Translate an XLIFF file into English

British or American English: decide before you export

An XLIFF file declares its target language in an attribute: target-language in 1.2, trgLang in 2.0. For English the value matters, because en, en-GB and en-US do not necessarily load the same catalogue in your application. Settle on the variant before ordering, then check it against the free extract.

• Spelling: colour/color, cancelled/canceled, licence/license. A label meaning “customise colours” comes out as Customise colours for the UK and Customize colors for the US.
• Dates: 03/04 reads as 3 April in London and 4 March in New York. A pattern such as dd/MM/yyyy is not translated; your app's locale settings must adapt it. A date written out inside a sentence will simply be translated as text.
• Capitalisation: US interfaces often capitalise every word of buttons and headings (Save Changes); British usage tends towards sentence case (Save changes).

On length, English usually runs shorter than Romance languages and German (roughly 10 to 15% shorter than French), so overflowing buttons are rarely the problem. Very short labels can go the other way: French “Fin” becomes Finish.

Tags, plurals and punctuation in English segments

Tag order. Inline tags (<g>, <x/>, <ph>…) are kept in the same order. In English that sometimes means rephrasing. A source built as “the file <ph 1> of <ph 2>” would naturally invert to a possessive (Anna's report); with the order fixed, it becomes The file <ph id="1"/> from <ph id="2"/>. A string that would lose its tags is rejected and flagged, never delivered broken.

Plurals. English has two CLDR plural categories, one and other, and zero falls under other: 0 files, not 0 file. Many source languages handle zero differently (French treats it as singular), so an ICU message such as {count, plural, one {# file} other {# files}} deserves a test with 0, 1 and 2 after import.

Punctuation. English uses no space before : ; ? !, so French-style “Supprimer ce projet ?” becomes Delete this project?. Guillemets « » and low German quotes „ “ become “ ” (or ‘ ’, common in British style). If your code appends a colon or a space after a string, fix it there, not in the file.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

Manuce handles XLIFF 1.2 and 2.0. For each unit, the source is translated into the target element and the state attribute is updated. Nothing else moves: indentation, order, quotes, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM are preserved; only the values change.

• Units marked translate="no" are respected, which suits product names or commands such as git push.
• note elements are passed to the translator as context. A note saying “button, verb” stops Save turning into Recording.
• Not translated: IDs, empty values, URLs, email addresses, numbers, colours, date formats and anything marked as non-translatable.
• Each target is checked against its source for variables and tags. If a mismatch persists, the source value is kept and the report says so.

You receive the same file, in the same format, plus a report: strings translated, strings left as they were and why. Pricing is based on the words in the values, tags excluded. Manuce does not change your code, configure your app's locale or see the interface on screen: the visual check remains yours.

Preparing the XLIFF and checking it afterwards

A little preparation avoids most fixes after import.

1. Export the XLIFF from your framework or tool with English already declared as the target, using the exact code your app expects (en, en-GB or en-US).
2. Add notes to short, ambiguous strings: “Open” as a state or an action, “Archive” as a noun or a verb, “Free” as in no charge or available.
3. Mark brand names and technical terms you want kept with translate="no".
4. Read the free extract: spelling variant, button capitalisation, tone of error messages.
5. Once delivered, read the report, then test plurals with 0, 1 and 2, dates, and any strings left in the source language.

In practice

1. Export your XLIFF (1.2 or 2.0) with English declared as the target.
2. Upload it to Manuce: the quote appears at once, based on value words.
3. Read the free extract to confirm the English variant and tone.
4. Pay, then download the translated XLIFF and its report.
5. Re-import it and test plurals, dates and tags on screen.