Translate a Unity or Godot game into Simplified Chinese

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

Unity, through its Localization package, and Godot both work with CSV string tables: one column of keys, then one column per language. That is the file you upload, whatever your source language. Manuce fills the Chinese column if it already exists, or adds it if it does not, and returns the same file. Key order, quoting, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM are preserved; only the values change.

• menu_continue,Continue, becomes menu_continue,Continue,继续
• hud_level,Level {0}, becomes hud_level,Level {0},第{0}关

One CSV detail worth knowing: the Chinese comma ， is a full-width character, not the ASCII comma that separates columns. It will not break your columns, and values that were quoted stay quoted.

Left untranslated: keys, empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colour codes, date formats, identifiers and anything you mark as non-translatable. You pay only for the words in the values, with keys and tags excluded. Simplified Chinese carries a language supplement (×1.6 on the per-word rate).

Manuce works on the string table only. It does not change your fonts, textures containing text, voice-over, or strings hard-coded in scripts and scenes, and it does not test the display in the engine. It does not provide certified (sworn) translation either.

Chinese in a game engine: what changes on screen

• Fonts. A Latin font has no hanzi, so without a suitable font the game shows empty boxes. In Unity with TextMeshPro, you need a font asset that covers Simplified Chinese, such as a Noto Sans SC or Source Han Sans family. It can be dynamic, or use a static atlas generated from the characters you actually use; the delivered Chinese column gives you exactly that list. In Godot, adding a Chinese font as a fallback in your theme usually does the job.
• Space. The text runs two to three times shorter in characters, but each character is wider, so the space it takes up changes little. Do not plan on extra room in dialogue boxes.
• Size. Dense characters such as 疆 or 攻 become unreadable at very small sizes. A HUD font size chosen for Latin script is often too small for Chinese.
• Line breaking. There are no spaces between words, so the engine must be able to break between any two characters. Punctuation such as ，。！？ should never start a line.
• Punctuation. The translation uses full-width punctuation: ：, ，, 。, “ ” quotation marks and the six-dot ellipsis …….

Placeholders, tags and plurals: the Chinese-specific traps

Word order often shifts. {player} defeated {enemy} becomes {player}击败了{enemy}, and a level number moves to the front, as in 第{0}关. Every translated value is checked against the source for matching placeholders and tags. If a mismatch persists, the source value is kept and the report flags it, so no broken string reaches your build.

• Tags. Unity rich text such as <color=#FFD700>Sword</color> and Godot BBCode such as [color=yellow]…[/color] stay wrapped around the translated word.
• Format markers. Godot's %s and %d used with tr(), and the braces in Unity Smart Strings, are left intact.
• Plurals. Chinese has a single CLDR category, other. If your table has coins_one and coins_other, both get the same Chinese value with a measure word: {0}枚金币.
• Concatenation. A sentence built in code, such as "You found " + item + "!", cannot read naturally in Chinese. Before exporting, replace it with a single string containing a placeholder, You found {0}!, which becomes 你找到了{0}！.

Preparing the file and checking it afterwards

Before uploading:

• Export the table from your engine as UTF-8 CSV.
• If a Chinese column already exists, keep the header your project already uses for it, for example zh_CN or zh-Hans depending on your setup. The engine relies on it at import.
• Use descriptive keys: ui_btn_start gives far more context than str_042.
• Mark as non-translatable any names you want to keep in Latin letters, such as your studio name or a trademark.

After delivery:

• Read the report, which lists the strings translated, the strings left as they were and why.
• Reimport the CSV. Godot regenerates its translation files on import; in Unity, reimport the file into your table collection.
• Step through the busiest screens: option menus, tooltips and the quest log. Check that no glyphs are missing from the font atlas and that line breaks fall in sensible places.

Simplified Chinese targets mainland China and Singapore. For Taiwan or Hong Kong, order Traditional Chinese, which Manuce handles as a separate language. Finally, releasing a game in mainland China requires official approval, and a translation is no substitute for that.

In practice

1. Export your game's string table as UTF-8 CSV, with or without a Chinese column.
2. Upload it for an instant quote based on the exact word count, plus a free sample at the level you choose.
3. Download the completed CSV and the report from your client area.
4. Reimport the file, add a font covering Simplified Chinese and test your densest screens.