Translate a CSV string table into Portuguese

Brazil or Portugal: two columns, two vocabularies

Manuce treats Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese as two separate languages. In a UI string table the difference is not cosmetic: the most common menu words change between the two countries.

• Save: Salvar in Brazil, Guardar in Portugal
• File: Arquivo / Ficheiro
• Screen: Tela / Ecrã
• Settings: Configurações / Definições

How the user is addressed differs too: Brazil uses você with third-person verb forms, while Portugal more readily uses tu in an informal register, or impersonal phrasing. A game that mixes the two feels poorly localised to both audiences.

Your column header should reflect the choice. Depending on the project, the engine expects pt_BR, pt-BR, pt_PT or just pt. If the target-language column exists, Manuce fills it; otherwise it adds one as the last column. Either way, check on delivery that the header of the filled column matches the exact code your engine reads. If you are targeting both markets, order both languages: each is translated in its own variant, and the multi-language discount applies to the whole order.

What Portuguese changes in your values

Length. Portuguese runs noticeably longer than English: Sound volume becomes Volume do som, Sound effects volume becomes Volume dos efeitos sonoros. Fixed-width buttons, tabs and HUD boxes are the first to overflow.

Agreement and placeholders. English Welcome, {name} is gender-neutral; Portuguese has to choose between Bem-vindo and Bem-vinda. A translation cannot guess what the placeholder will hold: if your game handles this, plan two keys or explain the usage in the context column. Word order shifts as well: {player}'s sword becomes a espada de {player}. The placeholder moves but is never altered.

Plurals. Portuguese has three CLDR categories: one, many and other. many covers exact multiples of a million, which take the preposition de (1 milhão de moedas). Another trap: under CLDR, zero falls under one in Brazilian Portuguese but under other in European Portuguese. A CSV has no plural structure of its own: keys such as coins_one and coins_other are each translated, but no coins_many key is created.

Characters. ã, õ, ç, á, ê, à turn up in almost every string (Opções, Começar, Não). The returned file keeps the original encoding and BOM, so a UTF-8 CSV takes them without trouble.

Exactly what Manuce returns, and what it does not do

You get back the same CSV file, in the same format, ready to drop into the project: key order, quoting, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM are preserved. Only the values change.

• Context. A comment or context column is used to resolve ambiguity: Play is Jogar in a game but Reproduzir for a video; Back on a button is Voltar.
• Left as is. Keys, empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colours (#FF8800), date formats (dd/MM/yyyy), identifiers and anything marked as non-translatable.
• Checks. Every translated value is compared with the source for placeholders ({0}, %d) and tags (<color=red>). If a mismatch persists, the source value is kept and the report says so.
• Report. Strings translated, strings left unchanged, and why.

What Manuce does not do: it does not know the width of your buttons or test rendering in the engine; it does not add missing keys; it does not take glossaries or terminology instructions. For a character or product name that must stay unchanged, check it in the free sample and then in the delivered translation. A CSV with no key column is not treated as a language file: it is translated as plain text. The price is based on the words in the values, excluding keys and tags, with a ×1 coefficient for Portuguese.

Preparing the CSV and checking the result

Before uploading:

• Make sure there is a key column (keys in Godot, Key or Id elsewhere) and a filled source column, whatever your source language.
• Save as UTF-8 so Portuguese characters survive every step.
• Fill the context column for short, ambiguous labels: Save, Play, Back, Free (Grátis or Livre).
• Add any plural keys your code expects yourself, for example coins_many, with the source text.

After delivery:

• Avoid opening and re-saving the file in a spreadsheet: a spreadsheet set to a Portuguese or other continental locale may swap commas for semicolons and change the encoding.
• Check that your game font covers ã, õ, ç: a font atlas limited to ASCII will show empty boxes.
• Walk through the busiest screens to spot overflow.
• Read the report: a string left in the source language often points to an unclosed placeholder in the original.

In practice

1. Check the CSV has a key column and save it as UTF-8.
2. Upload it, choose Brazilian or European Portuguese and read the free sample.
3. Download the file and report, then check the Portuguese column header.
4. Re-import the CSV into Unity or Godot and test the busiest screens.