ronutz.com is built so that adding or improving a language takes very little effort, and contributions are welcome. A language is two things: an entry in the locale registry and a JSON message pack. No application code needs to change.

How the system works

  • The packs. Each language's text lives in one JSON file of labelled phrases, src/i18n/messages/<code>.json. The contribute page offers every live pack as a download, and the downloads are copied from the source packs at every build, so they are always current. en.json is the complete reference; every other pack only needs the phrases it translates.
  • English fallback. Any phrase a pack does not have is shown in English. A partial translation is therefore useful at once: it ships, and the missing phrases stay readable in English until someone fills them in.
  • The registry. src/i18n/locales.ts lists every language with its native name, text direction and translation status. The language switcher, the addresses and the search metadata all follow it.

Translation status

Each language carries a status:

Status Meaning
reviewed A native speaker has read and approved the pack.
machine-draft A first draft made with AI or machine translation, not yet reviewed by a native speaker.
stub No pack yet; the language shows English.

Machine-drafted text is never presented as polished native text. A machine-draft is a starting point that a native speaker promotes to reviewed. Brazilian Portuguese is written with AI and reviewed gradually, so it keeps the machine-draft status and its notice until human review attests otherwise.

Improve a language in four steps

  1. Download the pack you want to improve from the contribute page (for a new language, download en.json, the reference).
  2. Translate the text after each label. Change the values only. Never change a label (the key on the left), and leave everything inside curly braces exactly as it is: {count}, {name} and the like are filled in by the site, and a changed brace breaks the page. Keep product and technical names as they are (BIG-IP, CIDR, F5, Fortinet, and so on), and keep technical jargon the way practitioners in your language actually say it.
  3. Set the status in the pack's _meta.status: machine-draft for an AI or machine draft, reviewed if you are a native speaker who has checked it.
  4. Send it back. Email the edited file from the contribute page and say which language it is, or open a pull request in the public repository. Every submission is reviewed by hand.

Punctuation

  • English is written without em dashes. Use a comma, a colon, parentheses or a new sentence instead; an en dash appears only between numbers in a range (10–20).
  • Every other language keeps its own natural punctuation. Do not import the English rule: Romance and Slavic languages use their dash (the Portuguese travessão, the Spanish raya, the Russian тире) where their own typography calls for it; German and the Scandinavian languages use the spaced en dash; Chinese uses its native full-width marks (，。：；) and its own double-width dash. French keeps the space before ; : ! and ?.

Notes

  • Right-to-left languages (Arabic, for example) are handled by the layout; the direction comes from the registry, so you only translate the text.
  • Partial packs are welcome. Translating the navigation and the home page alone is a valuable first contribution.
  • A language not in the registry yet? Add one line to LOCALES in src/i18n/locales.ts with the code, native name, English name, direction and status: "stub", then add your pack, or ask for it by email and it will be added for you.