Translate a .NET app into Italian

Italian in a .resx: register, accents and agreement

Italian UI text starts with a choice of register. Messages that address the user take the formal third person, Lei: Inserisca il codice ricevuto via email rather than the informal Inserisci il codice. Button labels stay short (Salva, Annulla, Chiudi). If your product already speaks to Italian users informally, say so in the file's comments so the two registers are not mixed.

Accents are a common source of errors. Italian separates è ("is") from é in perché, poiché, né. At the start of a sentence the correct capital is È, not E' with an apostrophe, a workaround often found in hand-typed resource files: È necessario riavviare l'applicazione.

Then there is agreement. An English string such as {0} saved works for any noun; in Italian the participle follows the gender of the noun (Documento salvato, Cartella salvata) and the article changes with the word (il file, lo schema, l'utente). Eliminare il {0}? breaks as soon as {0} is immagine. A phrasing that avoids the article is safer: Eliminare l'elemento «{0}»?.

Plurals, numbers and dates in it-IT: your code's job

CLDR gives Italian three plural categories: one, many and other. one covers 1 (1 elemento), other covers the everyday case including zero (0 elementi, 3 elementi), and many applies to large round figures in millions, where Italian adds "di": 1 milione di elementi. A .resx file has no plural mechanism: each form is a separate key, for example ItemCount_One and ItemCount_Other, and your code picks the right one. A single key like {0} item(s) reads badly in Italian, where the ending itself changes (-o, -i); add the separate keys before translating.

Numbers and dates are formatted, not translated. Under the it-IT culture, 1234.5 displays as 1.234,5, short dates run day/month/year and month names are lower case (3 marzo). These come from CultureInfo at display time, so keep placeholders such as {0:N2} or {0:d} in your strings instead of hard-coded values. Manuce does not translate numbers or date formats found in values; they are left as they are.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

You upload the source file, typically the neutral Resources.resx or a culture file such as Strings.en.resx. Manuce translates the content of the data/value elements into Italian; comments are read as context and stay in place; non-text resources (images, icons, linked files) are left untouched.

You get the same file back: indentation, key order, quotes, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM are preserved; only the values change. Saved next to the neutral file as Resources.it.resx (or Resources.it-IT.resx), it is what the build uses to produce the Italian satellite assembly.

Every translated value is compared with its source: if {0}, {1:N0} or a tag such as <b> goes missing or changes, the mismatch is caught; if it persists, the source value is kept and the report says so. Not translated: keys, empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colours, date formats, identifiers and anything you have marked as non-translatable. The quote counts the words in values only, keys and tags excluded.

Manuce does not edit your code, add missing plural keys, build the project or set the application's culture. Nor does it produce sworn or certified translations: if a legal text shipped with the app must be certified for Italy, you will need an accredited translator.

Preparing the .resx and checking the Italian build

• Fill in comments for ambiguous strings: Toolbar button, 10 characters max. or "New" refers to a folder (cartella, feminine). That context is what makes correct agreement possible.
• Remove string concatenation in code. "Welcome " + name forces a gender choice in Italian (Benvenuto or Benvenuta); a full string such as Le diamo il benvenuto, {0} stays neutral and uses the Lei register.
• Mark product names, codes and technical labels shown verbatim as non-translatable.
• Once integrated, run the app with CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo("it-IT") and walk through every screen. Italian usually runs longer than English, so check for clipped labels in fixed-layout WinForms dialogs.
• Read the report: a value left in the source language usually points to a placeholder or tag worth fixing in the original string.

In practice

1. Upload your source .resx file and pick Italian: the quote appears straight away, based on the exact word count of the values.
2. Request the free sample to check the Lei register and terminology at your chosen level.
3. Download the translated file and the report of strings left as they were.
4. Save it as Resources.it.resx beside the neutral file, build, and test under the it-IT culture.