Translate a Ruby on Rails App into Spanish

What Spanish changes in your Rails strings

Coming from an English locale file, Spanish introduces problems that simply did not exist in the source. Punctuation first: questions and exclamations open with ¿ or ¡. confirm: "Are you sure?" becomes confirm: "¿Está seguro?".

Then gender. English created: "%{model} was successfully created" works for any model. In Spanish, "%{model} creado correctamente" is right for Usuario and wrong for Factura, which needs creada. Split the key per model, or rephrase neutrally (Se ha creado: %{model}).

Then register. English “you” hides a choice Spanish makes on every button: informal tú (Guarda tus cambios) or formal usted (Guarde sus cambios). Consumer apps in Spain often use tú; business software leans towards usted. Decide before translating.

Finally length: Spanish runs noticeably longer than English. “Save” becomes Guardar, “Sign in” becomes Iniciar sesión. Check fixed-width buttons, tabs and table headers.

Plurals: one, many, other, and what Rails actually reads

CLDR gives Spanish three plural categories: one, many and other. many mainly covers large round numbers and compact notation (1 millón de usuarios, with de). Rails' default I18n backend only picks between one (when count is 1) and other, plus an optional zero key if you defined one.

Manuce adapts the one and other keys in your file and checks that %{count} survives in each:

• one: "%{count} comment" → one: "%{count} comentario"
• other: "%{count} comments" → other: "%{count} comentarios"

Zero behaves as in English: 0 comentarios falls under other. An existing zero key (“No comments”) is translated like any other value (Ningún comentario). Manuce does not add a many key that is not in your source; if you display counts in millions, add it yourself and configure a matching pluralisation rule.

Spain or Latin America: choosing the locale key

The returned file uses the es: root key, which suits a single Spanish-speaking audience. If you target Mexico or Argentina specifically, rename the key and file (es-MX:, es-MX.yml), add the locale to config.i18n.available_locales and enable config.i18n.fallbacks so a key missing in es-MX is looked up in es.

Vocabulary differences hit interface text directly:

• ordenador (Spain) / computadora (Latin America);
• móvil / celular;
• vosotros / ustedes when addressing several people, for example in a team notification.

State the variant at the outset and keep it consistent across every locale file: a product that mixes ordenador and computadora is quickly noticed by users.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

You get back the same YAML file, ready to drop into the project: indentation, key order, quotes, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM preserved. Only the values change, and the root language key (en:, fr:…) becomes es:.

• Every translated value is compared with its source for variables (%{name}, %{count}) and tags, for instance in a welcome_html key. If a mismatch persists, the source value is kept and the report says so.
• Not translated: keys, empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colours, date formats such as "%d/%m/%Y", identifiers, and anything you mark as non-translatable.
• The report lists translated strings and those left unchanged, with the reason.

Pricing counts the words in values only, excluding keys and tags. Manuce translates the files you upload: text hard-coded in .erb views or stored in the database is not included. For terms and conditions needing legal standing, note that Manuce does not provide certified (sworn) translation.

Preparing your files and checking the result

Before uploading:

• Add the rails-i18n gem: it already ships Spanish month names, number formats and common validation messages (no puede estar en blanco). Upload only your own strings so you do not pay for those.
• Find messages that interpolate a model or attribute name and decide how to handle gender.
• Mark brand names and plan names as non-translatable.

After delivery:

• Run i18n-tasks missing es if you use that tool, to spot missing keys.
• Browse the app with I18n.locale = :es: flash messages, form errors, Action Mailer emails, and any button where the longer Spanish wording may wrap.
• Review the values the report kept in the source language and fix them by hand if needed.

In practice

1. Collect your app's config/locales/*.yml files, leaving out strings already provided by rails-i18n.
2. Upload them to Manuce: the quote is based on the exact word count of the values, with a free sample.
3. Choose a level, pay, then download the es.yml file and its report.
4. Place the file in config/locales, add :es to the available locales and test the app in Spanish.