Translation Guidelines
This page contains guidelines and detailed information for translators who are translating stories as part of the Global Storybooks literacy portal.
Each of the regional or theme-based Storybooks websites on the portal is based around a curated collection of 40 stories from the African Storybook which have been translated into the most widely spoken languages the region. The complete list of 40 stories can be found below.
Translator app
To be included in the project, all translations must be submitted through our online app for translators, which can be found here:
Click the Translate! button to begin. There is inline help available from within the app (click on Help or About in the menu at the top of the page).
Note that although by default the shortest stories are presented first in the app you do not have to translate the stories in the order they appear. You can translate them in any order you prefer, or even randomly by clicking the “random story” button in the translator app. The app will keep track of your progress and let you know when you come to a story that has already been completed.
Once you are finished translating a story, click on the Review submission button at the bottom of the page to check your translation. If there are any changes you would like to make you can close the review window and return later. When you are happy with your translation, click on the Submit translation button in the review window and your translation will be submitted directly to the project. Shortly afterwards, you should be able to see your translation online on your local storybooks website.
General guidelines
- Style: As these are children’s stories, please keep the vocabulary level and style appropriate for the audience.
- Images: Each segment of text has a corresponding image, which is displayed to the left of the text in the translator app. You can click on the image to see it enlarged. If the text is unclear, it may be helpful to refer to the accompanying image.
- Proper names: As a general rule, proper names (e.g., Anansi, Simbegwire, Cissy, etc.) should not be “translated”, but rather adapted to your language as you see fit. Detailed guidance on handling proper nouns as well as a complete list of names used in the stories can be found below in the section on proper nouns for reference.
- Vocabulary: There are a number of terms in the text that deserve special attention when translating. A detailed list of the most common questions and vocabulary issues can be found in the list of stories below.
All translations are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence. The name of the translator will be acknowledged on all the translations, as well as on the website. You can read more about Creative Commons and open licenses on the Creative Commons website.
Your contribution is very much appreciated! Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
Proper nouns
Names
Please avoid changing the names of the characters (e.g., “Simbegwire”, “Odongo”) in the stories as much as possible. This particularly applies to languages with Latin character-based orthographies. More specific guidelines and instructions are below.
For example, the name Themba should not be changed to “Thomas” (e.g., in French or German) in an attempt to “localize” it for a domestic audience. Likewise, Khalai should not be “translated” to “Keiko” in Japanese, but rather transliterated as accurately as possible in accordance with local conventions.
Translation strategies for proper names
There are several approaches available for handling proper names in different languages. They are listed below:
- Transliteration: Here the pronunciation of the name is approximated using the target language orthography. This is the normal approach for languages that do not use the Latin alphabet or a variant thereof. The audio of the original story can be consulted as a reference pronunciation.
- For example: Khalai has been transliterated into Japanese as カライ (karai), into Mandarin as 卡莱 (kãlái), and into Arabic as خلاي (ḵalāyi).
- Foreignization: Here the name is left in its original form, without modifications. This is the default approach for Latin-based orthographies (with some exceptions, see adaptation below).
- For example: The name Magozwe is spelled Magozwe in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Polish (among others).
- Note: Grammatical affixes (e.g., representing case) should be used as normal, even if they change the spelling of the name – for example, Magozwe’s (English: genitive case), Magozwes (German: genitive case), Magozwe’ye (Turkish: dative case), Magozwe-nak (Hungarian, dative case), Thomasem (Polish: instrumental case) etc.
- Adaptation: In this case, the spelling of the word is adjusted so that the pronunciation more closely matches the originial when read out loud in the target language. This approach is usually used when keeping the original spelling would result in a drastically different or otherwise unpleasant pronunciation by readers in the target language, or if it is conventional in a particular language community to respell foreign language words.
- For example: Andiswa is still spelled Andiswa in Jamaican Creole, however Tingi has been changed to Tinggi to avoid the incorrect pronunciation /tiŋi/ and Tom has been changed to Taam to reflect the conventional pronunciation of the name as /taːm/.
Pronunciation of proper names
Of course, the pronunciation of proper names in the audio recording may (and should) follow the regular conventions and phonotactics of the language in question. There is a certain amount of leeway in this which is left up to the reader doing the recording.
For example, the name Juma /dʒuma/ occurs in the story Decision. Since the sound /dʒ/ is not common in some languages, there are a number of ways that this could be pronounced. In French, the reader chose to pronounce this as /ʒuma/, while in German, Norwegian, and Polish it was pronounced /juma/, and in Spanish /xuma/, in accordance with the conventions of those languages. On the other hand, in Turkish, the reader preferred to keep the original pronunciation as /dʒuma/, rather than /ʒuma/ which would also have been acceptable.
List of proper names
Below is a list of the proper names included in the corpus. Because grammatical gender is significant in many languages and may affect translation, the gender of each character is listed as well for reference.
| Name | Gender |
|---|---|
| Anansi | M |
| Andiswa | F |
| Anita | F |
| Anna | F |
| Apiyo | F |
| Baba | M |
| Cathy | F |
| Cissy | F |
| Gingile | M |
| Juma | M |
| Khalai | F |
| Magozwe | M |
| Ngede | M |
| Nozibele | F |
| Nyame | M |
| Nyar-Kanyada | F |
| Odongo | M |
| Rahim | M |
| Sakima | M |
| Simbegwire | F |
| Thabo | M |
| Themba | M |
| Thomas | M |
| Thuli | F |
| Tingi | M |
| Tom | M |
| Vusi | M |
| Wangari Maathai | F |
| Zama | F |
| Zanele | F |
Stories
Below is a list of all the stories included in main Global Storybooks Collection. Additional information about the license and total number of words for each story has been provided, as well as notes about commonly-encountered issues and vocabulary that translators should pay attention to.
| ID | Title | License | Words | Vocabulary notes / FAQs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0001 | A very tall man | CC BY | 83 | The word hoe  refers to a type of hand tool; note the difference between doorway / door frame and “door”. |
| 0002 | Look at the animals | CC BY-NC | 37 | The sounds that the animals make should not be copied from English – use the normal local sounds instead; all sounds should be in quotes. |
| 0003 | School clothes | CC BY-NC | 34 | The sentence “This belt is …” trails off at the end – this is intentional. |
| 0004 | Goat, Dog and Cow | CC BY | 152 | |
| 0006 | Anansi and Wisdom | CC BY | 288 | plant crops here means “grow crops”; the long thread in the story refers to spider thread (even though the image shows a rope). |
| 0008 | What are you doing? | CC BY | 29 | The gender of the narrator changes in each picture. This might affect the translation, particularly into languages with grammatical gender. |
| 0009 | Where’s my cat? | CC BY-NC | 44 | The word bin here refers to a “rubbish bin”, “garbage can”, or “trash can” – note, this is not the same as a “dumpster” or other larger waste container, see picture here). |
| 0027 | Decision | CC BY | 186 | The character Juma in the story is male. The term waste paper here can be taken to refer to “scrap paper”. |
| 0030 | Feelings | CC BY-NC | 51 | The narrator of the story is female. |
| 0052 | Simbegwire | CC BY | 864 | |
| 0066 | Nozibele and the three hairs | CC BY | 395 | The phrase collect wood here refers to “firewood”; a kraal is a South African word for a type of fence or animal enclosure. |
| 0067 | Cooking | CC BY-NC | 38 | The narrator of this story is male. A butternut is a kind of squash or gourd (see image here) |
| 0072 | The honeyguide’s revenge | CC BY | 717 | Honeyguide is the common name of this bird, but if there is no name for this bird in your language, you should translate it as you see fit. Umbrella thorn is a kind of Acacia tree. The word grubs refers to larvae . VIC-torr, is presumably, the bird’s way of saying “the victor takes the spoils”, so we suggest you translate this as “victor” (i.e., “the person who wins”) in your language. The word comb in the story refers to “honeycomb” . |
| 0087 | I like to read | CC BY | 49 | |
| 0089 | Khalai talks to plants | CC BY | 167 | Lubukusu , also known as Bukusu, is a language spoken in western Kenya. |
| 0095 | Zama is great! | CC BY | 130 | The narrator is female. The shoes in the story are buckled rather than “tied” (see picture here); the soap referred to is smelly not “fragrant”. |
| 0110 | A tiny seed: The story of Wangari Maathai | CC BY | 420 | The main character is a real person, and the official transliteration of her name in your language (if applicable) should be used; a machete is a type of knife (if there is no specific word for this in your language a word for a similar shaped knife may need to be substituted instead); make sure to translate the entire title of the story (including the text after the colon). |
| 0111 | Why hippos have no hair | CC BY | 228 | The word why in the title is part of a statement, not a question (i.e., it means “The reason that hippos have no hair”, not “Why do hippos not have hair?”); the word whoosh! is a type of onomatopoeia and should not be copied from English – use the nearest equivalent in your language instead). |
| 0112 | My body | CC BY-NC | 44 | The gender of the narrator changes in each picture. This might affect the translation. |
| 0120 | Hair | CC BY-NC | 38 | The gender of the characters is different in each picture. This might affect the translation. |
| 0129 | Lazy little brother | CC BY-NC | 42 | |
| 0141 | Chicken and millipede | CC BY | 271 | Use the normal terms for penalty kick, goalie etc. in your language rather than copying them or making them up (check these if unsure). |
| 0156 | The hungry crocodile | CC BY | 39 | The sound POW here is a type of onomatopoeia equivalent to words like “splash!” or “crash!” – use the nearest equivalent in your language, but don’t copy this from English. |
| 0158 | Hen and Eagle | CC BY | 393 | |
| 0201 | Donkey child | CC BY | 490 | Hee haw is the word for the sound that donkeys make in English – please write the word for the sound donkeys make in your language. |
| 0210 | Tingi and the cows | CC BY | 83 | The term bush here refers to the wilderness or undeveloped areas in general, for example grassland or forest etc., and not necessarily actual “bushes”. |
| 0231 | Weather book | CC BY-NC | 28 | |
| 0234 | Andiswa soccer star | CC BY-NC | 187 | The word netball refers to a type of game which may not be familiar to some – note that this is not the same as “volleyball” or “basketball”. |
| 0243 | Holidays with grandmother | CC BY | 568 | Luo , also known as Dholuo, is a language spoken in Kenya and Tanzania; ugali in the story refers to a kind of porridge – as there may not be an exact equivalent in the target language a decision may need to be made about whether to translate or transliterate it; the children counted cars (referring to a kind of game to pass the time); chai tea is a specific kind of tea. |
| 0262 | Magozwe | CC BY | 837 | |
| 0271 | Two | CC BY-NC | 27 | |
| 0291 | What Vusi’s sister said | CC BY | 507 | The word what in the title is part of a statement, not a question (i.e., it means “The thing that Vusi’s sister said”, not “What did Vusi’s sister say?”); cried Vusi is used frequently – note that “cried” here means “shouted” or “called out”, not “wept”; note also that thatch is a kind of roofing material that may be made of (but is not equivalent to) “straw” or “hay”. |
| 0294 | Grandma’s bananas | CC BY | 530 | The words sorghum , millet , and cassava refer to types of food crops; note the difference between bananas and plantains . |
| 0296 | Tom the banana seller | CC BY | 144 | |
| 0302 | Fire | CC BY | 22 | |
| 0315 | Sakima’s song | CC BY | 459 | A grass-thatched hut is a hut whose roof is made of layers of grass (see picture here as well as this photo and this one if this is not familiar). |
| 0324 | Day I left home for the city | CC BY | 450 | A tout is a person who a person who solicits business, here for people to take the bus; hawkers are informal street vendors; hooting refers to the honking sound made by the bus horn; note the distinction between city and village in the story; the title should mention both “leaving home” as well as going “to the city”. |
| 0327 | Counting animals | CC BY | 67 | |
| 0337 | Children of wax | CC BY | 138 | |
| 0342 | Punishment | CC BY | 132 |
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- Note: If you click on a story but get a different title, someone else has already translated that story.