Olá! Здравствуйте! Hola! - Can you check the translation of my app? I will do the same for you
Hey hackers!
I have a problem. I have a relatively large number downloads from Russia, Brazil and spanish speaking South American countries. But the 1-day-retention-rate is very low compared to other countires like Germany and USA.
I guess maybe it is because of the translation of my app.
I am looking for someone who speaks one of the following languages and would answer the following question: Is the translation of the app good and understandable or would you uninstall the app immediately because of the translation?
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Spanish (South America)
- Russian
Link to my app: Google Play Store
I don't expect you to correct the translations but only a short feedback about the first impression :) I can do the same for your website or app in german.
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Hello Oliver, I am a Russian native speaker.
Russian translation is pretty good, only tiny mistakes. And they will not make me delete this app.
What mistakes I noticed:
When you first open the app and read basic info about the app, on the screen about data security, there is a missing word. (There should be "вам будет предложено ввести только действительно необходимые данные")
In editing account window, in height and weight inputs titles, it's better to use "Рост" instead of "Высота тела" and "Вес" instead of "Вес тела". It is more common. Now it sounds more like "height of body" and "weight of body". You can use it but sounds strange.
In "about widget" window in point 1, instead of "Крепко нажмите на пустом месте на главном экране" better to use "Коснитесь свободного участка на главном экране и удерживайте его"
In "about widget" window in point 4, instead of "Крепко нажмите на виджет, который хотите добавить" better to use "Нажмите на виджет, который хотите добавить и удерживайте его."
In premium-version description window in point #1 instead of "не рекламировать в приложении", you should use "Без рекламы в приложении"
In premium-version description window in point #3 instead of "Ограниченный доступ ко всей статистике" I think should be "Неограниченный доступ ко всей статистике". Now it says that "You`ll get limited access to statistics", maybe it is mistake.
In premium-version description window in point #4 Instead of "Не забудьте пересчитать свои каллории: создание памяти" should be "Не забудьте пересчитать свои каллории: создание напоминаний"
In premium-version description window in point #5 Instead of "Не забудьте взвеситься: Создание памяти" should be "Не забудьте взвеситься: создание напоминаний"
Sorry for my late answer :( I thank you very much for your time to review the translation of my app. This is very valuable and helpful for me :)
I will take your suggestions for improvement to heart and further improve the translation.
Hi, Oliver, I’m from Brazil and portuguese is my native language.
I just downloaded your app and I’m pretty impressed, it’s not bad at all, I just found small mistakes in some texts. Just out of curiosity, did you do it entirely with google translate or are you learning portuguese?
Before I forget to answer your question: no, there are mistakes, but they would not make someone close your app and do not use it again.
The most common mistake that I saw was: before the word ‘pode’ you should put the word você . It would be like: “Você pode …” instead of “Pode …”.
For instance, without the você word (you, in english) it sounds like: “Can do this job”, when what you actually want to say is “You can do this job”.
In the complete your profile part, you wrote: “…informações. Pode alterar mais tarde”. It should be like: “...informações, mas você pode alterá-las mais tarde.”
I also saw “ecrã inicial” or “ecrã de entrada” in some places. Actually, it’s not wrong, but it’s european portuguese and ~80% of brazilian people would not understand what it means if it wasn’t followed by images. You should change both to “tela inicial”.
Also, on the main screen, you should change “Sabia que?” to “Você sabia?”. It just sounds better.
"A história de hoje" should be "Histórico de hoje".
If you need more help, feel free to email me. I know how hard it is to know these little language details as I’m building a saas fully in english, that’s a language I am still learning.
Hey,
thanks for your detailed answer. This is more than I expected and I am very grateful :)
I used the Google Play Translation Service. A service provided by Google for Android Developers. This is human translation, so no Google Translate. I paid about 100$ for it. I dont speak any word portuguese :)
I have explicitly translated my app into European Portuguese. So I expected that there will be some minor misunderstandings. But I did not know how big the differences between Brazil and Europe really are.
I am glad that there are no big mistakes in the translation and I could make sure that the quality of the Google service is good. I find it very difficult to check the quality of translation services if you don't speak the language yourself. You have to rely on it blindly
I will consider your suggestions for improvement and provide a better translation for Brazil.
Many thanks! Contact me if you need assistance with the German translation for your SaaS :)
Oh, I didn't know Google has this kind of service. I think it worth it.
Here in Brazil, we get almost nothing in a matter of culture from Portugal. Because of that, we can understand like ~90% of texts in European Portuguese, but it drops to ~70% if we start talking about spoken language.
But Portugal, and other countries where Portuguese is the official language, import a lot of culture from Brazil. From my understanding, they can understand almost everything in pt-br.
Said that, if you need to translate anything to Portuguese in the future, you should go with pt-br instead of pt-pt. Doing this, you'll support a 200m people country and other smaller countries in just one shot.
If I need assistance with German translation I'll surely contact you, thanks.
Thanks for this insights in your language and culture. I will use pt-br in the future.
I think it is the same with Germany, Austria and Switzerland here in Europe. We all speak German and when it comes to the written word we can communicate very well. But to speak as a German with a Swiss is sometimes exhausting because they have different words for certain things or pronounce them differently.