Translate an Android app into German

What German does to an Android interface

The first thing you notice is length. German text often runs 20 to 35% longer than English, and it builds compound words that cannot wrap at a space: "Subscription management" becomes Abonnementverwaltung, "Push notifications" becomes Push-Benachrichtigungen. A short label can double in width.

The parts of an Android app that suffer most:

• tabs and bottom navigation, where each label gets a fixed slice of width;
• toolbar titles, which truncate as soon as an action icon is added;
• buttons with fixed dp widths, where Einstellungen speichern ("Save settings") no longer fits on one line;
• notifications and widgets, where space is tight to begin with.

Writing conventions change too. Every noun is capitalised (Konto löschen, "Delete account"), but English-style title case is not used: a menu item reads Neues Projekt erstellen, not every word capitalised. German quotation marks are written „like this“. If your source is French, note that German puts no space before "?", "!" or ":": Passwort vergessen?.

Then there is register. Professional software addresses the user formally with Sie (Möchten Sie fortfahren?); many consumer apps prefer the informal du (Möchtest du fortfahren?). Whichever you choose must hold across every button and error message.

Plurals, placeholders and word order

German has two CLDR plural categories, one and other, like English, and zero also takes the plural: 0 Nachrichten. A correct block looks like this:

• <item quantity="one">%d Nachricht</item>
• <item quantity="other">%d Nachrichten</item>

If your source language treats zero as singular (French does), make sure your code calls getQuantityString() rather than picking a string with if (n == 1); only then will the German rule apply.

Word order is the bigger trap. In perfect tenses and subordinate clauses the German verb moves to the end: "%1$s invited %2$s" becomes %1$s hat %2$s eingeladen, and "%1$s was deleted" becomes %1$s wurde gelöscht. With positional placeholders (%1$s, %2$d) the translation can move them freely. With bare %s the order is fixed and the German sentence ends up awkward.

Two habits to remove before translation:

• concatenation in code, such as getString(R.string.deleted) + " " + name: German cannot reorder two separate strings;
• reusing one adjective for several nouns: "New" is neuer, neue or neues depending on the gender of the German noun. Give each context its own string.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

Manuce works on res/values/strings.xml:

• string, string-array and plurals elements are translated, and the plural quantities German requires are written;
• strings marked translatable="false" are respected;
• apostrophes and special characters are escaped the Android way, for example geht\'s;
• keys, empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colours, date formats and identifiers are not translated;
• each translated value is compared with the source, placeholders and tags included; if a mismatch persists, the source value is kept and the report says so.

The file you get back is the same file: indentation, key order, quotes, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM are preserved, and only the values change. A report comes with it, listing strings translated and strings left as they were, with the reason. Pricing counts the words in the values only, keys and tags excluded; German is charged at the base rate (×1).

What Manuce does not do:

• it does not touch your layouts: a button too narrow for Abonnementverwaltung is yours to widen;
• it does not format numbers: German writes 1.234,56, but that is your code's job, for instance with NumberFormat and the device locale;
• your Google Play listing is not part of strings.xml, so it is not covered here;
• it does not produce sworn or certified translations.

Preparing the file and testing the German build

Before uploading:

• mark translatable="false" on anything that must not change: a brand name in app_name, deep-link schemes, technical keys;
• number your placeholders (%1$s rather than %s) wherever a string has more than one;
• add context comments above ambiguous strings, for example <!-- Button, limited width -->: they stay in the file and help your German-speaking reviewer;
• run the en-XA pseudo-locale now; it lengthens and accents every string and shows which screens will break in German.

After delivery:

• place the file at res/values-de/strings.xml, alongside your original res/values/;
• read the report: a string left in the source language usually points to a malformed placeholder in the original;
• switch a small test phone to German and walk through every screen; fix overflow with wrap_content, maxLines and ellipsize="end", or auto-sizing on TextView;
• check register consistency: one Sie dialog among du screens stands out immediately to a German user.

In practice

1. Mark strings to keep with translatable="false" and number any multiple placeholders.
2. Upload res/values/strings.xml; the quote appears at once and the free extract shows the German register and style.
3. Download the translated file and its report, then place it at res/values-de/strings.xml.
4. Run the app in German on a small screen and fix any labels that overflow.