Translating Mifos X

Owned by Ed Cable
Last updated: Oct 29, 2016
2 min read

Background and Need

We need translators to translate the Mifos X web app into the local languages of our users. Even when a language is complete, we're always adding new features so there are constantly new translations to be updated: 

 

  1. Spanish (Latin America) COMPLETE!
  2. French (Franco-phonic Africa & MENA) COMPLETE!
  3. Portuguese (Southern Africa & Brazil) IN PROGRESS
  4.  Simplified Chinese (China) IN PROGRESS
  5.  Bengali (India & Bangladesh)
  6.  Kannada (India)
  7.  Hindi (India)
  8.  Arabic (MENA) IN PROGRESS
  9.  Khmer (Cambodia) COMPLETE!
  10. Russian (Central Asia)
  11. Swahili (East Africa) IN PROGRESS

Impact

 

Mifos X is a broadly applicable solution for financial institutions serving the base of the pyramid from any corner of the globe. However, the Mifos X web app (community app) must first be localized into the local language for that country. Only once Mifos X is available in that language can it achieve it’s true value in scaling the reach of financial services to the poor.

Having the Mifos X web app readily available in these priority languages will dramatically broaden the footprint and potential impact of Mifos X to thousands more financial institutions across these regions. 

Getting Started

All of our translations are handled through the Translatewiki.net website - they provide an easy-to-use online tool that also provides translations suggestions from Google and other translations that have been submitted. You should find it quite nice.  The translations then get synced to our repository regularly. 

Here are the links to get you started:

  • Create an account on translatewiki.net (TWN) by clicking the Create Account link in the upper righthand corner.

  • Once authenticated and logged in, browse to the Mifos Landing Page on TWN. http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Mifos

    • Click Translate this Project and then click the desired language from Translate to link on the right, (click English and then select your desired language from the window that pops up)

  • You should now see a list of all the untranslated messages - click edit to submit a translation.

  • If you are translating offline and need to upload your translation file back into TWN, please follow https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Offline

 

Read this page and watch this video to understand how Mifos is used on a day-to-day basis.

So you actually know what you're actually translating and what the software does, you should browse the live demo server of our Mifos X web app at https://demo.openmf.org (user id: mifos | password: password). From the homepage you can change your language using the blue button on the top right. 

Other Resources

Glossary of Terms

Some knowledge of financial services vocabulary is helpful so please reference this glossary to understand what some of the terms mean and are referencing.

See https://mifosforge.jira.com/wiki/display/MIFOSX/Glossary and http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Mifos#Mifos_Glossary and an older glossary: http://en.flossmanuals.net/mifos-user-manual/glossary/

Getting Help

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email volunteer@mifos.org. 

For general questions, you can also post and submit those on our community Q&A portal at http://mifos.cloud.answerhub.com/index.html

or through the Talk interface on TWN: http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating_talk:Mifos