Static Lookup Translator


An obvious approach to translation is to keep all the phrases used in an application in a huge lookup table of some kind. This is the approach adopted by the Microsoft Application Translator (see Appendix B, "Information Resources"). Of course, this solution doesn't help you with the actual translation process, but having found a lookup sourceor, more likely, having created one yourself (or with the help of a translator)you can save some effort on subsequent translations by keeping such words or phrases in a static lookup. Such glossaries exist. Microsoft's glossaries are at ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/msdn/newup/Glossary/ (you can read these manually or use the inexpensive WinLexic (http://www.winlexic.com) to download, read, and search them in a more human interface). The Microsoft Application Translator (see Appendix B) also includes various lookup tables. However you should be aware of the following:

  • The license agreement might prevent you from using the glossary in this way. (Microsoft's glossary license explicitly states this.)

  • The lookups are good for only known phrases. The majority of your application text is unlikely to match existing glossary text.

  • Words used in one context do not necessarily have the same translations in another context. (Welsh, for example, has many forms of "yes" and "no," which are dependent upon the question being asked.)

For these reasons, I have left this kind of translator as an exercise for the reader.




.NET Internationalization(c) The Developer's Guide to Building Global Windows and Web Applications
.NET Internationalization: The Developers Guide to Building Global Windows and Web Applications
ISBN: 0321341384
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 213

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