Mozilla Content Localized in Your Language

This section of the style guide is for you to author. The content here should be what you and your localization team have decided, together, to follow when localizing Mozilla products and web sites. You are free to add, edit, remove, and localize everything in this section according to how the localization team for your language agrees. All we ask is that you name this page according to this example, "Mozilla Content in Spanish (es-MX)" and add your locale code tag at the bottom. Enjoy developing your style guide!

Your language's style guide

Abbreviations

How are abbreviations expressed in your language?

Numerals and metrics

How are numerals and metrics expressed in your language? Formal and informal forms, and separators (, or .)

Date Format

What are the date formats for weeks and months are expressed in the following forms: 1)fully spelled out, 2). 2 or 3 letters and 3). single letter.  And what is the order of Year, Month and Day?  Reference material can be find here

Calendar

Calendar view: which date is considered the first day of the week, Sunday or Monday?  Is Lunar calendar observed?  Other regional calendar observed?

Time Format

How is time expressed in your language? including 0-24 hr expression, hour, minute and second.

Percentages

How are percentages expressed in your language?

Digit groups

How are digit groups expressed in your language? Example: 1.23 (decimal separator) or 1,000 (thousand separator) using comma or period. 

Acronyms

Do you translate widely accepted acronyms such as CD, DVD, MB?  If translated, is there an equavilent acronym and widely accepted in the language?

Gender

Are there exceptions to standard gender conventions within your language? If so, what are they?

Tone/Register

What is the appropriate tone for your translations? Does it vary by product and target audience? If so, how? What are formality to avoid?  List products and their tones if different.

Capitalization

What is the appropriate form of expressing capitalization in your language? Note: if this doens't apply, how is expressed in your language to indicate importance or name of a movie, book title, product UIs (Save, File...). 

Hyphens and compounds

What is the appropriate form of expressing hyphens and compounds in your language? Note: if this doens't apply, indicate so with N/A.

Prepositions and articles

What is the appropriate form of expressing prepositions and articles in your language? Note: if this doens't apply, indicate so with N/A.

Punctuation

What is the appropriate form of expressing punctuation in your language?  What are language specific puntuations used? Even if there are same or similar punctuations, are they used differently than those in English. Reference material on other languages can be found here.

Pluralization

What is the appropriate form of expressing pluralization in your language? If yes, list all forms of plural forms and examples if there is more than one.  Additional discussions can be found Here.

Voice

What is the appropriate form of expressing voice in your language? How should emphasis be made in your language?

Character styles

How are bold, italics, underlines, etc. used to express certain concepts in your language?  If these are not applicable styles, what are some of the corresponding ways to express, emphasis or highlight some of the texts. 

Address Format

What is the format in your language?  

ex: most Asian countries start from big to small: [Country] [postal code][state/province][city][district][street number and name][building and suite numbers][addressee]

Countries of European languages start from small to big: [addressee][street number and name][building and suite numbers][district][city][state/province][postal code][Country]

Name Convention

What are the order of family name and given name in your language.  Here is the guideline on the naming convention from w3c.org:

New Terminology

What is your localization team's process for identifying and creating new terminology?

Currency

Currency and symbol.  What are other widely used currency and symbols used in your country/language for paid apps. 

User Interface Elements

        Titles

        Should be brief and precise. Localizers can assume that source content reaches 2/3 of the total available line space. This allows localization text to expand and not be truncated or resolved through ellipsis. Title on the final page (meaning no more click through) should allow enough room to display full text.

        Buttons

            Capitalize the first letter of each word. Limit to one or two words. Use verbs that precisely describe the button's action. For example, "Cancel", "Clear History", "Add Email", "Select All", etc. 

        Value Selector Lists

            Capitalize the first letter of the first word and the first letter of any proper nouns. Limit to one or two words. Note: if this doesn't apply to your language, indicate so as N/A.

        Articles -- Avoid them

            Articles (such as the word "the" in English) should be avoided wherever possible. User interface elements have limited space available for text. Avoiding articles will help ensure that your translations will be accommodated within the user interface.  Note: if this doesn't apply to your language, indicate so as N/A.        

        Ellipsis

            Ellipsis are often inserted automatically in the UI where strings are truncated. Ellipsis should only be used at high level of UI pages, but not be on the final page (after a series of click-through) where detailed instruction is given. Ellipsis should not be used as a way to solve truncation issue.  Focus on making the UI short and precise.  The sequence of the sentence structure in another language may not translate well, when a sentence is half finished as such.