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Japanese Localization Style Guide For Second Life and XStreet SL

Introduction

The purpose of this guide is to provide stylistic guidelines for in-house translators and volunteers working on the Viewer, web pages, KB articles, e-mails and wiki pages of Second Life and XStreet SL.

By style, we refer to preferred writing techniques to be used on various content types.

By tone, we refer to the way Second Life residents should be addressed.

Both the style guide and the glossary should be used at all times.

Punctuation

The purpose of this section is to list the most important rules as well as rules that are specific to Second Life. Use Japanese double-byte punctuations. PLEASE USE JAPANESE PUNCTUATION RULES (DO NOT FOLLOW THE PUNCTUATION RULES AS SOURCE LANGUAGE):

1. Commas

Use commas to separate sentences within one subject/topic; use period to conclude one subject/topic.

Example:

、。「」・・・

2. Colons Depending on the context it can be replaced by a colon, a comma, or an en-dash (“ - “), with a space on either side. Semi-colons should be avoided for the LINDEN LAB web site, because sentences should be kept short and easy to read.

3. Quotation Marks

The quotation marks in Japanese should be 「」. Punctuation marks that do not belong to the quoted text are always placed outside the quotation marks.

If En-dash (-) is used between figures, leave it the same way as in English. The em-dash (“―”) used in U.S. English should not be used in Japanese.

4. Lists

Bulleted and numbering lists should follow the style of Japanese lists.

Documents often use bullets and numbering to set off lists and series of items. Whether or not to put a period at the end of a list or table entry has been a considerable problem. This is usually a matter of interpretation as to what constitutes a complete sentence and what does not. To avoid the resulting inconsistencies, please adhere to the following guideline:

• Never place a period after just one word, even with long compounds.

• If the English text does not contain a period, but your translation is longer than the original text and you consider the Japanese translation a full sentence, or if you split your translation into several independent sentences, insert a period.

• If a sentence is split across a bulleted or numbered list, insert a comma after each segment.

5. Abbreviations Please avoid abbreviations so that the Japanese text is clear and readable. Do not abbreviate words that may not be immediately recognized by users.

When using abbreviated measurements, please follow the English text, e.g., 53%, 3 cm, and 2MB. Again, it is better to write the whole word rather than an abbreviation rarely used in Japanese

6. Italic Italicized characters could be used in Japanese publication under certain circumstances. At that time, it should be consistent with English version. Do not use italiziaed characters independently in Japanese.

Formatting

1. Dates

• In Japanese, the date format is YYYY MM DD and not MM DD YYYY as in English.

Example:

2009年7月15日

• For the abbreviated from, use slashes (/) as separators, and use zeroes (0) for days and months from 1 to 9.

Example:

09/07/15

• The abbreviations of the days of the week are as follows.

Example:

月曜 火曜 水曜 木曜 金曜 土曜 日曜

2. Time

Time should be expressed following the rules in your target language.

English examples:

at 8:00 a.m. at 8 p.m. 12 noon

Japanese examples:

8:00 a.m. 午後8時 正午

Please note that 21:00, 8:00 and 12:00 is also an acceptable format.

3. Numbers In the English file, if the numbers are spelled out, always use numeric figures with a classifier for books; if numeric figures are used in the English file, just keep them as they are with a classifier for books

English examples: Ten books

Japanese examples: 本を10冊, 10冊の本

English examples: 30 books

Japanese examples: 本を30冊, 30冊の本

Follow English conventions for numbers with four or more digits.

English examples:

1,000 10,000 25,389,572

Japanese examples:

1,000 10,000 25,389,572

4. Currencies

• Currency symbols should be placed after the amount.

Please do not change the currency. US-dollar amounts are given when referencing, comparing, or converting US dollars to another base. DO NOT convert dollar amounts to local currency. (For example, $1,000 should be translated as1,000米ドル or $1,000).

English example: USD50

Japanese example: 50USD or 50米ドル

Japanese currency, formally and informally, is used as follows: 100円(100 yen)

The “thousand”, “ten thousand” and “one hundred million” are very common number units used in Japanese. Please use “千” for 1,000, “万” for 10,000 and “億” for 100,000,000 appropriately depending on the circumstances. Sometimes numeric figures are required in specific fields like accounting or financing.

Viewer, web pages, e-mails

1. Style and tone

• The style of the viewer, web pages, and e-mails should simple, direct, and clear.

• The tone should be engaging , friendly and fun.

• Both style and tone should be consistent throughout the application, and all web and KB articles, as well as e-mails.

RULE 1: Use "real world" language, and not overly "techie" or "robot-like".

If the source English is too technical, unclear, or confusing, do not hesitate to simplify it. Keep sentences short, and stay as close as possible to the length of the source text while not compromising the meaning. Avoid long, complicated sentences with multiple relative clauses, as well as unnecessarily indirect expressions. If necessary, break up the original English sentence and syntactically regroup it in Japanese. The sentence structure needs to be logical so that the user can understand the message easily. No more than one sub-clause should be used per sentence.

RULE 2: The tone should not be overly formal but not too casual or too colloquial. It should always be polite. The writing style should not be rude or youth lingo-oriented. Do not talk down to the users, but be polite.

For the word “you”, please use “あなた” instead of “君, ” “きみ, ” or “キミ, ” in all the pages. Also, it is better to use “please” once too often than not using it at all.

Rule 3: The content should be accurate, precise, encouraging, and user focused. When the source English is unclear, or "complicated", try to make your translation simpler and "accessible" to a broad audience. We are addressing residents from all levels of experience, and not Second Life experts. Always try to put yourself in the shoes of a new user.

Translators/editors should not follow the original English syntactic structure too closely. What matters is the meaning; translated sentences should be idiomatic and reflect contemporary usage.

2. User interface

RULE 1: When steps to follow are given, UI elements should be separated by a ＞ symbol.

English example:

Please go to Edit > Preferences > General tab to switch languages.

Japanese example:

「編集」＞「環境設定」＞「一般」タブから言語の変更を行ってください。

RULE 2: Buttons should be kept short. If a verb is used, the infinitive form should be used.

English example: Add to Friend

Japanese example: フレンドに追加

RULE 3: In Japanese, localization results in text expansion (about 30%), which means that many Second Life menus, windows, buttons etc. might end up truncated. While translating UI elements, try to use the shortest possible translation (no longer than English) when possible and if doing so does not affect the quality of the translation.

3. Rules about Terminology

Expired terminology

As Second Life has matured, Linden-favored terms have changed as well. When translating, please sure to be consistant in the terminology that is used and do not use "expired" terminology. Use:

• "リンデンドル" instead of "お金", "ドル", "現金", "リンデン", etc.

• "L$" instead of "$", when denoting Linden Dollars.

• "US$" instead of "$" when denoting US dollars.

Second Life specific terminology

A few terms were "invented" for Second Life and are not part of the English vocabulary. Here is how to translate them for now:

• rez: rezする
• In-world (also used: inworld, iw): インワールド

4. Links and Buttons

Links

Translations of links should be kept short. Even if the English original has a lengthy sentence as a link, always try to cut down in length for the Japanese translation. If the content of the page to which the link in question will link to is not known, please translate the link as follows:

• "here" : 詳細は、ここをクリックしてください as “Please click _here_, to learn more about this feature.”

Buttons

There is no need to insert a space before and after each actual button, but if two actual buttons line side by side, keep at least one space in between or draw a vertical line or add a “、” to separate them.

5. Productand and Company Names Product names and brands such as "Mister Lister Composer" are often trademarked or may be trademarked in the future, and are rarely translated. Before translating any product, component or feature name, please verify that it is in fact translatable and not protected by copyright in any way.

Products are treated as proper names and used without definite or indefinite articles.

When referencing names of companies and Linden Lab, the full name must be used exactly as it appears in English.

Examples:

• "Linden Lab" instead of "リンデンラボ"

• "Second Life" instead of "セカンドライフ"

• "マイクロソフト" instead of "Microsoft"

• "スター・トレック" instead of "Star Trek"

• "Yahoo!" instead of "ヤフー！"

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Knowledge Base articles

There are two basic types of Knowledge Base article: the ones that answer a specific question and the ones that give some general knowledge about a topic.

The rules governing the tone and style of Knowledge Base articles are the same as the ones for the Viewer.

Note that the style of KB articles can be very familiar and unclear at times. Please keep in mind that residents reading these articles are looking for an answer to a question they have. Therefore, try to be as clear and concise as possible, even if you use humour here and there.