Hindi translation style guide(हिन्दी अनुवाद शैली मार्गदर्शक)

Use informal Hindi for translation:

  • Informal “you” (तु) instead of formal form आप. Many top software companies (e.g. Google) use the informal one, because it’s much more common in the daily language and avoids making translations look like they were written by machines.

  • Imperative, active, and continuous verbs, e.g. manage streams - चैनल प्रबंधित करें, not चैनल प्रबंधन.

  • Warm and friendly phrasing whenever appropriate.

  • No slang or regional phrases that could be unclear or too informal.

  • Balance common verbs and nouns with specific IT-related translations of English terms - this can be tricky, try to check how other resources were translated (e.g. Gmail, Microsoft websites, Facebook) to decide what wouldn’t sound awkward / rude in Hindi.

Some terms are very tricky to translate, so be sure to communicate with other Hindi speakers in the community. It’s all about making Zulip friendly and usable.

Terms(शर्तें)

  • Message - संदेश

  • Private message (PM) - निजी संदेश

  • Stream - धारा: the use of the literal Hindi word for stream “प्रवाह” is very confusing and not the correct metaphor for Hindi speaking people. The correct term would be “धारा”.

  • Topic - विषय

  • Private/invite-only stream - निजी / केवल-आमंत्रण धारा

  • Public stream - सार्वजनिक धारा

  • Bot - बॉट

  • Integration - एकीकरण

  • Notification - अधिसूचना

  • Alert word - सतर्क शब्द: this is only alert. Nonetheless, adding word may make the term confusing (something like danger! could be a “चेतावनी के शब्द” as well). Google Alerts uses “सतर्क शब्द” in its Hindi translation.

  • View - राय

  • Filter - छानना: as used with narrowing (see below).

  • Home - मुख पृष्ठ: we never use the term “घर” (literally home) in Hindi.

  • Emoji - इमोजी

Phrases (वाक्यांशों)

  • Subscribe/Unsubscribe to a stream - एक धारा में सदस्यता लें/सदस्यता समाप्त करें

  • Narrow to - अकेले फ़िल्टर करें: this is filter only, because there’s no other word that’s common enough in Hindi for to narrow.

  • Mute/Unmute - शांत/अशांत

  • Deactivate/Reactivate - निष्क्रिय करें / पुन: सक्रिय करें

  • Search - खोज करें/ढूंढे

  • Pin - ठीक करना

  • Mention/@mention - ज़िक्र करना / @ ज़िक्र करना

  • Invalid - अमान्य

  • Customization - अनुकूलन

  • I want - मुझे चाहिए

  • User - उपयोगकर्ता

  • Person/People - व्यक्ति/लोग: “लोग” is the correct plural for “व्यक्ति”, but when talking of लोग referring to it as a crowd, we use “भीड़” instead.

Others(अन्य)

  • You - तुम: also “आप” if it’s in plural.

  • We - हम

  • Message table - संदेश बोर्ड

  • Enter/Intro - दर्ज / परिचय