Guidance for Chinese Traditional

Style Guides Chinese Traditional
1

Last update: September 8, 2023

If you have any comments, suggestions, questions or need for an arbitration, create a topic in the Style Guide section, the Language Lead will get back to you.

Here you will find the guidance for Chinese Traditional, but you should also consider the guidance for all languages.

1. Capitalization

  • In case of capitalized letter for a name, a person, a product, a place, or any similar scenario, do not translate it but leave it as it is.
  • Check the context and understand what matters the most in the sentence. Capitalizing is impossible for Chinese characters, yet no wrong with emphasizing the term.

Capitalize proper names
:point_right: Proton Mail
:point_right: Proton VPN
:point_right: NetShield

Do not capitalize

  • Internet addresses (domain names)
  • e-mail address

2. Gender

  • In Mandarin Chinese, there is no distinction made between the words sex and gender. Terms like “gender registration” or "legal gender” are referring to biological sex. :point_right: 生理性別 : 認同性別 = Sex : Gender
  • The wording and tone of the translation must avoid discrimination against gender.
English We avoid We prefer
I am happy to help you. 能幫到您是一件快樂的事 很榮幸為您服務
If you are interested in Proton Mail… 若您被 Proton Mail 吸引著 Proton Mail 必使您心動
I am not used to this tool. 我對這個工具不熟悉 這工具對我而言很陌生
  • You can use passive language to avoid gender-specific verbs, but only if it doesn’t hurt readability and/or make the sentence sound unnatural.
  • Apply the masculine form when an adjective, verb, or another part of speech refers to multiple nouns with different genders.
  • Rephrase when you are unable to find a gender-neutral way.
  • The gender and number of an acronym are determined by the gender and number of the translation for the governing noun of the extended form.
    :point_right: “parent folder” is masculine because the translation is “父”系資料夾
    :point_right: CD-ROM Mastering is feminine because the translation is “光碟“母“片”

3. Abbreviations

Whenever possible, avoid using abbreviations.
Abbreviate the text only when you lack space (mainly buttons, option names or strings with specific character limitations) or when you need to ease the text readability. Instead of abbreviating (e.g., 4 or 5 consecutive words), summarize a term or a phrase in 2 or 3 words that can be written in full.

General criteria for shortening words:

  • Omit at least two letters
  • Truncate a word so that it ends with a consonant and place a period after it
  • When a word contains a double consonant, truncate it at the second one and place a period after it
    :point_right: 電子郵件 => 電郵
    :point_right: IP 位址 => IP

Days abbreviations (in calendars, agendas, timetables… the names of days are written without a period for visual purposes):

English Translation Abbreviation option 1 Abbreviation option 2
Monday 星期一 週一 一
Tuesday 星期二 週二 二
Wednesday 星期三 週三 三
Thursday 星期四 週四 四
Friday 星期五 週五 五
Saturday 星期六 週六 六
Sunday 星期日 週日 日

4. Acronyms

  • Common examples are VPN (Virtual Personal Network), DNS (Domain Name Server), HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), etc.
  • The most common acronyms and their translations are included in the glossary. Always refer to the glossary when localizing acronyms.
  • Commonly used acronyms do not need explanations (DVD, LED, TV, etc.).
  • When an acronym is repeated several times in the same section, include its extended form in parentheses only for its first occurrence.

5. Pronouns

Mandarin Chinese has many words with the same pronunciation and different meanings, and even different pronunciations of the same word represent different meanings. When translating, try to avoid repetition of a single word in the same sentence, especially the use of “you (您)“, and the basic politeness will not be discarded because of informal translation.

6. Gerunds (“ing” ending)

  • Gerunds are used in English, such as in “Creating a report”.
  • When paragraph and chapter heads begin in English with a gerund, as a general rule please use an infinitive, translating it as the equivalent of “Create a report”.
  • But depending on the context, this may also mean “in the process of”.
English Context We avoid We prefer
Generating keys Action or title 正在產出金鑰 產出一組金鑰
Generating keys Processing 正在生成金鑰 生成一組金鑰
Importing Action or title 正在匯入 匯入
Importing Processing 正在匯入 匯入
Importing data from %1s to %2s Action or title 正在匯入資料自 %1s 至 %2s 匯入資料自 %1s 至 %2s
Importing data from %1s to %2s Processing 正在匯入資料自 %1s 至 %2s 匯入資料自 %1s 至 %2s

7. Punctuation

  • The first half of a pair of punctuation marks (such as (, ", <, [, {, ", ', etc.} must not appear at the end of the line; nor should the second half appear at the beginning of the line.
  • There should be no punctuation at the beginning of any line or on a line by themselves.
  • In the event of untranslated passages, please retain all text and punctuation formatting in the original text.

7.1 Period

For the period at the end of a sentence, adapt the source to your language usage.

7.2 Exclamation mark

  • Exclamation marks are used to give emphasis.
  • As their use is less common than in English, you should use them sparingly: feel free to change an exclamation mark into a period if it is more natural, but please don’t change a period into an exclamation mark.
English We avoid We prefer
Theme reset! Redirecting… 主題重設！ 重新導向中… 視覺主題已重設並重新導向
Importing contacts complete! 匯入聯絡名片完成！ 匯入聯絡名片已完成。
You have %d new emails! 您有 %d 封新郵件！ 您有 %d 封新郵件。

7.3 Parentheses

  • Parentheses are used to clarify statements or provide additional information.
  • Half-shaped brackets do not need to be changed into full-shaped brackets.
  • Half-shaped space must be added before and after the half-shaped brackets.
English We avoid We prefer
Please choose a display name to finish setting up your account. (Other people will see this.) 請選擇一個顯示名稱以完成設定帳號。（其他人也可看到） 請選擇一個顯示名稱以完成您的帳號設定，請記得其他人也可看到此名稱。
We also support importing vCard. (UTF-8 encoding) 我們也支援匯入vCard (UTF-8 編碼) 我們同時支援匯入 UTF-8 編碼的 vCard。

7.4 Comma

Do not place a comma before “and” and “or” when the conjunction is used to link two related terms.

English We avoid We prefer
You can also add, delete, and edit them by clicking… 您也可透過點擊加入、刪除、和編輯它們… 您亦可透過點擊指令，例如：加入、刪除和編輯等以進行操作。
Assign permissions to users, or groups 指派權限給使用者，或是群組 指派權限予使用者或是群組

7.5 Colon and semicolon

  • Colons and semicolons are all preceded by a non-breaking space.
  • No need to add the extra period “。” at the end
    Date: Old to new :point_right: 日期：以舊至新排序

7.6 Em dash (—), en dash (–), hyphen (-)

  • In English, an Em or En dash is used to demarcate an isolated element, to introduce an item that is not essential to the sentence’s meaning, to emphasize a sudden change in thought or to bring focus to a list.
  • It is often more appropriate to use a comma, a full stop or parenthesis instead.
  • Also, the Em dash is not used for date ranges, therefore you should use “至” instead.
    September 10 - 20 :point_right: 9 月 10 - 20 日

7.7 Quotation marks

Use half-width " " for quotation marks.

7.8 Apostrophes

Use straight apostrophes :point_right: User’s Contacts = 使用者的通訊錄

7.9 Ampersand (&)

Replace “&” with “和”, “與” unless it is part of a company/product name or a registered trademark.

7.8 Half-width & full-width space

  • Use half-width space:

    • Special symbols such as @, #, $, %, &, *, =, ~.
    • Between Chinese characters and English characters
    • When English characters appear in parentheses, but there should be a half-width space between the words before and after the brackets.

  • Use full-width space:

    • When Chinese characters appear in parentheses
    • Within the documents, such as comma (，) or (、), period (。), colon (：), question mark (？), upper and lower quotation marks (「」)…

  • Except for periods (.) and commas (,), which must be centered full-width, other punctuation marks should be half-width. Chinese abridgment marks (…) shall be replaced by English abridgment marks (…).

8 Spacing and non-breaking spaces

  • Use non-breaking spaces to prevent improper division of elements such as product names, part numbers, numbers, dates, etc.
  • When using currency symbols or units of measurement, include a non-breaking space between number and sign.
  • To insert a non-breaking space using your keyboard:
    • On Windows, hold down the “Alt” key while typing the number “255”.
    • On Apple, Control + Option⌥ + Space bar.
English Traditional Chinese [non-breaking space]
First step: click 第一步驟 : 點擊 第一步驟[non-breaking space]: 點擊
Thank you! 謝謝 ! 謝謝[non-breaking space]!
Why? 為什麼 ? 為什麼[non-breaking space]?
30% 30% 30[non-breaking space]%
€5 €5 €[non-breaking space]5
1 GB 1 GB 1[non-breaking space]GB
Message “%s” does not exist. 郵件訊息 “ %s” 不存在。 郵件訊息 ”[non-breaking space]%s[non-breaking space]» 不存在。

9 Numbers

  • No need to replace the period that stands for the decimal point in American English with a comma in your translations.
    3.75 :point_right: 3.75
  • For numbers smaller than 1, always put a zero before the decimal comma.
    .5 :point_right: 0.5
  • The period in app/software version numbers remains unchanged.
    :point_right: Proton Mail v.3
  • As a thousand separator, use a non-breaking space. Never use thousand separators in years.
    15,000 and year 2015 :point_right: 15,000 和 2015 年
  • Time and date:
    • Hours and minutes are separated by a colon. Use the 24 hour format to specify A.M. and P.M.
      at 9:25 P.M :point_right: 在 21:25
    • For dates: 01/31/22 (mm/dd/yyyy) :point_right: 2022年01月31日

10 Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers may be written in with numerals and letter suffixes, where the suffix acts as an ordinal indicator.

English Translation
1st 第一
2nd 第二
3rd 第三
4th 第四
5th 第五
6th 第六
7th 第七
8th 第八
9th 第九
10th 第十

11 Currencies

  • Do not convert USD ($) or EUR (€) amounts to any local currency.
  • Place the USD or EUR code or the symbol €, $ after the number and separate it with a non-breaking space from the number.
  • “额" is zh_CH and “額” is zh_TW: Never ever mixed these two “Languages
    Amount of $30 :point_right: 金額 30 美元

12 Units of measurement

  • Use the metric system.
  • Insert a non-breaking space between a number and the relevant unit.
  • Convert imperial units into metric units.
    6 feet :point_right: 1,83 公分
Category Measurement unit Translation Abbreviation
LINEAR Kilometer
Meter
Centimeter
Millimeter		 公里
公尺
公分
公厘		 km
m
cm
mm
MASS Ton
Kilogram
Pound		 公噸
公斤
磅		 t
kg
lb
IMPERIAL Inch
Feet
Mile
Gallon		 英吋
英呎
英哩
加侖		 in
ft
mi
gal
COMPUTING Byte (B)
Megabyte (MB)
Gigabyte (GB)
Terabyte (TB)
 位元組
百萬位元組
十億位元組
萬億位元組		 b
mb
G
T

13 Form of address

Use the second-person plural (“you”) form of address.
Open navigation :point_right: 打開導航

14 English/US terms

For users of both Chinese and American keyboards, all function keys with English names, such as Esc, Shift, Alt, Tab, Ctrl, Enter, Insert (Ins), Delete (Del), Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause, Break, Num Lock, Caps Lock, and F1 to F12 should be kept in their original text. Only if small caps are used in the original text, they should be changed to normal capitals.

15 Foreign words

  • The decision about the use of foreign words (keeping it in English) rather than an equivalent term in your language is based on how widespread the use of the word is. An English term might be recommended when its use has become very common.
  • To find out how common a word is, you can use internet search engines. Search for the English word and for the corresponding translation in your language on your preferred search engine. The number of occurrences in each case will be an indication of how popular the use of each word is. If in doubt for an important term, ask Proton Localization team to make an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) check.
  • Foreign words might be accompanied by quotation marks or italics when their use is not widely spread. However, English words that are widely accepted for use are kept as they are in the original but do not take the ending “s” in the plural case.
  • When foreign words are common and well understood, they can be left in the source language. Where necessary, add an explanation in the target language.
  • Avoid using too many anglicisms.

16 Localizing person names

  • Localize fictitious person names used for explanatory purposes, choosing a name that is generic but not stereotypical.
    Please enter your display name (e.g. 王大明 :point_right: 大明 (例如: 王大明)
  • Do not localize real persons’ names.
    Bart Butler is a senior engineer at Proton Mail :point_right: Bart Butler 是服務於 Proton Mail 的資深工程師。

17 Localizing domains and email addresses

  • Localize fictitious domain names and e-mail addresses used for explanatory purposes:
  • Translate the local-part of an e-mail address
    user@ :point_right: (使用者自訂名稱)@ :point_right:user_01@
  • Translate the domain name
    yourdomain.com :point_right: (您的網域名稱).com :point_right: protonforme.tw
  • Use your target country code at the end
    .com :point_right: .com.tw
English Translation
Proton Mail allows you to keep your business email address (you**@yourcompany.com**). Proton Mail 可讓您保有使用商務電郵位址 (you**@yourcompany.com**)
Receive all email sent to addresses in your domain that do not exist (e.g., “ mistake@yourdomain.com”). 接收所有傳送至您網域不存在的電郵位址 (例如: “mistake@yourdomain.com")

However, do not localize any real email addresses or domain names.
To reset your mailbox password, please use the web version of Proton Mail at proton.me
:point_right: 若要重設您的電郵信箱密碼，請移駕至網頁版 proton.me。

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