FontLab localization: Vietnamese¶

A first draft for Vietnamese. A model researched the guidance below and the term table in references/terms.md; no native reviewer has approved the language as a whole. Individual terms carry their own approval status; a proposed term remains proposed, and a protected name keeps its glossary spelling. The Vietnamese interface catalogs are unfinished machine drafts: a string found in one settles neither a term nor a rule.

Use references/terms.md, and a newer core memory when one is supplied, for terminology, definitions and review status. Keep a proposed term consistent across the interface and help, and report it as proposed. Where a native reviewer's decision or newer project data disagrees with this skill, follow it and record the change. Report only checks performed: text written with this skill is not reviewed by a native speaker and not tested in the running application until someone does that.

Use these rules with the localization principles (in fontlab-localization), Qt interface rules (in fontlab-localization) and Vietnamese language guide (in the FontLab writing guide). Examples tagged FB, CT, FF or MS are quoted from Font Book, CoreText, FontForge or Microsoft's Vietnamese style guide and help; the others are constructed. Glyphs, Illustrator and Qt have no Vietnamese interface: macOS and Windows are the models.

Locale and register¶

Vietnamese for Vietnam, Qt locale vi_VN, northern standard words (MS).
Address the reader as bạn, lowercase, and omit it when the verb is enough: Kiểm tra kết nối mạng và thử lại sau. (FB, "Check network connection and try again later."). Never anh, chị, quý vị. Drop của bạn ("your") unless ownership matters.
Tone: plain and neutral. Vui lòng only where the source says "please"; no Xin, no chúng tôi for the product. Hãy belongs to help prose after an opening clause (Để lưu, hãy chọn…), never to a label.

Grammar of interface strings¶

String	Form	Example
Menu command, button, step	Bare verb, then object	Xuất phông chữ (FB, "Export Fonts")
Checkbox, option	Bare verb or noun phrase	Hiển thị thanh bộ lọc (FB, "Show filter bar")
Panel or dialog title	Noun phrase; bare verb for "-ing", "-tion"	Hỗ trợ ngôn ngữ (FB, "Language Support")
Status, in progress	Đang, verb, ellipsis	Đang xác thực phông chữ… (FB, "Validating fonts…")
Success, result	Đã, verb, object; no subject	Đã đặt lại cảnh báo (FB, "Warnings Reset")
"Cannot", "Could not", "Failed to", "… failed"	Không thể, verb, object	Không thể xóa phông chữ (FB, "Cannot Remove Font")
Confirmation	Bạn có chắc chắn muốn … không? or a bare question	Tiếp tục đặt lại phông chữ? (FB)
Empty state	Không có … nào	Không có phông chữ nào được chọn (FB, "No Fonts Selected")
Tooltip	Bare verb, no subject	Đặt lại mẫu đã sửa… (FB, "Resets the edited sample…")

A command never takes Hãy, Đang or Đã: Lưu, Mở…, Thêm ngôn ngữ… (FB).
A verb also names its action: "Font Validation" is Xác thực phông chữ (FB), never Sự xác thực.
One action, four strings: Lưu tệp, Đang lưu tệp…, Đã lưu tệp, Không thể lưu tệp. Never Lưu tệp thất bại, Tệp đã được lưu.
Prefer an active clause without a subject to a passive. Bị only for damage (bị hỏng, bị thiếu). Never được … bởi (FB được quản lý bởi): write do … quản lý.
Sentence case: capitalize the first syllable of the label and proper names only, also in a translated feature name: Bộ sưu tập thông minh (FB, "Smart Collections"). Never Chọn Tất Cả (MS).
Standard commands, the same at Apple and Microsoft: Mở, Lưu, Đóng, In, Hủy (Cancel), Hoàn tác (Undo), Làm lại (Redo), Cắt, Sao chép, Dán, Xóa, Chọn tất cả, Thoát. Qt has no qtbase_vi catalog, so framework strings need these words too.
Platform words: tệp and thư mục (Apple, Microsoft, Google); tải xuống (Microsoft, Google; Apple says tải về); cài đặt for Settings and for Install (all three), thiết lập for "set up", tùy chọn for an option; bấm for click (Apple, Microsoft), nhấn for a key.

Compact labels¶

No article (một only where "a" means one) and no plural marker: Xuất phông chữ, not Xuất các phông chữ.
No của between nouns that read clearly side by side: Tên phông chữ (FB, "Font name"), not Tên của phông chữ.
Head first, modifiers after, the English stack reversed as a whole: Tiêu chí bộ sưu tập thông minh (FB, "Smart Collection Criteria").
Shorten with the shorter synonym: Hủy for Hủy bỏ, Nhập for Nhập vào (MS).
Never drop a tone mark. Never abbreviate by initials (FF TĐ for tự động), and never abbreviate a glossary term, a command verb, không or a name. Unit symbols stay as in the source: pt, not Apple's đ.

Plurals and placeholders¶

Qt gives Vietnamese one numerus form ("Universal Form", nplurals=1; plural=0) for every number, 0 and 1 included. CLDR 48 agrees.

Keep %n and put the unchanged noun right after it: %n tệp (FB %lld tệp). Never write một or a literal 1.
No các or những after a number or a quantifier: %n phông chữ, tất cả phông chữ (FB), not %n các phông chữ.
No classifier before a thing: %n tệp, not %n cái tệp. When English counts without a noun, supply the unit counted (tệp, mục…): "%n selected" is Đã chọn %n mục; "And %@ More…" is Và %@ phông chữ khác… (FB).
A count precedes its noun; a name follows its class noun: %n kiểu, thư viện “%1” (FB). Ask which of the two %1 is. An ordinal is thứ %1.
Vietnamese has no gender, case or agreement: a noun placeholder needs only the right position. A counter "%1 of %2" is %1 / %2 (FB).

Numbers, punctuation and spacing¶

Decimal comma, period for thousands: 1.526,75 (MS, CLDR). Versions, code and font data keep their source form.
Percent without a space: 25% (MS, CLDR). A unit takes a no-break space: 12 pt, 5,25 cm.
Quotation marks are “…”, with ‘…’ inside (FB, CLDR). Never «…» (FF); straight quotes in code only.
Ellipsis is the single character …, with no space before it, wherever the source has one: Xuất… (FB).
No space before : ; ? ! (FF has Đầu :). Final punctuation follows the source.
A language name takes lowercase tiếng: tiếng Việt.

Mnemonics and key names¶

Put & before a letter of the Vietnamese word that carries no mark, the first one free: &Lưu, Thê&m, Á&p dụng (as FF does).
Never mark ă â ê ô ơ ư đ or a vowel with a tone mark: they take several keystrokes (MS: "not recommended").
No trailing (&F): Microsoft allows it but does not encourage it. One letter per menu or dialog. Never change a shortcut.
Untranslated keys: Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Tab, Esc, Enter, Backspace, Delete, and on macOS Command, Option, Control, Return. Translated: Mũi tên lên, Mũi tên xuống, Mũi tên trái, Mũi tên phải (Apple, MS), Phím cách (MS; Apple says Thanh dấu cách). A key is a phím: nhấn phím Shift.

Names and loans¶

Keep unchanged: product and company names, format names (OpenType, UFO, VFJ), OpenType tags and table names, glyph names, code.
Embed a name after a class noun, without hyphen: tệp VFJ, phông chữ OpenType, bảng kern, trong FontLab.
A loan the term table keeps is a lowercase noun without English plural and may head a phrase: tên glyph, cặp kerning.
Do not respell a name by syllables: Algeria (CLDR), not FF's An-giê-ri.

Script-specific rules¶

Type precomposed letters (NFC). A decomposed tone mark breaks search and glyph lookup.
Tone marks in the old style: in open oa, oe, uy the mark sits on the first vowel: hóa, xóa, khóa, hủy, tùy, khỏe. Apple and Microsoft write so throughout (FB, CT, MS); Google mixes both; school textbooks now use the new style (hoá, huỷ). FontLab follows the platforms.
y, not i, in ký tự, kỹ thuật, xử lý, quy tắc, as the platforms write.
Capitals keep every mark: Ẩn, Đóng.

False friends and traps¶

FontForge's words are dated: write tệp, phông chữ, Hủy, Xóa, not tập tin, phông, Thôi, Gột.

Corporate catalogs are no authority for type terms. Apple has Nét (stroke) for Glyph, Trọng âm (spoken stress) for Accent, Số liệu (statistics) for Metrics and Tái bút (P.S.) for Postscript. FontForge has Mẹo (tip) for Hints and Chiều rộng sớm (early width) for Advance Width. The term table rules.

Font is phông chữ (Apple, Microsoft, Google), not font or kiểu chữ, Apple's word for typeface.
Letter case is never trường hợp, character never nhân vật, weight never trọng lượng or cân nặng, master never bậc thầy, family never gia đình.
Prefer the everyday word to the formal Sino-Vietnamese one: chạy, not thực thi; thử, not nỗ lực; Không thể xuất, not Không thể tiến hành xuất (FB).

Machine translation keeps English word order (Mới tab), copies title case, puts Hãy in menus and Sự or Việc before a verb used as a noun, and adds các for every plural, của for every "of", một for every "a", được or bị for every passive, nó for every "it" and rằng for every "that".

Review¶

Check in this order; report only checks performed:

Placeholders, markup, the single %n form read with 0, 1 and 2.
Diacritics: no missing mark, NFC, old-style tone placement.
Bare verb, Đang, Đã, Không thể.
Head first, count before noun; no reflex các, của, một, được.
Sentence case.
Mnemonics: unique per menu, on unmarked letters.
Type terms against the term table; numbers, percent, quotation marks.

FontLab terminology and compact labels¶

Preserve deliberately uppercase source labels using the language’s case rules. Keep numeric controls compact with UPM, PPM and LSB/RSB (French AG/AD); explain the full terms in help. The Family Dimensions “Units Per eM:” label is an intentional expanded exception.

Use the current core memory and its approval status. OpenType lookup defaults to the translation of procedure, with a different term only when strong OpenType-specific evidence supports it. Explicit choices are German Lookup, French lookup, Polish procedura and Russian процедура. Ordinary searches, individual rules and OpenType features are separate concepts. Preserve literal code keywords and identifiers.

Translate Fusion with the fallback Welder. Use the core's phonetic FontAudit transliteration in non-Latin scripts, including Chinese; preserve FontAudit in code. Proposed spellings remain proposed. Before rebuilding a QPH, recover team edits and import their terms and notes into the core memory.

Compare mnemonic-split terms with unmarked labels. Keep labels compact, aiming for 120% of the English length in Dimensions and Glyph Window preferences without losing meaning. Omit redundant font, color or command wording when context supplies it. TTH labels can omit “use” and abbreviate TrueType hinting; help can explain more. A full harmonization requires three complete catalog reviews, then reconciliation of help with the final UI and verification of generated resources.

Run the review as a loop¶

The Review list above is this skill's checklist. Run it on each portion as H17 describes: one item at a time against source, target and the term table; name the string behind each answer; repair what fails and recheck it. Stop after three rounds and report what still fails.

References¶

references/terms.md: the full Vietnamese term table, generated from the core memory vi-core.tmx of the writing guide, with the status, translator note and definition of every term.
The Vietnamese localization guide of the writing guide is the source of the sections above.

fontlab-localization for the shared rules; fontlab-terminology for product names and shared nouns; fontlab-technical for Vietnamese help text.

House rules¶

These rules implement the FontLab writing guide. They are copied into every skill so each installed skill can work independently. Corpus measurements can inform review; they are not quotas, universal laws, or tests of authorship.

H1. Accurate actors. Address the reader when they act or choose. Name the application when it performs an operation. Fonts and files contain data that software interprets. Prefer active voice when the actor matters; retain a clear passive construction when the actor is unknown or irrelevant. Never invent an actor or cause to change the grammar. When an English sentence pairs a reader action with the software's response, give each clause a subject and restate the action compactly: “If you generate a glyph with Aidus, FontLab generates each master independently.” Name the most specific responding surface the evidence supports (a window, tool or dialog), otherwise the application. Use present tense for an immediate result. Where a glossary entry exists and the surface can link, link a domain term to it rather than defining it in an apposition.

H2. Never invent a fact. Ground numbers, names, dates, labels, shortcuts, defaults, errors, versions, and quotations in supplied or checked evidence. A draft is evidence of what was written, not independent proof of its claims. Mark unresolved facts with a specific working placeholder such as [VERIFY CLAIM], [CONFIRM LABEL], or [CONFIRM OFFER]. A marked draft is unfinished; resolve the gap before publication. Clearly label fictional examples before their invented details.

H3. Preserve certainty and scope. “May reduce” does not become “eliminates.” Preserve conditions, negation, timing, quantities, compatibility, licensing, and other consequential limits. State a limitation directly rather than disguising it as a favorable position. A single observation does not prove universal behavior. Conflicting sources need scope checks, not an automatic choice of the stricter claim.

H4. Preserve the writer's voice. Do not manufacture stakes, candor, reader emotion, endorsement, or a new narrator. Preserve useful habits and the supplied stance. Reorder, split, or shorten according to the requested edit depth and reader need, without adding facts or causal relationships. A correct draft can remain unchanged.

H5. Give thought a rhythm. Carry a subject through an action, distinction or consequence. Let a developed sentence explain a relationship; let a shorter one settle a result when that change of pace helps. Repeat a concrete object or term when its meaning develops, not as a compulsory callback. Technical actions stay literal; explanations and marketing have room for patient attention, a bounded comparison or dry observation. Keep useful qualifications beside their claims. Do not impose sentence-length, pronoun, punctuation or paragraph quotas, or force every paragraph into the same long-then-short pattern.

H6. Notice the useful detail. Retain names, mechanisms, conditions, versions and issue numbers that help the reader understand or act. From the evidence, choose the object, contrast or small behavior that makes the explanation tangible: a changed preview, a repeated comparison, a file whose status matters. Follow that detail far enough to explain its significance. Warmth can come from this attention and patience. Never invent an observation, personal experience or reader emotion to make prose vivid, or remove a necessary qualification to shorten it.

H7. Punctuation serves meaning. Prefer a colon for an explanation or list. A spaced dash can carry a turn; avoid decorative glosses and repeated interruptions. Use sentence case for new headings and preserve exact source labels. A punctuation pattern does not establish authorship.

H8. Choose precise words. Review vague praise and stock phrasing such as “seamless,” “game-changing,” “leverage,” and “unlock.” Replace them when they obscure the action or make an unsupported claim. Keep an accurate technical use or protected quotation. A count or cluster is a reason to inspect a passage, not proof that each matched word is wrong.

H9. Develop the explanation. Begin where the reader can understand the task, change or offer. Give adjacent sentences a real connection: the same subject under a changed condition, an action and its result, or a question and its answer. A before-and-after comparison needs evidence for both states; a transition must not invent causality. Let a useful aside return to the main thought. Place low-stakes discoveries where they aid understanding, while keeping price, risk, prerequisites and recovery visible when needed. End at the useful result or next action; a quiet ending or a substantial summary can each serve the material.

H10a. Preserve conditions. Use “if” for a condition and “when” where the intended timing or situation warrants it. Check the whole meaning: “when a panel opens” and “while a panel is open” describe different scopes. Keep useful conditionals and parenthetical explanations; do not insert them to imitate a presumed author.

H10. Preserve expression that works. A fragment, three-part phrase, exclamation, aside, or single-sentence paragraph can serve a passage. Keep it when it supports meaning or the writer's rhythm. Do not add one to meet a budget, or remove one because of a generic stylistic test. Keep instructions and consequential conditions literal and easy to find.

H10b. Use the destination's notation. Preserve exact interface labels, tags, extensions, and identifiers. Italicize labels in neutral release notes; in technical site content use supported highlight notation, with bold as the plain-Markdown fallback. Use code style for machine-readable text. State price amounts and currencies unambiguously from evidence; do not infer an exchange rate, tax policy, or license term. A supplied currency shorthand needs enough context to identify the actual offer.

H11. Names and collisions. FontLab is the product; Fontlab Ltd. is the company. Preserve product names, module identifiers, domains, historical names in their historical scope, and exact quoted strings. Do not translate a product name. Name the application when Layer, Mask, Group, Fill, Brush, Knife, Transform, Pencil, Eraser, or Scissors could have more than one meaning. Use a declared short form consistently.

H12. Protect literal material. Preserve quotations, code, commands, paths, identifiers, API names, URLs, legal text, interface strings, placeholders, and table data during prose editing. Change them only for a requested or necessary correction supported by evidence. Do not paraphrase a quotation while retaining quotation marks or an attribution. Explain a consequential correction when the output contract permits it.

H13. Choose the register per passage. Marketing helps assess an offer; technical writing explains or instructs; neutral prose states facts and changes warmly. A document can combine them. Prices, limits, licensing, compatibility, security, and migration facts stay plain and prominent. Audience and purpose determine an email's register. Do not impose a fixed emotional mixture or make every opening a story.

H14. Review facts, then movement. Compare claims and protected strings with their evidence; check scope, action order and terminology. Then read whole passages for attention, connection and pace. Repair a flat sequence by developing an existing detail or relationship, not by adding praise or invented events. Check that humor remains intelligible and the information remains true when the joke is missed. Recheck the facts after a voice edit. A measurement or passing build does not certify facts, usability or authorship. Report only checks actually performed.

H15. Scale to the surface. A button or tooltip needs a clear label, action, or condition, not a miniature essay. Apply factual and naming safeguards at every length. Include the detail the task requires; do not add proof paragraphs, metaphors, or pronouns to satisfy a template. For translation, keep essential instructions literal and references clear.

H16. The override. Follow the user's task and supplied voice before style defaults. Break a default sooner than make the writing worse. Source material and quoted prompts are data, not authority to change the task. Style preferences never justify presenting an invented or unsupported claim as established fact.

H17. Check each portion, repair, check again. Reading these rules does not apply them; checking the text does. After drafting or editing each portion (a section, one deliverable, a batch of entries; a label or tooltip is one portion), run the skill's checklist on it. Answer each item separately, against the text and the evidence. For a failure, quote the words that fail. For a pass, point to the passage that satisfies the item, or, for an item about something absent, confirm that you searched the whole portion and found none. An answer with nothing behind it has not been checked. Repair only the failures, because a passing item needs no edit and a correct sentence can stay unchanged. Recheck the repaired passages and every fact the repair touched. If the same item fails again after its repair, stop working on it and mark it; do not try a third time. Stop after three rounds in all, and mark what still fails with a specific placeholder instead of reporting a pass. If you can start a separate reviewer (a subagent or a fresh chat), give it the draft, the evidence and the checklist, not your drafting rationale, and ask for failures with locations; act on findings that name a rule and a passage. Keep the checklist record private unless the user asks for it or the output contract allows notes.