Translation Length Budget
It fits in English. The question is whether it fits in German.
- 100% success
Tool input
Overview
About this tool
Projects how far a caption expands into eighteen languages and checks the result against the network’s real limit — including X’s rule that CJK characters cost two, which is how a Japanese translation 40% shorter in characters overflows a budget the English fitted. Expansion is chosen from the length of the source, because short strings expand far more than paragraphs do.
Instructions
How to use it
Paste the English source, tick the languages you publish in, and pick the network. The last row of the output is the number to write to.
Expansion depends on how short the source is
This is the part most expansion tables leave out and the part that decides whether a caption fits. A ten-character label can come back at more than twice its length; a two-hundred-character paragraph settles much closer to its source, because a longer grammar’s fixed costs get averaged over more text. The multiplier here is chosen from what you pasted.
A character is not a character on X
X counts CJK codepoints as two. A Japanese translation that is shorter in characters than the English can still consume more of a 280-character budget, which is the case nobody expects and the tool checks for.
Questions
Frequently asked
How much longer is German than English?
It depends on how long the source is. A short label can double; a full paragraph typically lands around 20% longer. Compound nouns also arrive as single unbreakable words, which breaks narrow columns independently of the character count.
Why is a shorter Japanese caption over the X limit?
Because X counts CJK characters as two. Half as many characters at double the cost is the same total, and any expansion on top of that puts it over.
How much room should I leave in an English caption?
The tool computes it: the longest English source that still fits in every language you selected. Writing to that number is cheaper than cutting eighteen translations afterwards.
Are these figures exact?
No, and they are not presented as such. They are the ranges localisation budgets are built on. A skilled translator can write shorter than any of them.
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