Translatable

Translatable refers to the property of being capable of translation from one language into another. In general use, it applies to text, speech, and other communicative content that can be rendered in another language without changing the underlying meaning. The degree of translatability can vary due to linguistic differences, cultural references, idioms, proper nouns, and terms with no direct equivalent.

In linguistics, translatability is a central concern of translation studies, influencing choice of translation strategy and localization. Some items are inherently difficult or impossible to translate literally, requiring paraphrase, adaptation, or cultural substitution.

In computing and software development, translatable content is content prepared for localization. Strings, user interface labels, messages, and documentation are often extracted from code and resources and given to translators. Internationalization (i18n) is the design process that enables translatable content, while localization (L10n) adapts the product for a specific locale. Many frameworks provide mechanisms to mark strings as translatable or non-translatable and to preserve non-translatable terms such as proper names or technical terms. Example: in Android, a string resource can be marked translatable="false" to exclude it from localization.

In machine translation and NLP, translatability is studied to assess how well a text or term can be rendered across languages, and to inform translation methods and evaluation metrics.

See also: translation, localization, internationalization, machine translation, translation memory.