Is it possible to switch source and target language?

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TeamOnlineWriter
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Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2013 6:28 am

Is it possible to switch source and target language?

Post by TeamOnlineWriter »

Hi

We recently purchased MadPak for my company (software). I have one year of experience using Flare from my previous job, and very little experience using Lingo.

So far we have only two languages Danish (Da-DK) and US English. For various reasons we decided to make EN-US our source language. However, the employees responsible for writing our user guides are not that comfortable writing in English. The rest of our documentation is written by developers, they have no problem with English.

Just wondering: Let´s say I create a Lingo project and a TM where the source language is En-US, target language is Da-DK. But it turns out that the authors do not have sufficient English language skills. Would it be possible that:
1. The authors update the target project (Da-DK) instead of the source project (En-US).
2. I open my Lingo project and switch the source and target language (Da-DK becomes the source language).
3. I translate new and updated strings from Danish to English.
5. I switch the languages back again.

Is this possible?

Anders
alt_jennifer
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Location: Fayetteville, NC
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Re: Is it possible to switch source and target language?

Post by alt_jennifer »

No, unfortunately this isn't possible in Lingo. It doesn't even have the flexibility of changing one of the languages after the project has been started (like changing EN-US to EN-UK).

It's possible that you might be able to swap source and target languages in the TM, but not in the whole project.
Jennifer Schudel
Localization Manager/Flare Operator
Advanced Language Translation / http://www.advancedlanguage.com
* MadCap Recommended Translation Vendor *
TeamOnlineWriter
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Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2013 6:28 am

Re: Is it possible to switch source and target language?

Post by TeamOnlineWriter »

Hi Jennifer

Thank you for the reply, and sorry for responding so late.

Kind regards,
Anders
kathryngz
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Re: Is it possible to switch source and target language?

Post by kathryngz »

Anders,

I just joined the forums today and saw this thread. I realize my response is delayed, but I learned something on a recent project that may be relevant to your case. We had an issue where the translators returned XLF files to us incorrectly formatted. (As you may or may not be aware, in the XLF files the <source> tags in the file are supposed to retain the original language and the <target> tags are supposed to contain the translations.) But the files we got back had the translations in the <source> and <target> tags, which meant Lingo couldn't process them.

I started manually cutting and pasting translated strings from the incorrect XLF files back into the original files viewed in the editing screen in Lingo, which was NOT an efficient way to work--then I realized that since XLF is a flavor of XML, XLF files can be manipulated programmatically, using XSLT, Java, or even JavaScript. Fortunately, I was able to get one of our programmers to write a quick app that took the English <source> tags from our original files and the translated <target> tags from the translated files, and create new correctly formatted files with everything in the right place.

I realize my problem isn't identical to yours, but if you want to switch languages you should be able to do something similar with your XLF files if you have the personal knowledge or programming resources to write the app.

One thing to be aware of: the corrected file has to retain exactly the same structure, including line breaks, as the original XLF file created by Lingo. (And the line breaks are in some non-standard locations, such as between tag arguments.) But as long as you ensure that, Lingo will be able to read your new files.

Hope that helps--

Kathryn
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