Help us make waze better in your native tongue!
This article will explain how to translate waze into your native tongue. Once the translations are ready, we upload them and you can choose to have waze displayed in your language. There are a few languages already available, and a few more that saw some work but are not completed (thus not uploaded yet).
It's important to remember waze is still very dynamic - with every new version we have new features, and those require some new text translations. Without the translations, these texts will remain in English (so you might have a mix of both languages).
You can download the complete translation file from here.
Here's what you need to know:
- The file has 4 tabs - the first one being the major one.
- In each tab, 1st check for a column with your language - maybe somebody already started working on it
First tab:
- Look for all the missing text lines: you will see them as "0", "N/A", or simply blank.
- Copy the English text from column B to a new file. You can also copy column C for explanations and comments (where applicable). You only have to translate column B
- Send us an email with your translation of the missing texts.
- DO NOT SEND US THE SAME FILE WITH YOUR ADDITIONS. WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FILTER OUT YOUR TRANSLATIONS AND WILL NOT BE ABLE TO USE IT
- Send us - alpha@waze.com - the new file that has only the missing texts (English and the new translation). We will upload them on the shared file as well as on our servers so you will see them in the client right away.
- Column C has explanations for the strings that are ambiguous or not clear. If something still is not clear
- If you'd like to be notified when new text strings are ready to be translated, just drop us a line and we will notify you every time we add new ones.
Second tab:
- Text for the scoreboard
- Use the english translation on column D as your reference
Third tab:
- Text for the groups section
Fourth tab:
- Text for the ticker messages / gaming
- note that there are character limitations - up to 30 characters is what we recommend
Rules for a good translation:
- Make it short! Since one file is used for all devices - big iPhone screens as well as small Nokia screens - it's best to keep everything as short as possible. Don't be afraid to use abbreviations.
Please note: this fiel only has the client text (what you see when you open the application). This doesn't include audio prompts ("in 200 meters turn right") and other special messages.