Translations

Overview

OpenTA supports multi-language content for course pages, exercises, and UI text. Authors can provide translations manually and optionally enable automatic machine translation as a fallback when a string is missing. It uses google translate and stores the result in the exercise file under an <alt> tag.

Key Concepts

Language Codes

  • Comma-separated ISO codes (for example: en,sv,de).

  • The default is en.

Source Language

  • The primary authoring language used when a translation is not available.

  • It is the main part of the tag. Default is English

Auto-translation

  • When enabled, there is an automatic translation for missing strings

  • It requires enabling the course option and configuring supported languages.

  • Auto-translation will not overwrite existing translations

Manual Overrides

  • By editing the “<alt lang=’XX’>” tag you can fix the exercise translation and title

  • By deleting the alt tag and its contents and re-auto translate you can start from scratch.

  • By selecing the document icon, to the left of the envelope icon in the header, you can edit auto-translated terms that are shown on webpages that are not associated by an exercises. The most common adjustment is likely directory names.

Language Selection

  • Select preferred language; If translation does not exist, the default text is used.

Limitations

  • Auto translate uses google translate. Review the action of auto translations.

Auto Translations Of exercises

Activate Auto-translation

  • Choose to edit an exercise.

  • If you see the translation toolbar (for example, a “default => lang” selector) while editing an exercise, auto-translation is already active

  • If no the translation toolbar says Auto Transltion is off

    • the superuser must provide authentication with google and ensure a file named google_auth_string.txt exists in /subdomain-data/auth.

    • the course admin must enable auto-translation in the course options

    • In Course -> Options, set a default and at least one secondary language (for example: en,sv). Press Save.

Translate an Exercise

  • Edit an exercise using live edit.

  • Choose the dropdown “default => lang” to select the target language. The xml be translated when the spinner stop.

  • Switch the selected language in the page header to the new language and adjust the XML alt text while editing.

  • Fix translation errors in the <alt> tag

  • Update the exercise name if the translation is awkward, then Save.

Delete a translation in an exercise

  • In the editing toolbar, choose the dropdown “lang” with a strikethrough and select the language to be deleted.

Make a translated language default

  • Sometimes, the default language is not a good base for further translations, such as if the default language is not english. Let’s say that the default language is Swedish and you want go over to English default.

    • Translate first to Swedish so that Swedish occurs in the alt tag.

    • Make sure to translate to English; you will now have two translations, swedish and englsh.

    • Choose the dropdown lang => default and choose English

    • The English translation will now appear as the default.

Fix Translations of Directories and Comments

  • Click the small document icon in the header (left of the envelope).

  • Adjust any unsatisfactory translations and Save.

Existing Translations Note

  • If a previously translated exercise shows the wrong exercise name, open it and Save again to refresh the translation.