Guidance for Portuguese, Brazilian

[PMtranslator]

Last update: February 15, 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 Brazilian Portuguese, but you should also consider the guidance for all languages.

1. Capitalization

• Capitalize only the first letter of a sentence and the names of people, products or places.
• Always apply your language conventions rather than adhering to the English source.

Capitalize

• Proper names
  Proton Mail
  Proton VPN
  NetShield
• Command/Folder names and keywords (first word only)
  Abrir
  Fechar
  Salvar como
• First word of a sentence, title or subtitle
  Como excluir uma conta
• In UI items made up of 2 alternative commands separated by a slash, both are capitalized
  Importar/Exportar arquivo
• In bulleted lists introduced by a complete sentence and ending with a colon
  O programa deve ter estas características:
  • Nome
  • Tipo
  • Duração
• In bulleted lists, where sentences end with a period.
  O comando tem certas características específicas.
  O comando é organizado em ordem alfabética.

Do not capitalize

• Words in a list introduced by a sentence and ending with a semicolon or a comma
  Para isso, você deve:
  • acessar a tela inicial;
  • tocar no botão correspondente;
  • aguardar o carregamento.
• Words after colon when in the same line
  Observação: o nome de usuário é também o seu endereço do ProtonMail.
• Nationalities and languages
  cidadania brasileira
  escrito em inglês
• Names of days, months and seasons
  segunda-feira
  maio
  verão

2. Gender

• Proton’s gender:
  • Whenever Proton appears as a standalone and refers to the company or brand, it is feminine.
    Proton was founded by scientists. A Proton foi fundada por cientistas.
  • Whenever Proton is part of a product name (such as Proton Drive or Proton Mail), it is masculine.
    Proton Mail Contacts Contatos do Proton Mail
• We want to be as inclusive as possible, so we try to be neutral, but we use gender-specific nouns and verbs if remaining neutral goes against the writing best practices for a specific language.
• Basic principles:
  • When possible, avoid the use of masculine singular form to refer to someone whose gender is unknown.
  • Don’t suggest the reader’s gender using a specific grammatical forms. If you cannot use forms that are gender-free, rephrase the sentence.

English	We avoid	We prefer
I am happy to help you.	Será um prazer ajudá-lo.	Será um prazer ajudar você.
If you are interested in ProtonMail…	Se você está interessado no ProtonMail…	Se você tem interesse no ProtonMail…
I am not used to this tool.	Não estou acostumado com essa ferramenta.	Não conheço muito bem essa ferramenta.

• 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.
• Choose the plural form, if you are unable to find a gender neutral way to translate a string.

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 readibility. 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
• Examples:
  • Abreviação👉 Abreviaç.
  • Corrigir Corr.

Days abbreviations

English	Translation	Abbreviation
Monday	segunda-feira	seg
Tuesday	terça-feira	ter
Wednesday	quarta-feira	qua
Thursday	quinta-feira	qui
Friday	sexta-feira	sex
Saturday	sábado	sáb
Sunday	domingo	dom

Months abbreviations

English	Translation	Abbreviation
January	janeiro	jan
February	fevereiro	fev
March	março	mar
April	abril	abr
May	maio	mai
June	junho	jun
July	julho	jul
August	agosto	ago
September	setembro	set
October	outubro	out
November	novembro	nov
December	dezembro	dez

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.
• The gender and number of the acronym are determined by the gender and number of the translation for the main noun of the extended form.
  API (Application Programming Interface) is feminine because the translation of “interface” (“interface”) is feminine.
• To choose the appropriate article to use in front of an acronym, consider the gender.
  The API is A API.
• The globally used acronyms do not need explanations (DVD, LED, TV…).
• When an acronym is repeated several times in the same section, include its extended form in parentheses only for its first occurrence.

5. Pronouns

• English, especially technical English, is more redundant than some other languages.
• When translating, you often need to reduce the redundancy of the source text using pronouns. This may otherwise affect the text readability. However, this must not affect accuracy.
• When translating technical and complex strings, ensure users can associate pronouns to the noun they refer to.
• Avoid the use of possessive pronouns when possible.
• Omit pronoun subjects such as “we” and “you".

6. Gerunds (“ing” ending)

• Gerunds are used in English, such as in “Creating a report”.
• As a general rule, when paragraphs or chapter heads begin in English with a gerund, you should translate it into the noun equivalent (in the case of the example above, “Creating a report” would become “Creation of a report”).

English	We avoid	We prefer
Generating keys	Gerando chaves	Geração de chaves

7. Punctuation

The general rule is to follow your language standard grammar rules. If you need help, consult the resources below:

• Gramática básica do português contemporâneo
• Vocabulário Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa

7.1 Period

• For the period at the end of a sentence (subject + verb), adapt the source to your language usage. When the English source does not put a period at the end of the sentence but you should in your language, add it in your translation. In this case, make sure that the text you are translating is not a part of a longer sentence (this is usually specified in the context).
• Include a period at the end of each extended sentence in a bullet list, if this sentence has a full meaning by itself.
• Unless the item includes more than one sentence, do not place any periods at the end of titles, links, buttons and checkboxes.

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…	Tema redefinido! Redirecionando…	Tema redefinido. Redirecionando…
Importing contacts complete!	A importação de contatos foi concluída!	A importação de contatos foi concluída.

7.3 Parentheses

• Parentheses are used to clarify statements or provide additional information.
• If a sentence in parentheses clarifies the context, it usually starts in lower case and its ending period is put outside the closing parenthesis.

English	We avoid	We prefer
We also support importing vCard. (UTF-8 encoding)	Também oferecemos o suporte à importação de vCard 4.0. (codificação UTF-8).	Também oferecemos o suporte à importação de vCard 4.0 (codificação UTF-8).

7.4 Comma

Generally, no commas should be placed before “e” and “ou” 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…	Você também pode adicionar, excluir, e editar clicando em…	Você também pode adicionar, excluir e editar clicando em…

7.5 Colon and semicolon

• Colons and semicolons come immediately after the preceding word, with no space in between, and the following word should not be capitalized.
  Date: Old to new Data: antigas para novas

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 full stop or parenthesis instead.

7.7 Quotation marks

Follow your language punctuation rules (as opposed to English): commas, periods, etc. only go inside the closing quotation mark if they are part of the quoted text.
“Penso, logo existo.”

7.8 Apostrophes

Use straight apostrophes marca-d’água

7.9 Ampersand (&)

Generally speaking, replace “&” with “e” unless it is part of a company/product name or a registered trademark.

8 Spacing and non-breaking spaces

• Don’t insert blank spaces before punctuation. Only use a single space between words or after punctuation.
• 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.
  R$ 10, 2 m, etc.
• To insert a non-breaking space using your keyboard:
  • On Windows, hold down the “Alt” key while typing the number “255”.
  • On Apple, Ctrl + Option⌥ + Space bar.

9 Numbers

• Replace the period that stands for the decimal point in American English with a comma in your translations.
  3.75 3,75
• For numbers smaller than 1, always put a zero before the decimal comma.
  .5 0,5
• The period in app/software version numbers remains unchanged.
  Proton Mail v.3
• Use a period for thousand separators. Never use thousand separators in years.
  15,000, year 2015👉15.000, ano de 2015
• Time and date:
  • Please use the 24 hour format to specify A.M. and P.M.
    at 9:25 P.M às 21h25
  • The date format is “dd/mm/yy”.
    01-31-22 (mm/dd/yy) 31/01/22

10 Ordinal numbers

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

English	Singular M	Singular F	Plural M	Plural F
1st	1º	1ª	primeiro	primeira
2nd	2º	2ª	segundo	segunda
3rd	3º	3ª	terceiro	terceira
4th	4º	4ª	quarto	quarta
5th	5º	5ª	quinto	quinta
6th	6º	6ª	sexto	sexta
7th	7º	7ª	sétimo	sétima
8th	8º	8ª	oitavo	oitava
9th	9º	9ª	nono	nona
10th	10º	10ª	décimo	décima

Note: actual graphical rendition of the suffix depends on the font, some fonts have a little dash below the suffix, some do not.

11 Currencies

• Do not convert USD ($) or EUR (€) amounts to any local currency.
• Place the code EUR or the € symbol after the number and separated by a non-breaking space from the number.
  Amount of €30 Quantia de EUR 30 (€ 30)

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 1,83 m

Category	Measurement Unit	Translation	Abbreviation
LINEAR	Kilometer Meter Centimeter Millimeter	Quilômetro Metro Centímetro Milímetro	km m cm mm
MASS	Ton Kilogram Pound	Tonelada Quilograma Libra	t kg lb
IMPERIAL	Inch Feet Mile Gallon	Polegada Pé Milha Galão	in ft mi gal
COMPUTING	Byte (B) Megabyte (MB) Gigabyte (GB) Terabyte (TB)	Byte Megabyte Gigabyte Terabyte	B MB GB TB

13 Form of address

Use the informal third-person singular (“você”) form of address.

14 English “please”

• In English, it is very common to use the word “please” to introduce an instruction (“Please fill out the field Name in the form”).The translation usually does not contain the equivalent to “please”.
  Please try again later Tente novamente mais tarde

15 Foreign words

• The decision about the use of foreign words (keeping it in English) instead of the equivalent terms 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.
• 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. Julia Smith) Insira seu nome de exibição (por exemplo, Maria de Souza)
• Do not localize real persons’ names.
  Bart Butler is a senior engineer at Proton Mail Bart Butler é engenheiro sênior do Proton Mail

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@ usuário@
• Translate the domain name
  yourdomain.com seudominio.com

English	Translation
ProtonMail allows you to keep your business email address (you@yourcompany.com)	O ProtonMail permite que você mantenha seu endereço de e-mail comercial (você@suaempresa.com).
Receive all email sent to addresses in your domain that do not exist (e.g., Mistake@yourdomain.com)	Receba todos os e-mails enviados para endereços em seu domínio que não existam (por exemplo, engano@seudomínio.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
Para redefinir a senha da sua caixa de correio, use a versão web do ProtonMail em proton.me