Microsoft Terminology Blog

Windows 7 terminology published on Microsoft Language Portal

2009-11-07T02:18:00Z

Following the worldwide release of Windows 7, we have now included the terminology and software translations for 35 languages on the Microsoft Language Portal . UI strings for Windows 7 (and many other products) are also available for download in CSV format for MSDN and TechNet subscribers....(read more)

Downloading UI translations for offline use

2009-10-27T03:48:00Z

Microsoft Language Portal features an online search that displays results from our terminology databases that contain terms, their definitions, and their translations. In addition to the terminology database, the portal also contains UI translations from released products. With an MSDN or TechNet subscription, you can download the UI translations (a.k.a. "UI strings") in CSV format. These now include Windows 7 translations. The content of these files is identical to what you will find in the online...(read more)

Dutch Style Guide Updated

2009-09-29T02:49:00Z

The Dutch Style Guide has been updated and is available for download from the Language Portal Style Guide Download Center . Here is an overview of the changes made in this update: - Guidelines for translation of key names have been changed. - A new section has been added on the translation of wizard names. - A new guideline has been added for the translation of constructions with present participle. - The guideline on word order of auxiliary and past participle verb forms has been made more explicit,...(read more)

How are we doing?

2009-08-12T22:03:00Z

The Language Portal ( http://www.microsoft.com/language ) has been available for over a year, now and we would like to hear what you think so far! Is the site helping you in your daily work? What areas do you use most often? What is particularly useful about being able to search for terms? What would you like to see in addition to what is there now? Reply to this post and let us know. And thank you to all of you who have helped make the first year a great success!...(read more)

Spelling Reform Topic Updated in Portuguese (Brazil) Style Guide

2009-07-23T02:53:00Z

The 5 th edition of Vocabulário Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa (VOLP) was published on March 19, 2009, clarifying the points that were obscure in the official text of the Spelling Agreement. In Portuguese (Brazil) Style Guide available on the Language Portal , the topic Portuguese Spelling Reform was updated accordingly to conform with the procedure and methodology followed by VOLP 5 th edition. The main changes to Microsoft original instructions (from December 2008) refer to the use of hyphen...(read more)

Danish and Ukrainian Style Guides Recently Updated

2009-02-27T00:30:00Z

The Danish and Ukrainian Style Guides available from the Microsoft Language Portal were updated recently. In the Danish Style Guide, section 4.1.1.7. Mood has been updated. In Danish some verbs in the imperative form can be mistaken for a noun and therefore we have added an accent acute to the verb in order to distinguish the two. However, the accent is only to be applied in imperative forms that may cause confusion e.g. 'markér' and 'aktivér'. It is not to be introduced as a standard. The Ukrainian...(read more)

Portuguese spelling reform in Brazil

2009-01-21T16:19:00Z

On January 1 st , 2009, Brazil started adopting the new spelling rules, defined in the Spelling Agreement signed in 1990 by seven Portuguese-speaking countries. Grammarians estimate that the spelling reform affects 0.5% of the Portuguese (Brazil) lexicon. In Brazil, there will be a 4-year transition period in which both spellings will be accepted. As the purpose of the Portuguese spelling reform is to establish a single common orthography for all Portuguese-speaking countries, you may be wondering...(read more)

Context-sensitive speller

2009-01-15T16:36:00Z

Today’s post in the Office Natural Language Team Blog reminds us that a great addition to Office 2007, a context-sensitive spelling checker , is also available for Spanish (as well as English and German). It is a very useful feature for languages with recurrent homophones , like they’re, their and there in English. It helps users avoid misuse of similarly spelled words by highlighting some contextual spelling errors with a blue squiggle and suggesting the correct alternative: The Office 2007 contextual...(read more)

Windows 7 Beta in Arabic, German, Hindi and Japanese available on Jan 9

2009-01-08T13:25:00Z

Windows 7 Beta is now ready and in addition to English, it'll also be available in German, Japanese, Arabic, and Hindi on January 9. Each language will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions (except Hindi which will only be available in 32-bit). Read more on the Windows 7 Team blog . If you read German, check out some first impresssions from Microsoft Austria and Microsoft Germany ....(read more)

Free downloads of 26 new Style Guides now available

2009-01-02T16:00:00Z

We have added another 26 Localization/Translation Style Guides that you can download for free from the Microsoft Language Portal. We already provide around 60 downloadable Style Guides and have now added the following languages from the Unlimited Potential Local Language Program: Albanian Amharic Armenian Assamese Azeri Gaelic Georgian Inuktitut Icelandic Khmer Kinyarwanda Kiswahili Kyrgyz Lao Luxembourgish Maltese Nepali Oriya Pashto Persian Quechua Sinhala Tatar Uzbek Welsh Wolof We are still working...(read more)

Localized Visual Studio 2008 in 9 new languages

2008-12-24T20:40:00Z

Visual Studio 2008 has been localized into Arabic, Czech, Hebrew, Hindi, Polish, Tamil, Turkish, Malayalam and Oriya as a free "CLIP" download package . "CLIP" stand for " Captions Language Interface Pack ". It's basically an add-on with localized user interface that you install on top of the English version of Visual Studio. The CLIP package allows you to see translations of menus, button and so on as tooltips when running Visual Studio. It's designed for users who use the English version, but want...(read more)

Cultural awareness and product development/localization

2008-12-16T16:34:00Z

Sarah Dillon in There's something about translation has a very interesting post on multilingualism and cultural identity and their implications for language professionals. It made me reflect on cultural awareness and the role it plays in the development and localization of Microsoft products. As an Italian terminologist in the Microsoft Language Excellence team, I often take part in reviews aimed at ensuring that specific product features are suitable for a global , yet culturally diverse, audience...(read more)

Czech Terminology: changing “klepnout” to “kliknout”

2008-12-13T18:20:00Z

Based on strong feedback from our users, we are changing our Czech translations for click and double-click (verb and noun) to kliknout/kliknutí and dvakrát kliknout/dvojité kliknutí , respectively. With this change, we are hoping to align these terms with the latest industry standard terminology and meet the preferences of Czech users. Earlier this year, the Czech subsidiary asked users for feedback on this change through a vote at Živě.cz and the message came back very strongly that 94% of users...(read more)

Windows Live terminology - what users told us

2008-12-09T17:33:00Z

For a couple of months earlier this year, we ran a terminology feedback program to solicit comments and alternative suggestions from our users. This program was specifically aimed at the existing terminology in the Windows Live suite of services (Messenger, Spaces, Hotmail, etc) and in particular on social networking terminology. The project was live for around 40 languages and the results have been or are being incorporated in new versions of Windows Live – most already implemented in the current...(read more)

Puget Sound STC meeting on terminology at Microsoft

2008-12-02T23:11:00Z

The Puget Sound chapter of the Society for Technical Communication ( STC ) invited me and a panel of Microsoft writers, editors, managers, and terminologists to present our view of terminology management best practices at their November meeting in Bellevue, WA. I have been a member of STC for 20 plus years, during most of that time I was an editor or writer. Now that I have been doing terminology work at Microsoft for nearly three years, I was excited to be able to share with my fellow STC members...(read more)