Translator Guide

WRITE AS IF YOU ARE writing A STORY TO A FRIEND.
Joshua Mark

Writing Style & Tone

“Story” is the key part in the word “history”, and our content should reflect that.

Make your text a pleasure to read.

You do not need to translate word for word, not even sentence per sentence. Languages are all different and use what works best for your own language. Do make sure that the meaning remains the same, though.

Language

  • Check your spelling and grammar!
  • Foreign terms must be italicised.
  • When referring to places or people, always use the name most commonly known in your language. Examples in French: “London” should be “Londres” , “Mark Antony”: “Marc Antoine”.

Numbers, Dates & Measurements

  • Numbers up to twelve should generally be written as words; numbers from 13 upwards should be written with digits.
  • The English text uses BCE / CE for dates. Please use what academics use in your language (in French, av. J.-C. / ap. J.-C.; in Spanish a.C./ d.C.).
  • If you are translating an article on ancient history, every single date must have the equivalent of a BCE or CE following it. From 500 CE onwards, it is no longer necessary to specify the era.
  • All measurements must be in the unit system used in your culture. (For Spanish and French, you could keep the imperial units in brackets so as to cater for Spanish and French speakers living in the U.S.A and Canada. for example).

Images

  • To insert the images into your translations, copy and paste the codes from the original definition and insert them in the same place. Do not translate them nor modify the codes in any way. Images are usually inserted automatically but not videos. Please check if the original text has a video in it and copy and paste the video code into your translation.
  • Please check the text under the images within the translation. It has been automatically translated. If it needs changing, please do so. You will find the images translation boxes underneath the main translation box.

Q&A section

  • More recent definitions will have a Q&A section under the images. Please translate those too!

Biographies

  • Please translate your biography into your own language (so that your readers unederstand who you are) and check if the original author’s biography has already been translated. The biography boxes are on the right of the Picture translation boxes.

Formatting

Please respect the same paragraphs as in the original text.

  • Headings
    • Use “Heading 3” for subheadings: highlight the text and click on Heading 3
  • Big quotes (in red)
    • To create a big quote, write the big quote text as a separate paragraph before the paragraph where it should be inserted.
    • Highlight it and click on BIG QUOTE in the drop down menu.
    • You do not need to use the " button for big red quotes
    • Big quotes will automatically capitalize all letters in the text. Simply type the text using normal capitalization.
  • Quotations
    • Use the Block quote function of the online text editor, without any quotation marks for longer quotes
    • The name of the person quoted should be included within the quotation block, in brackets.
  • Other
    • Book titles should always be italicised.
    • Please, do not add footnotes, links or any extra information. The original article has been edited to match WHE standards.
    • You do not need to worry about the crosslinks (words in red). These are language- specific and are created automatically.
    • Some common abbreviations in the English texts:
      • r. reigned
      • l. lived (You do not have to put anything at all)
      • fl. flourished (when the exact dates of a person are not known)
      • c. around

Booking a translation (max 2 bookings at once)

  • To avoid having two translators working on the same translation, please book your translation.
  • Here is how to do it:
    • Do as if you wanted to submit a translation.
    • put WIP in the title (this is what i see in the pending queue), and WIP in the text box.
    • accept the conditions and submit.
  • It will go straight into my pending queue (with WIP as a title).
  • When your translation is complete:
    • paste it in the text box, format it (if you can).
    • remove WIP in the text box and in the title box.
    • Put the correct title.
    • Accept the conditions and submit.
  • When I see the title, I understand it is ready to be edited!

Please bear in mind that if a booked translation has been left untouched for three consecutive months, it will be automatically deleted. Our pending queue is sometimes a nightmare due to abandoned translations. So, make sure you show some kind of progress on a regular basis. Thank you!

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