using Nextcloud in that language. You can help bring Nextcloud closer to people all over the world by helping translate Nextcloud to a language you are fluent in.
Using Transifex
You can start off by signing up on Transifex, the translation management platform used by Nextcloud, and joining the teams of the languages that you are fluent in. From there, go through the phrases that need to be translated or reviewed and suggest a correct phrase if needed. Take a look at the priority list for what needs to be translated.
Translation best practices
Understand context
Understand how a particular phrase is being used before you translate it. There may be some phrases which can be translated in different ways to another language, so understand the action associated with the phrase to help you communicate the action effectively in your language.
Proofread and check spelling
Spelling mistakes are more common than you think, so make sure to proofread your work. Take advantage of spellcheck and grammar tools to help you get a perfect translation every time.
Maintain consistency
Well-translated software is consistent its use of wording. Check how a word or phrase is used in other places in Nextcloud with the same context and match that. It is also useful to check the standard translation for the phrase in other products to maintain consistency.
Helpful resources
- The Nextcloud developer documentation has more technical details about translating
- The Nextcloud forum has a translation category with an active community of translators
- The forum also has a detailed translation wiki
