Translate a Unity or Godot game into Spanish

What Manuce translates in a Unity or Godot project

In both engines, game text is usually managed in string tables exported as CSV: one column of keys, then one column per language. That is the file you upload. If a Spanish column already exists but is empty, Manuce fills it; if not, it adds one.

For example, MENU_NEW_GAME,New Game receives the Spanish value Nueva partida, while the key MENU_NEW_GAME stays exactly as it was. Make sure the column header matches the locale code your project expects (es, or whichever regional variant you have set up).

Everything else is preserved: key order, quotes, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM. A UTF-8 file with a BOM comes back as UTF-8 with a BOM, so ñ, á and ¿ do not turn into garbage when you reimport.

Spanish for games: what actually changes

• Spain or Latin America. Vocabulary differs: ordenador / computadora, mando / control, Pulsa A / Presiona A. So does the plural “you”: Habéis ganado in Spain, Ganaron in Latin America. Pick one variant before ordering and state it.
• Paired punctuation. Questions and exclamations open and close: Quit? becomes ¿Salir?, Level complete! becomes ¡Nivel completado!.
• Capitalisation. Spanish does not capitalise every word in a title: Opciones de sonido, not Opciones De Sonido.
• Register. Games generally address the player informally with tú: Guarda tu partida.
• Length. Spanish runs longer than English, similar to French: Load becomes Cargar partida, Settings becomes Configuración. Buttons sized for English overflow quickly.
• Plurals. Spanish has three CLDR categories: one, many, other. Many only covers large round numbers that take “de”: 1 millón de monedas. If your tables use separate keys (COINS_ONE, COINS_OTHER), each gets its own form; your structure is left alone.

Placeholders, tags and gender agreement

Word order shifts in Spanish and placeholders must move with it. {player} picked up {item} becomes {player} ha recogido {item}; in Godot, a %s or {name} must survive unchanged too. Rich-text tags such as <b> or [color=#FFCC00] stay wrapped around the right word.

Each translated value is compared with its source. If a placeholder or tag is missing or altered and the mismatch persists, Manuce keeps the source value for that string and flags it in the report, so you never reimport a line that breaks the display.

The trap specific to Spanish is grammatical gender. {item} obtained cannot be translated cleanly when {item} may be la espada or el escudo: obtenida or obtenido? A source string that avoids agreement works better and can be rendered as Has obtenido: {item}. The same applies to the player character’s gender.

Not translated: keys, empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colours, date formats, identifiers, and anything you mark as non-translatable, such as proper names from your game world.

What you get back, and what Manuce does not do

You receive the same CSV file, ready to drop back into the project, plus a report: strings translated, strings left unchanged and why (empty value, URL, number, placeholder mismatch, and so on). Pricing is based on the words in the values; keys and tags are excluded. A free excerpt, translated at your chosen level, lets you judge the tone before paying.

Manuce does not:

• adjust fonts or character atlases;
• resize buttons or text boxes;
• test the game or check screens visually;
• translate text baked into textures, videos or voice-over;
• pick up strings hard-coded in scenes or scripts unless they are in an exported table.

Preparing the file and checking in the engine

1. Move all text into tables. Any label left hard-coded in a scene or script will be missed.
2. Remove agreement traps. Rephrase strings like {item} found before export.
3. Mark non-translatable content. Character and place names, input codes.
4. Check your font. A static TextMeshPro font asset or a Godot bitmap font must include á é í ó ú ü ñ Ñ ¿ ¡, or those characters will render as boxes.
5. After reimporting, go through menus, inventory and dialogue: truncated text, inverted punctuation displayed correctly, plurals right with 1, 2 and a large number.

In practice

1. Export your Unity or Godot string tables as CSV.
2. Upload the file to Manuce, choose Spanish and a level, review the quote and the free excerpt.
3. Download the same CSV with the Spanish column filled in, and read the report.
4. Reimport the file into the engine and check fonts, text length and placeholders in-game.