Providing translations for Android apps

[fwcarlitos]

I recently published my first game on the google play store made with corona SDK. I want to translate it to a few other languages. I have friends who would be willing to do it for me, so I would rather do that than pay for google’s translation services. Besides, I can’t really follow google’s translation steps, as those require access to the app’s strings.xml file, which, as far as I know, is hidden by corona. So my questions is: what is the most efficient way to provide translated versions of my game?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Develephant]

Hi,

This was just posted to Corona’s Twitter account. Could be helpful.

http://www.riceburgerlabs.com/2018/03/26/corona-an-approach-to-translations/

-dev

[fwcarlitos]

Thanks! Even though I can’t try it out at the moment, this appears to be what I’m looking for, so I’ll go ahead and mark this solved.

[rob]

For the game I’m trying to work on in my spare time I have a text.lua file that I include everywhere that’s just a big Lua table, something like:

local M = {} M["en"] = {} M["fr"] = {} M["de"] = {} M["es"] = {} M["it"] = {} M["pt"] = {} M["ru"] = {} -- Start a new game M["en"]["newgame"] = "New Game" M["fr"]["newgame"] = "Nouvelle partie" M["de"]["newgame"] = "Neues Spiel" M["es"]["newgame"] = "Juego nuevo" M["it"]["newgame"] = "Nuova partita" M["pt"]["newgame"] = "Novo Jogo" M["ru"]["newgame"] = "Новая игра" -- Resume an existing game M["en"]["resume"] = "Resume" M["fr"]["resume"] = "Reprendre" M["de"]["resume"] = "Fortsetzen" M["es"]["resume"] = "Continuar" M["it"]["resume"] = "Continua" M["pt"]["resume"] = "Continuar" M["ru"]["resume"] = "Продолжить" return M

Then I do something like this to show the text:

 local title = display.newText( sceneGroup, text[myData.language]["selectlevel"], display.contentCenterX, display.contentCenterY - 137, "carbon", 20)

where myData is my “globals/settings” table and “.language” is the saved setting by the user.  The twitter post above uses a CSV file of translations and some code that basically does the same thing. I thought it was a pretty cool way of dealing with translations.  In my case I’m not using strings like “Select Level” as my key, but in retrospect I probably should have. It just keeps the code a little tighter, but I have to remember keys for strings instead of the actual string.

Rob

[fwcarlitos]

How does one go about getting the language the system is using? Or do you have to ask for a language during the first launch?

[rob]

I do something like this in main.lua:

local defaultLanguage = system.getPreference( "locale", "language" ) local supportedLanguages = { en = true, fr = true, de = true, es = true, it = false, ["pt-BR"] = false, ru = false } print("\*\*\*\*\* defaultLanguage", defaultLanguage ) if not supportedLanguages[defaultLanguage] then defaultLanguage = "en" end myData.settings.language = system.getPreference( "app", "language", "string" ) or defaultLanguage print("mydata", myData.settings.language ) myData.language = myData.settings.language

It will look weird that I have a myData.settings.language and a myData.language, but the myData.settings table gets saved/loaded. But I don’t want to type myData.settings.language in every text I use. myData.language is already too long.  Then I have a settings scene where users can change the default language which is why this line comes into play:

myData.settings.language = system.getPreference( "app", "language", "string" ) or defaultLanguage

if I have saved a language preference I use it or fall back to the defaultLanguage.

Rob

[fwcarlitos]

I see. Thanks for your help!

[Develephant]

Hi,

This was just posted to Corona’s Twitter account. Could be helpful.

http://www.riceburgerlabs.com/2018/03/26/corona-an-approach-to-translations/

-dev

[fwcarlitos]

Thanks! Even though I can’t try it out at the moment, this appears to be what I’m looking for, so I’ll go ahead and mark this solved.

[rob]

For the game I’m trying to work on in my spare time I have a text.lua file that I include everywhere that’s just a big Lua table, something like:

local M = {} M["en"] = {} M["fr"] = {} M["de"] = {} M["es"] = {} M["it"] = {} M["pt"] = {} M["ru"] = {} -- Start a new game M["en"]["newgame"] = "New Game" M["fr"]["newgame"] = "Nouvelle partie" M["de"]["newgame"] = "Neues Spiel" M["es"]["newgame"] = "Juego nuevo" M["it"]["newgame"] = "Nuova partita" M["pt"]["newgame"] = "Novo Jogo" M["ru"]["newgame"] = "Новая игра" -- Resume an existing game M["en"]["resume"] = "Resume" M["fr"]["resume"] = "Reprendre" M["de"]["resume"] = "Fortsetzen" M["es"]["resume"] = "Continuar" M["it"]["resume"] = "Continua" M["pt"]["resume"] = "Continuar" M["ru"]["resume"] = "Продолжить" return M

Then I do something like this to show the text:

 local title = display.newText( sceneGroup, text[myData.language]["selectlevel"], display.contentCenterX, display.contentCenterY - 137, "carbon", 20)

where myData is my “globals/settings” table and “.language” is the saved setting by the user.  The twitter post above uses a CSV file of translations and some code that basically does the same thing. I thought it was a pretty cool way of dealing with translations.  In my case I’m not using strings like “Select Level” as my key, but in retrospect I probably should have. It just keeps the code a little tighter, but I have to remember keys for strings instead of the actual string.

Rob

[fwcarlitos]

How does one go about getting the language the system is using? Or do you have to ask for a language during the first launch?

[rob]

I do something like this in main.lua:

local defaultLanguage = system.getPreference( "locale", "language" ) local supportedLanguages = { en = true, fr = true, de = true, es = true, it = false, ["pt-BR"] = false, ru = false } print("\*\*\*\*\* defaultLanguage", defaultLanguage ) if not supportedLanguages[defaultLanguage] then defaultLanguage = "en" end myData.settings.language = system.getPreference( "app", "language", "string" ) or defaultLanguage print("mydata", myData.settings.language ) myData.language = myData.settings.language

It will look weird that I have a myData.settings.language and a myData.language, but the myData.settings table gets saved/loaded. But I don’t want to type myData.settings.language in every text I use. myData.language is already too long.  Then I have a settings scene where users can change the default language which is why this line comes into play:

myData.settings.language = system.getPreference( "app", "language", "string" ) or defaultLanguage

if I have saved a language preference I use it or fall back to the defaultLanguage.

Rob

[fwcarlitos]

I see. Thanks for your help!