Testing in another language: what to do if you don’t know it

If you have ever encountered the need to test an application or website in an unfamiliar language, do not panic. I came across this several times and highlighted several checks that can be done without knowing the language.

Good news

In most cases, when you are testing an application in an unfamiliar language, at least something is known about it - if this is not the interface you have already tested, then the work scenarios are similar to those encountered in other applications. So, you can conduct a series of ordinary tests, similar to those that you have already done, to check that nothing breaks.
If the employer and the customer know in advance the limit of your knowledge, you will not be responsible for checking grammar or translation: for example, that the “Save” button is not called “Bury”. Translators are to blame for the appearance of screenshots, which is shown on sites with jokes about the features of the translation.
Here are a few things that you can always check, regardless of language skills.

Check interface

Make sure that the interface of the website or application does not contain obvious errors, for example, overlapping sections of text, incorrect alignment of headings, etc. This sometimes happens with localization, if the site was typed in English, and the localized version uses a different alphabet.
[ Approx. translator: here it is worth paying attention to the average word length. For example, in English these are five characters, and in Russian and, for example, German - more, which can lead to a displacement of interface elements in comparison with English]
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Recheck the functionality

For any form, you can perform some standard checks, for example, enter too many characters in the text field, try to save data without filling in the required fields, quickly press a button several times, etc. In most cases, you will already have an idea of ​​what the correct behavior of the application looks like, its functions and ways are known, how to try to break them.
Perform such checks and use the online translator to make sure that the error messages are as close as possible to the correct reaction to your actions.

Check transcript

You may have access to trnascript that contains all the text parts of the application in translation. True, sometimes these are just field names. For several projects on which I worked, I had a full transcript, and it was possible to somehow test.
For one of the projects, I checked the translation of the instructional videos and the interface into French and Spanish. I could read the transcript while watching the video to make sure the sound matched the transcript. Although I do not fully speak French and Spanish, the sound was similar enough to make sure that the transcript is at least partially correct.
In another project, I had to test another tutorial and its interface in Russian, with Cyrillic. I used a transcript to make sure the site interface contains all the words from there. To do this, I copied the sentences from the transcript to the clipboard and used the search on the page in the browser to find them in the interface. So I checked that the transcript contains a translation of the text elements in the order in which they appeared on the web page.
Even if you do not have a transcript, you can always use online services for translation, for example, Google Translate. For example, you want to make sure that the text near the field where the username is entered resembles "User Name". You are not responsible for semantic checking, but at least you will see that there is something similar. Sometimes this is the only way to find out what to enter in the fields on the form.

Check for inconsistencies

You can view the transcript for non-textual inconsistencies. If you know the alphabet, you can make sure that all sentences begin with a capital letter. Check formatting. Trust the intuition and sense of language.
For example, when checking the Russian transcript, I found several inconsistencies. The work was divided between several translators who worked on different parts of the transcript. As a result, both quotes ("") and herringbone quotes ("") were used on the site. In the texts in Russian, both options are allowed, but throughout the localization you need to choose some one. A similar problem can be found in the Spanish text: whether to use an inverted question mark (¿) at the beginning of interrogative sentences.
In another project, a very large table was divided between different translators, and its part was added in each part. When the result was combined, both in the transcript and on the site there were many tables with identical headers one after another, and not one big one.

Use the alphabet

Most foreign languages ​​have letters with accents or subscripts. In some completely different alphabet. When you test an application in another language, use its alphabet to enter data: so you not only make sure that the application processes them correctly, but also shows them correctly when viewed. Those. for example, it is worth checking that the name of Günter is displayed correctly both as static text (on the viewing form) and in a text field (on the editing form).
Basic knowledge of the alphabet will help you find other, less obvious errors. When I tested chemical modeling software in German localization, I discovered that the German symbol ) (sometimes ß) is sometimes written as two Latin s in lower case ( ss ). With this knowledge, I entered it several times in the field as part of boundary tests. In cases where it was allowed to enter only 40 characters, but they were reduced to lower case, typing the capital etcet led to an error. There is another similar example from medium.com, with a symbol from the Polish alphabet.
So make sure that you use the localization alphabet for testing, and not just the standard keyboard layout. Such checks are called internationalization , or i18n : you need to make sure that the application correctly processes input in other languages.

Find your language

Even if you do not speak the localization language, you know your native language. Look in the application or website for untranslated parts of the text. Make sure all conventions, copyright, tooltips, and error messages are translated. Also note the text in the pictures.
Find untranslated places and show them to the team. It may be decided not to translate everything, but it needs to be voiced in order to avoid unpleasant discoveries in the future. This is usually called localization: checking that everything is translated correctly and in full.

Finally

Next time, if you have to test the application in an unfamiliar language, do not get lost. You have enough knowledge about testing or even application functionality to get you started. You may not notice all the nuances and peculiarities of the translation, but you will definitely learn something new about a foreign language.
Good luck - good luck!

[ Approx. translator: I’ll add from myself that you can also check the correctness of the translation of units of measurement, currency conversion, date format and other text features that are specific not only for the language, but also for the country. It is also worth paying more attention to the interface: it will change dramatically if the localization is in a language that uses a different direction of writing - Arabic, some hieroglyphic languages.]