Help:Contents

For help with the MediaWiki software, such as how to format text, see mediawiki.org.

• FAQ — questions that may not necessarily be asked frequently, but the info may nonetheless be useful
• Rules — rules for using the site. Don't worry, there aren't many.
• Manual of Style — general guidelines for editing.
• Abbreviations often used in annotations
• Assumed knowledge of Japanese — a rough guide of what you're expected to know for Japanese games.
• To-do list — bugs, proposed features...
• TBL files — what they are, how to make them, how to use 'em.

Since we're still in the early stages, there isn't much else here, but we can offer this advice:

• If you're here to study Japanese, or to contribute to translations of Japanese games, try Rikaichan, Perapera-kun, or a similar plugin for your web browser. It will help immensely: you can just mouseover the Japanese text and it will look up words for you. Of course, do be aware that the dictionary isn't infallible and can't take the context into consideration, but it still helps a lot, especially if you're a beginner. (Note: we're transitioning to including glosses in our translations so that Rikaichan will usually not be necessary to browse. People working on translations of their own will still find it helpful.)
• Use the translate2 template to add translation text.
  • When translating a Japanese game to English, use the ja-en template in place of template2. Use the gloss template within the Japanese field to provide readings, kanji, and meaning for phrases. We used to use a system that had three-field templates called ja-r-en and ja-k-en, but they should not be used anymore. The new system is more elegant (though it does make the Japanese hard to read in the source code).
    • We seem to be going back to using ja-k-en for text that consists of kana and should be kanjified. Look at games that use it for examples; we have many.
  • The gloss template can be used for languages other than Japanese, too, but when two languages use similar sentence structure, it will rarely be necessary.
  • Due to the way templates work, you can't normally use equals signs in template parameters (i.e., within ja-en, gloss, etc.). The special template {{=}} will print an equals sign for you.
  • Double quotes in gloss templates (but not most other templates) have a similar problem. Use single quotes instead, or use {{"}}.

Use the sandbox for test edits.

Scripts used to extract game data can be found at the LLTVG code repository. If you make any, propose it as an addition!