Translate a Vue app into Italian

Plurals, gender and articles: what Italian changes in your messages

vue-i18n separates plural forms with | and picks a form by position, not by CLDR category. For Italian (categories one, many, other) this works well: the singular is used only for 1, and zero takes the plural (‘0 articoli’). A three-form string translates directly:

• source: no items | one item | {count} items
• Italian: nessun articolo | un articolo | {count} articoli

The many category only covers large round numbers written in words (‘1 milione di utenti’, with di). If your UI shows that kind of counter, give it its own string rather than adding a form to the | list.

The real trap is elsewhere: Italian adjectives and participles agree in gender, and articles elide. With Delete the {item}, Italian needs ‘il file’, ‘l'account’ or ‘lo zaino’ depending on the inserted word. Likewise, {name} has been added becomes ‘aggiunto’ or ‘aggiunta’. A single string cannot cover all of these. Rewrite the source so the placeholder stands alone: Item deleted: {item}. For greetings, ‘Benvenuto, {name}’ assumes a man; ‘Ti diamo il benvenuto, {name}’ avoids the choice.

Accents, punctuation and register in Italian UI text

Points a reviewer should check in the Italian file:

• Accents: a capital accented E is È, never E' (‘È necessario effettuare l'accesso’). Words ending in ‘-ché’ take an acute accent: perché, poiché.
• Punctuation: no space before colons, question marks or exclamation marks. If your source is French, ‘Attention :’ becomes Attenzione:.
• Capitals: Italian does not use title case, nor capitals for months and weekdays. ‘Account Settings’ becomes ‘Impostazioni account’, and dates read ‘lunedì 3 marzo’.
• Apostrophes: elisions are everywhere (l'utente, dell'ordine, un'email). Inside double-quoted JSON they cause no problems, but pick straight or typographic apostrophes and stay consistent.

Settle the register before translating. Formal Italian uses the third person (Lei): ‘Inserisca la password’. Many consumer apps use the informal form instead: ‘Inserisci la password’. Both are correct; mixing them is not. The free extract shows you the register you will get before you pay, so check it on a form message.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

You upload a vue-i18n JSON file and get the same file back, with only the values in Italian. Indentation, key order, quotes, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM are all preserved.

• Placeholders such as {name} or {count} and the | plural separators stay in place.
• Every translated value is checked against the source (placeholders, tags). If a mismatch persists, the source value is kept and the report says so. An untranslated string is better than a missing {count}.
• Not translated: keys (cart.empty stays cart.empty), empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colours, date formats, identifiers and anything marked as non-translatable.

The report lists the strings translated and those left as they were, with the reason. Pricing is based on the words in the values, excluding keys and tags. Italian is charged at the base rate (×1 coefficient).

Manuce does not touch your code. It does not register the it locale in createI18n or create date and number formats. It works on JSON files: if your messages live in <i18n> custom blocks inside .vue components, extract them to JSON first. It does not provide sworn or certified translation, which a user interface rarely needs.

Dates, numbers and string length: handled in the app

Formats do not go through translation: vue-i18n produces them from the locale. Declare it-IT in your date and number formats. You will then get 1.234,56, with a full stop for thousands and a decimal comma, and day/month/year dates (03/03/2025). A string that hard-codes a number layout around {amount} should receive a value already formatted with $n or $d.

Italian runs close to French in length but is often longer than English. ‘Settings’ becomes ‘Impostazioni’, and ‘Sign in’ becomes ‘Accedi’ or ‘Effettua l'accesso’. Watch fixed-width buttons, tabs and badges. English compound nouns turn into phrases with prepositions (‘password reset’ → ‘reimpostazione della password’), which stretches short labels.

Preparing the file and checking the result

• Start from your up-to-date reference locale file, with no orphan keys.
• Isolate placeholders that carry a name or an object, so Italian is never forced into an impossible agreement.
• Note any linked messages @:key and characters that vue-i18n syntax treats specially (@, { }, |): a stray @ in a string can be interpreted. Check the console after integration.

Once delivered, rename the file it.json and add it to the messages in createI18n, keeping a fallbackLocale. Then test every plural with 0, 1 and 2. Finally, read the report to deal with any strings left in the source language.

In practice

1. Export your reference JSON locale file, up to date and without orphan keys.
2. Upload it, choose Italian and a level, then read the free extract to check the register.
3. Accept the quote and download the translated file with its report.
4. Rename it it.json, register it in createI18n and add it-IT formats.
5. Test plurals with 0, 1 and 2 and review screens with short labels.