How to Get Better Than Human Translations From PTC

Delivering translations that are better than human is a big promise. In this tutorial, we’ll explain what causes bad translations and how to avoid them.

1. Unclear Original Text

PTC translates based on the text in your product’s resource files.

Make sure to use clear language, free of typos and grammatical errors. PTC will often translate correctly even if the source text is not “completely correct” in English. However, if the source text is difficult to understand in English, translations will be difficult to read too.

2. Unclear Description of the Product and Target Audience

When you set up a project in PTC, it will ask you about:

• The name of your product
• What your product does
• Who’s the target audience of your product

The information that you provide greatly influences the translations that PTC produces.

3. Missing Information About Your Product’s Terminology

Many projects need specific translations for key terms. 

For example, if you’re building a plugin for WooCommerce and improving the checkout process, you probably want the word “cart” translated in a very specific way. Add any terms that are especially important to your project to the glossary. You can include a description in English, and PTC will help you find the right equivalent in each target language.

Tip: There’s no need to overload the glossary. PTC already understands WordPress, so you only need to add a few product-specific terms. Your product’s name will be added to the glossary automatically, so it won’t get translated.

4. Concatenated Strings Instead of Using Placeholders

Sometimes, you need to combine different pieces of information in the interface. For example:

Welcome Steve, you have 7 new messages.

This text is dynamically generated. In PHP, it should be:

printf( __( 'Welcome %s, you have %d new messages.', 'text-domain' ), $username, $message_count );

This generates the following string, which PTC will translate without problems:

Welcome %s, you have %d new messages.

But if you don’t use placeholders and instead concatenate this text from several strings, like this:

Incorrect – Concatenated strings:

echo __( 'Welcome ', 'your-text-domain' ) . $username . __( ', you have ', 'your-text-domain' ) . $message_count . __( ' new messages.', 'your-text-domain' );

It generates the following strings:

Welcome  
, you have  
new messages.

PTC will translate each string separately. This may look okay in English, but in many other languages, translating each part on its own can lead to grammar mistakes or numbers or names appearing in the wrong position.

5. UI Texts Overflowing Their Space

Text length varies across languages. Here’s an example from a local climbing wall:

Spanish:

Cuidado, hay alguien escalando sobre ti

English:

Beware, climber above

Sure, the Spanish version could be shorter, and the English one could be longer. But in Spain, the “long” version feels normal, and in the U.S., the shorter version sounds just right.

PTC always tries to keep translations close to the original length, but that’s not always possible if you want the translation to sound natural. 

That’s why we recommend using a responsive layout in your UI. If you use PTC during development and check your design in other languages (instead of waiting until the last minute), you’ll catch these issues early and avoid layout problems later.