Become a OOYYO volunteer translator

Edit OOYYO in your language. If you want to help us to translate OOYYO into different languages, please fill out the form below, and you will be contacted soon via email. After confirmation, you will become an OOYYO volunteer translator.


Volunteer translator form

Select all the languages in which you are fluent:
  Hold the ctrl or cmd key to select multiple languages
Your name:
Your email:
Why would you like to translate for OOYYO?
Contact: Please contact me about other language opportunities at OOYYO

Translation guidelines

Introduction

This document is a guideline for translating in accordance with the OOYYO style.

Overall Translation Guidelines

Tone

It is very important to us that all translations maintain an appropriate tone. Our site in English is written in a tech- and web-savvy and friendly style. We want all our non-English content to reflect this style; however, we recognize that what is considered polite and appropriate varies by culture. Therefore, we want the translator to understand the English content and style first, and then rewrite it such that the tone is maintained within the framework of the particular language/culture.

General rules:

  1. Don't use a heavy, staid, or arrogant tone; translations should be upbeat and friendly.
  2. Avoid awkward or unprofessional wording.
  3. Try to capture the essence of the message. Don't translate literally or word-for-word.

Specific Guidelines

  1. Do not translate proper names or product names. Examples of these include "OOYYO" and "smartOOYYO".

Please look at and use the OOYYO site during the course of translation -- to see how dynamic messages appear in context, to understand how given features work, and to get a sense of the tone and 'feel' of the OOYYO site.

HTML and placeholders

Some of the messages you will be translating contain HTML tags and placeholders. HTML tags are little bits of text surrounded by angle brackets that control the formatting of the text in a browser. Place- (or variable-) holders are pieces of text that get substituted with other text (like the list of search terms that a OOYYO user typed in) at run-time. Both tags and variable holders must be handled specially.

In order to make tags and variable holders easier to spot they are presented in green text, like so:

<tag> VARIABLE_HOLDER


All HTML tags and variable holders in a message must be preserved in the translation according to the following three rules:
  1. All tags and placeholders in the original message must appear in the translation.
  2. They must be spelled and capitalized exactly as they appear in the original.
  3. They must preserve their relationship with the surrounding text.
If this presents a problem, or if you need further clarification, please contact us.