Guidance for Slovak

[PMtranslator]

Last update: February 27, 2025

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 Slovak, but you should also consider the guidance for all languages 1.

1. Capitalization

• Capitalize only the first letter of a sentence and the names of people or products.
• 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)
  Otvoriť, Označiť, Označiť ako
• First word of a sentence, title or subtitle
  Vyberte farbu štítku
• In UI items made up of 2 alternative commands separated by a slash, both are capitalized
  Importovať/Exportovať
• Capitalize in bullet lists where each point is a sentence
  • Vykonajte nasledujúce kroky:
    • Otvorte súbor.
    • Urobte zmeny.
    • Uložte súbor.

Do not capitalize

• In lists where each bullet point is not a complete sentence
  • Ponúkame:
    • bankové služby,
    • devízové operácie,
    • internetové platby.
• Words after colon when in the same line
  Môžete ukladať: súbory, priečinky…
• Language names
  poľský
  anglický
• Names of days, months, and seasons
  pondelok, január, jar

2. Gender

• 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.
• 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 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
• Examples:
  Skrátenie Skrát.
  Vizualizácia Vizual.

Days abbreviations (in calendars, agendas, timetables… the names of days are written without a period for visual purposes): Two and three letter abbreviations should be used, depending on requirements:

English	Translation	Abbreviation
Monday	pondelok	pon/po
Tuesday	utorok	uto/ut
Wednesday	streda	str/st
Thursday	štvrtok	štv/št
Friday	piatok	pia/pi
Saturday	sobota	sob/so
Sunday	nedeľa	ned/ne

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

English	Translation	Abbreviation
January	január	jan
February	február	feb
March	marec	mar
April	apríl	apr
May	máj	máj
June	jún	jún
July	júl	júl
August	august	aug
September	september	sep
October	október	okt
November	november	nov
December	december	dec

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.
• For fluency reasons, and when the exact meaning of the governing noun of the acronym is known, you can use the translation of the defining noun of the acronym in front of it.
  HTML Jazyk HTML
• 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.

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 a noun, translating it as the equivalent of “Creation of a report”.

English	We avoid	We prefer
Generating keys	Generujú sa kľúče	Generovanie kľúčov

7. Punctuation

The general rule is to follow your language standard grammar rules. As a reference, the below resources can be consulted:

Pravidlá slovenského pravopisu

7.1 Period

• For the period at the end of a sentence, 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).
• Unless the item includes more than one sentence, do not place any periods at the end of titles, links, buttons and checkboxes.
• Include a period at the end of each extended sentence in a bullet list if this sentence has a full meaning by itself.

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…	Resetovanie motívu! Presmerovanie…	Resetovanie motívu. Presmerovanie…
Importing contacts complete!	Import kontaktov dokončený!	Import kontaktov dokončený.

7.3 Parentheses

• Parentheses are used to clarify statements or provide additional information.
• If the whole sentence in in parentheses, closing parenthesis goes after the full stop.
• If only a part of the sentence is in parentheses, closing parenthesis goes before the full stop.

English	We avoid	We prefer
Please choose a display name to finish setting up your account. (Other people will see this.)	Vyberte si zobrazované meno na ukončenie nastavenia vášho účtu, prosím. (Iní ľudia ho budú vidieť).	Vyberte si zobrazované meno na ukončenie nastavenia vášho účtu, prosím. (Iní ľudia ho budú vidieť.)
Please choose a nickname (e.g. AnnaB).	Vyberte si prezývku, prosím (napr. AnnaB.)	Vyberte si zobrazované meno, prosím (napr. AnnaB).

7.4 Comma

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

English	We avoid	We prefer
You can also add, delete, and edit them by clicking…	Môžete ich tiež pridávať, mazať, a editovať kliknutím…	Môžete ich tiež pridávať, mazať a editovať kliknutím…

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 (unless it’s a colon followed by direct speech or quotation).
• Date: Old to new Dátum: od najstaršieho po najnovší

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

*In English an Em or En dash is used to demarcate an isolated element or to introduce an item that is not essential to the meaning of the sentence.

• Use en dashes (alt+0151), with spaces before and after, in ranges
  Strany 500 – 534

7.7 Quotation marks

• Use your language quotation marks: „“.
• The period should go outside the closing quotation mark (unless it is used in direct speech).
  Kliknite na odkaz „Úvodná príručka“.

7.8 Apostrophes

• Apostrophe on Windows: Alt + 0146
• Apostrophe on MacOS: Alt + J

7.9 Ampersand (&)

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

8 Spacing

• Never insert blank spaces before a comma.
• Space between words or after punctuation is always a single.
• Use space between numbers and units.
• Use non-breaking spaces to prevent improper division of elements such as product names, part numbers, numbers, dates, etc.
• To insert a non-breaking space using your keyboard:
  • On Windows: Ctrl + Shift + Space
  • On MacOS: Option + Space
    10 EUR, 2 m, etc.

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. Example Proton Mail v.3
• As a thousand separator, use a non-breaking space. Never use thousand separators in years. 15,000, year 2015 15 000, rok 2015
• Time and date:
  • Hours and minutes are separated by a colon. Use the 24 hour format to specify A.M. and P.M.
    9:25 P.M 21:25
  • The date format is “dd.mm.yyyy”.
    01-31-22 (mm/dd/yy) 31.01.2022

10 Ordinal numbers

• Ordinal numbers may be written in with digits and a period after a digit (example: 1. miesto) or with a full word (example: Prvé miesto).

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.
  Amount of €30 Suma 30 EUR (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	kilometer meter centimeter milimeter	km m cm mm
MASS	ton kilogram pound	tona kilogram libra	t kg lb
IMPERIAL	inch feet mile gallon	palec stopa míľa galón	in ft mi gal
COMPUTING	Byte (B) Megabyte (MB) Gigabyte (GB) Terabyte (TB)	bajt megabajt gigabajt terabajt	B MB GB TB

13 Form of address

• Use uncapitalized second-person plural (“vy”) form of address.
  Use your own domain name Použite vlastnú doménu

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”). Generally, follow this approach but insert the “please” at the end of a phrase or sentence to avoid interrupting the flow of the instruction.
  Please try again later Skúste to znova neskôr, prosím

15 Foreign words

• The decision about the use of foreign words (keeping it in English) instead of the equivalent terms 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. Julia Smith) Zadajte vaše zobrazované meno, prosím (napr. Anna Kováčová)
• Do not localize real persons’ names .
  Bart Butler is a senior engineer at Proton Mail Bart Butler je senior inžinier v 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 (without diacritics): user@ pouzivatel@
• Translate the domain name (without diacritics): yourdomain.com vasadomena.sk
• Use your target country code at the end: .com .sk

English	Translation
Proton Mail allows you to keep your business email address (you@yourcompany.com)	Proton Mail vám umožňuje ponechať si pracovnú emailovú adresu (vy@vasafirma.sk)
Receive all email sent to addresses in your domain that do not exist (e.g., Mistake@yourdomain.com)	Dostávajte všetky emaily odoslané na neexistujúce adresy na vašej doméne (napr. chyba@vasadomena.sk)

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
Na zresetovanie hesla k vašej poštovej schránke použite webovú verziu Proton Mail na proton.me, prosím.

18 Plural forms

• Some strings may have plural forms.
• There are 4 plural forms (one, few, many, and other).
• When a string has multiple plural forms, all variants of the string are shown in the section where you type in translations.
• Enter translations in the corresponding tabs that depict plural forms of the target language.