Editing guidelines

HOW TO SEARCH FOR A PHRASE: ctrl+F

You can search for phrases or words in the document simply by using your browser's find/search function (most likely control+f).

HOW TO ADD A NEW PHRASE

If you're going to add a new american English phrase, it's a good idea to search for the phrase (or parts of it) first to see if it already is there. If you've got a phrase in your language that isn't in the english phrase list just add a new row and enter your phrase and try to translate it into english or describe it as best as possible in english. you can also add english phrases too =) you do this by right-clicking on a row number at the far left and choosing "insert above" or "insert below". A new, blank row will then appear.

HOW TO ADD A LANGUAGE

If you speak a language that isn't listed here and want to help translate into that language then just let us know and we'll gladly add it =) We're adding new languages pretty often. You can also add a language yourself by right clicking a column header and choosing "Insert left".

HOW TO ADD A COMMENT: ( )

Feel free to add comments to your translations, don't worry about the size of the comment too much, but be reasonable. Put all comments between parentheses "()" and please *do not* use the builtin spreadsheet comment option. We'll also use "()" for labels (male, female, polite, plural), since they are, after all, comments.

HOW TO DEAL WITH GENDER

In some languages things are said differently according to gender. Just use the proper label next to your translation, for example:

HOW TO DEAL WITH FAMILIARITY

In some languages things are said differently according to how well you know someone or your age in relation to the person you are speaking to. You will usually address those you know well in the familiar form and you will mostly likely use the polite form with those you do not know well or who are much older than you. If the person is younger than you, you will most likely use the familiar form. We'll assume familiarity so it is only necessary to label a translation when it is in the polite form, for example:

HOW TO DEAL WITH PLURALITY

In some languages things are said differently according to the number of people you are speaking to. In English you can say "welcome" to one person or to many people. In italian it is said in 4 different ways so, when appropriate, use the proper label next to your translation, for example:

There is no need to put "(single male)" for cases like "Benvenuto", "(male)" will be fine. The same goes for single female gender translations, just use "(female)". We'll assume singularity, so you only need to specify plurality when, in fact, it is present, like in the case of "Benvenuti", where one is saying welcome to many men (or a mixture of men and women).

HOW TO ADD MULTIPLE TRANSLATIONS: / { , } < >

Most likely, the english phrases can be translated several different ways (see also the guideline about gender) so use a " / " (space forward-slash space) between the different translations, for example the English "i love you" can be translated into Norwegian in the following ways:

If you can use several different words for the same thing, like "nice haircut", "nice hair" and "nice hairdo", which all mean the same thing, then use "{}" (curly brackets) to contain the alternative words or word combinations. Separate multiple alternatives with a comma, like so:

Words with only 1 alternative word or phrase obviously don't need a comma in the curly brackets:

If you want to get really technical you can actually write "jeg elsker deg / jeg er glad i deg" like this:

Remember, the " { } " only represent alternatives to the one exact word right before them (to the left of the curly brackets). Sometimes you'll have alternatives that also can be extensions of the preceding word, like this:

To show multiple translations for groups of words use the crocodile brackets (less than, greater than), "< >". For example "What do you want for your birthday? / What would you like for your birthday?" can be rewritten like this:

If one of the alternatives can be combined (used to make a compound word) with a word in front of or after the curly brackets you can use a tilde " ~ ", like so:

This would mean the following alternatives: venstre siden, høyre siden, undersiden, baksiden, andre siden, motsatt siden and

would signify the alternatives: drikke, drikkeyoghurt

HOW TO SHOW FILLER WORDS: [ ]

Filler words are words that don't really need to be said to convey your meaning. If you can say something with fewer words, but it can also be said with more words, for example "nice to meet you" can also be said as "it was nice to meet you", then use "[]" to enclose the unnecessary words:

"{}" and "[]" can even be combined in the event that you have several ways of saying something with more (but not required) words, like in "i'll ask again, just to be sure that i understood her correctly" and "i'll ask again, just to be sure that everything is ok". Just saying "i'll ask again, just to be sure" really covers both (slightly different) ideas. So you can either write 2 completely different phrases or you can write one phrase like this:

And here's a combination of "< >" and "[]":

This equates to the following possible phrases:
du irriterer meg
du irriterer meg veldig mye
du irriterer meg veldig mye nå
du irriterer meg veldig mye akkurat nå
du irriterer meg sinnsykt
du irriterer meg sinnsykt nå
du irriterer meg sinnsykt akkurat nå
du irriterer meg noe sinnsykt
du irriterer meg noe sinnsykt nå
du irriterer meg noe sinnsykt akkurat nå

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR PERSONAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Contributors, if possible, try to keep track of what you've done because if i ever run into a lot of money i will compensate you according to how much you've helped =)

The World Phrasebook (worldphrasebook.net) by Nick Humphrey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. 2007-Ω