A while ago I bumped into [WayBack] Where can I get the glossary of Microsoft’s standard translations for computer terms? – The Old New Thing
Since I’m a non-digital pack-rat as well, I love [WayBack] this comment by [WayBack] Ian Boyd:
We have an *old* copy of the Microsoft Style Guide – an actual book. From that book i’ll always remember that e-mail has a hyphen in it.
I’ve that book too and write e-mail the same way.
But books are often hard to search through, so I love this list that [WayBack] Raymond Chen made:
- [WayBack] Microsoft Language Portal
- [WayBack] Interactive search
- [WayBack] Terminology collection
- [WayBack] Style guides
- [WayBack] Microsoft Language Portal Blog – News and updates for Microsoft users, customers and developers to efficiently localize software and services.
- [WayBack] User Interface Language Management (Windows)
I especially like the [WayBack] interactive search, but with any outcome, please remember that the context of your translation is very important.
For instance, I vividly remember a project some 20+ years ago where we had to translate the words “Close” and “Cancel” in the realm of the insurance business.
All guides indicated “Close” should become “Sluiten” which in that realm is colloquial for “Afsluiten” which means “to take out an insurance” implying a totally wrong action. Similarly “Cancel” translated to “Annuleren” which in the same realm would mean “to cancel an insurance”.
So we went for very specific translations narrowing down what exactly would happen in those screens, like:
- “Verlaten” (English “Exit”)
- “Bewaren” or “Opslaan” (English “Save”)
- “Terug” (English “Back”)
–jeroen
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