Nobody expects the Volunteer Translators
In the wake of the release of Skype 4.0 for Windows and Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac, it’s time to say thank you to the people who speak to you all the time, unnoticed, through Skype application itself. Sometimes in English, sometimes in C++ or Delphi – but have you ever wondered how Skype gets translated into your language?
Unlike books, translating applications is rather tricky – there are lots of bits of text hidden all over the place, and never enough contextual information or time to find out how a particular piece of text is actually used. So, to get the work done perfectly, we have to find people who are fans of Skype, avid users, fluent in English and excellent in their native languages and who can offer their time for free in order to help their fellow speakers.
Which brings us to the group we are particularly proud of: our volunteer translators – people who believe that to get Skype truly everywhere, it has to speak your language. And be good at it.
Claudius Henrichs is one of these people – he’s responsible for the German translations of Skype – and has agreed to share his thoughts on being part of the team.
For those of you reading this in an RSS reader, you can watch the video here.
Claudius, of course, is not the only one, and we'd like to thank everyone else involved in translating Skype:
Bulgarian – Nikolina Filipova, Nikolay Filipov • Czech – Petr Silon, Lukáš Vajda • Dutch – Kees Koenders, Alexander Henket • Greek – Panagiotis Sidiropoulos • French – Fabrice Imperial, Bruno Lépaulard, Jean-Pierre Kuypers • German – Claudius Henrichs, Dick Schiferli • Hungarian – Mark Bender, Laszlo Koncz, Gabor Stefanik • Italian – Daniele Conte, Domenico Cianci • Japanese – Mayu Shimizu • Latvian – Intars Students • Lithuanian – Viktoras Kriukovas • Norwegian – Stig Auestad, Kenneth Stevenson • Polish – Karol Szastok, Bohdan Zielinski • Portuguese-Brazil – Fabio Roselet • Portuguese-Portugal – Francisco Ferreira • Romanian – Péter Henning, Mónika Iancu • Simplified Chinese – Della Wang • Spanish – Carola Clavo • Traditional Chinese – Carlos Lee • Turkish – Ömer Emin Dede
This list is not definitive – some volunteers have a team behind them, other languages are done by agencies only, and some are available only in our Community. We’d also like to thank all the other translators who’ve been involved in the past.
We’re always keen to make Skype even better in your language, so if you find any misspellings (hey, translators are human, too 
) or have any feedback at all, we’d love to hear from you – you’ll find forums for Windows, Mac and Linux translations in the Skype Community.
Hi,since downloading skype 4.0,Iam now unable to get skype in English–WHY????.I am Chinese but my husband is Scottish,and is unable to read chinese figures,before downloading skype 4.0 we had English as our language,now it is all in chinese,please advise me on how to obtain an English version of Skype.
Thank you
Shaoping 31
hi Claudius
@shaoping31 you can change the language Skype uses by going to Tools > Change Language
The thing I find interesting in the Brazillian translation, is that they translated Skype 4.0′s download page very well… But… They forgot to warn Portuguese speakers that Skype 4 is still without accessibility features, even if the English page has that note… Anyway, most of it, except some parts, like the support request page, are translated quite well…
Hi Claudius,
I use the English version, but on behalf of all Skype users, I would like to thank you and all Skype volunteers for your selfless efforts. Skype has been a wonderful enabling tool for my family which is spread around the globe. To see and hear everybody on Christmas Day is pure gold. More power to you!
Cheers, Paul.
Currently I use English version. I’d like to help translate it to UKRAINIAN.
How can can I do it? Is there any LNG file or something?
Also I’ll be very appreciated if UKRAINIAN will be added to next release.
Hi,
Good news first: there’s Ukrainian available in our forum ( my to all the translators there) – http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showforum=7 and if you find “common language” with the guys there, go ahead
The bad new: we don’t plan to add new languages any time soon…
Oops, it seems like the translation for the inaccessibility warning, “We recommend that blind and visually impaired people use Skype 3.8 for Windows and do not upgrade to 4.0 this time. Accessibility features have not yet been completed in the new release.”, is not missing only in the page in Portuguese. I checked the Itallian and Spanish pages, and it is not there too! Aren’t there blind people in Brazil, Spain and Spanish talking countries and Italy? Guess that’s not the case…
André Baldo.
@supermalavox thanks for spotting – I’ll try to find out why that’s the case, and will get it fixed if appropriate.