A few words about localization of Brave into Russian

• No one can prepare a perfect localization for every region. You need to understand the language, know the context and see the interface. Brave have good translation into Russian (almost literal), but in my opinion this is a bad UI localization still. What's wrong and how to fix it?

A few words about localization of Brave into Russian

What's up, guys? Today I would like to talk about Brave localization. My native language is Russian, so I saw only Russian and English UI of the browser and English localization looks much better!

What was wrong with Russian localization of Brave:

• specific grammatical mistakes (for example, "защита активирован" instead of "защита активирована")
• strange terms (sometimes directly translation is not the best choice)
• different fonts for cyrillic and latin letters
• even if you use Russian UI, some website will work in English (I like it, but for many users it could be a problem)

For many years I used Maxthon and Maxthon had similar problems with localization. I remember the time when official translation was so bad that some users made own localization files and shared it with community. To be honest, Maxthon and Brave are the only browsers where I prefer English UI and this is really bad, because you know your native language better. Come on!

When Maxthon tried to fix the issue, they went Crowdin, How it works:

• the developer publishes terms to translate
• some user translate the term
• if someone does not agree with translation, he can add own one
• other users can vote and choose better translation

It works, but it works too slow. If the developers make too many changes, users have no time to translate and confirm new terms. It mean that even if you use Russian UI, you still see some terms in English. By the way, today Vivaldi has the same problems (but Vivaldi has the developer who know Russian).

A few weeks ago Mozilla released new version of Firefox (67.0). They added some new features and… Russian UI still looks fine. I’m talking about feeling: if this is your native language, you just know how it should sound and look. For example they used "цифровые отпечатки" for "digital fingerprint" (instead of literal "цифровые отпечатки пальцев"). I don’t know how they did it, but Brave should do the same.

No one can prepare a perfect localization. You need to understand the language, know the context and see the interface. Brave have good translation (almost literal), but this is bad UI localization. Now I want to add some "fixes", because sometimes it really looks like a modification from fans, but regional interface of the browser should be perfect!

Obvious problem

Below you can see Russian localization of Brave Shields. The screenshot is relevant for Brave v.0.66.99. What's wrong?

1. "Shields UP for this site"

Is this a reference to "Star Trek"? Because in Russian localization it is translated as "Защита активирована для этого сайта" – "Protection activated for this site". I think this is a good translation, because you can say "Щиты подняты" (Shields up), but "Щиты опущены" (Shields down) sounds too strange… So I like that you use "защита" (protection) instead of literal "щиты" (shields), but…

2. "АКТИВИРОВАН" is a mistake

In Russian "Защита АКТИВИРОВАН для этого сайта" sounds almost like "Amiga bailamos" instead of "Amiga baila" in Spanish. "Female" noun and "male" verb. It mean if the developers still want to use this translation, they should change it to "Защита АКТИВИРОВАНА для данного сайта" (активироваНА instead of активироваН). Why "данного" instead of "этого" (both words are translated as "this")? I just like it more.

3. "Защита АКТИВИРОВАНА для этого сайта" is too long line

You use ON for "enable" and OFF for "disable". You also can say "turn on" or "turn off". In Russian we use only "включен" (-на, -но) / "выключен" (-на, -но). But sometime this is too long works, so… The team can use just "ВКЛ" (ON) and "ВЫКЛ" (OFF). Some people prepare to write this words with a point: "ВКЛ." and "ВЫКЛ." (it’s about capital letters, if you use "вкл." and "выкл." you need to use points anyway). In other words, I think Brave Software should use "Защита ВКЛ. для этого сайта" и "Защита ВЫКЛ. для этого сайта", it will look much better.

4. Counters and options

In English you can say "Cross-site trackers blocked" and "23 cross-site trackers blocked". In Russian these are different phrases: "Сторонние трекеры заблокированы" and "23 сторонних трекера заблокировано". I’m almost sure that we can’t translate it without mistakes, because "trackers" may be translated as "трекеры", "трекер" (for 1, 21, 31, etc.), "трекера" (for 23, 34, etc.), "трекеров" (for 15, 26, 39, etc.).

I think Brave should forget about counters and translate it like a term in the options:

• "Блокировать сторонние трекеры" (≈"Block cross-site trackers")
• "Подключать HTTPS" (≈ "Connect HTTPS") or "Переключаться на HTTPS" (≈"Switch to HTTPS")
• "Блокировать скрипты" (≈"Block scripts")
• "Блокировать сторонние кукис" (≈"Block cross-site cookies") / "Блокировать файлы кукис" (≈"Block cookies") / "Разрешить файлы кукис" (≈"Allow cookies"). You also can use "cookies" instead of "кукис", sometimes it looks better.

5. Digital fingerprinting

In Russian "fingerprint" is "отпечаток пальца", "digital fingerprint" is "цифровой отпечаток пальца", but "digital fingerprinting" as identification by digital fingerprint is "идентификация по цифровому отпечатку пальца". Too many words, too many letters! And I see two ways to fix it:

• "Блокировать цифровые отпечатки" (≈"Block digital fingerprints") / "Блокировать сторонние отпечатки" (≈"Block cross-site fingerprints") / "Разрешить цифровые отпечатки" (≈"Allow digital fingerprints")
• "Запретить идентификацию" (≈"Prevent identification") / "Запретить стороннюю идентификацию" (≈"Prevent cross-site identification") / "Разрешить идентификацию" (≈"Allow identification"). In my opinion, this translation looks better than the first one.

6. "Items blocked and connections upgraded"

I have no idea how to translate it. Firstly, this is because of counters too. It mean that the simpler way is translate it like a title – "Заблокированные объекты" (≈"Blocked objects"). But I don’t know how to translate "connections upgraded", in Russian it sounds to strange. "Объекты заблокированы, соединение обновлено" (≈"Objects are blocked, connection is upgrade") maybe? I can not translate it better…

7. "Global shield defaults"

This is simple: “Общие настройки защиты” (“General security settings”). For some reasons today it’s translated as “Изменить глобальные настройки щита” (“Change global shield settings”). This is the only “shield” in Russian localization.

A new tab statistics

Another thing that every Brave user from Russia and CIS sees every day is a new tab. Localization for a new tab looks not so bad, but I still see many strange solutions.

What’s wrong? In English you can say just "trackers", does not matter how many trackers you see, but in Russian you need to know this numbers: "1 трекер", "2 трекера", "5 трекеров" and the same for "21 трекер", "32 трекера", "45 трекеров". Counters are too hard in Russian!

I think it could be just a titles:

• "Заблокированные трекеры" (≈"Blocked trackers")
• "Заблокированная реклама" or "Заблокированные объявления" (≈"Blocked ads")
• "Подключения HTTPS" (≈"HTTPS connection")
• "Сэкономленное время" (≈"Saved time")

Hours and minutes. We still can not translate it because this is a counter. I suggest using short words: "мин." ("min.") and "ч." ("h."). This is the only solution I see.

Photos. In my opinion, "Источник фото" ("Source of photo") sounds better than literal "Фото сделано" ("Photo made by").

Special terms

Why can't I just join the translation team and edit the terms? Because I'm too stupid for this. I joined the translation team on Transifex already, but  I just don’t understand how to find wrong translations to fix it. And I still have some questions about localization:

1. Why are there two Russian languages: Russian (ru) and Russian (ru_RU)?
   As I know, usually it means Russian for people who live in Russia (ru_RU) and Russian for all who understand Russian (ru). But Russian is not English or Spanish: people from many countries speak Russian, but this is still the same language. There are no differences in grammar or language structure. I think we don’t need two identical projects.
2. What about special terms like Shields, Rewards or Payments?
   A few years ago I translated MX5 (fifth incarnation of Maxthon). There were many specific features: Passkeeper. Infobox. UUMail, MXNote, etc. I think terms like these should not be translated: this is something like a title. But what about Brave’s specific features? Is this a title or just a description? Should we translate "Shields" like "Щиты" оr "Защита" (current translation of the term "shields" – "protection")? I think the developers can save special terms: Brave Shields, Brave Rewards, Brave Payments, etc.
3. Is there a way to look on new translation?
   The main problem of Russian localization was too long texts. I want to fix it, but sometimes I just can’t translate the phrase with no additional words. I need to check how it will look in the browser UI. Is there a way to do this? Because it could be really useful!

Is that all?

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