| name | apple-l10n-zh |
| description | Use before translating any macOS or iOS app interface into Simplified Chinese (zh-Hans / 简体中文) — even a single button or menu label. Apple ships its own Chinese for UI (Save = 存储 not 保存, Copy = 拷贝 not 复制, chart Series = 序列 not 系列, plus Finder = 访达, Force Quit, Sockets, Resident Memory…), so don't translate from general knowledge — find each term in Apple's official zh-CN sources and pick it by the control's actual function, because a guess reads as machine translation. Triggers on a .xcstrings, .xliff, or .xcloc file, filling in target translations, a zh-Hans translation PR for a Mac/iPhone app, choosing the Apple-conventional Chinese for SwiftUI/Xcode buttons, menus, or labels, or keeping placeholders like %@, %lld, %1$@ intact. Gives the workflow to verify terms against Apple docs and flag disputed ones to the user, a cached glossary of already-verified terms and known traps, CJK punctuation and spacing rules, and a bulk target-injection script with placeholder-parity checks. Not for web/i18next/JSON localization, English copywriting or release notes, App Store screenshot uploads, or Simplified-to-Traditional conversion. |
Apple App Localization → Simplified Chinese
Translate Apple-platform (macOS / iOS) UI strings into Simplified Chinese (zh-Hans) so the result reads like a native Apple app: Apple's official terminology, intact format placeholders, and the Xcode String Catalog file workflow. Output language is zh-Hans; the source is usually English but may be any language.
When to use
- Editing a
<lang>.xliff exported from an .xcloc localization catalog
- Adding zh-Hans values to a
.xcstrings String Catalog
- Choosing the Apple-official Chinese term for a macOS/iOS UI concept
File workflow (.xcloc / .xliff / .xcstrings)
An .xcloc localization catalog has two sides:
| Path | Role |
|---|
Source Contents/.../*.xcstrings | English source snapshot — read-only, never edit |
Localized Contents/<lang>.xliff | where translations go |
Translate by adding a <target> after each <source>:
<trans-unit id="Save" xml:space="preserve">
<source>Save</source>
<target state="translated">存储</target>
<note from="auto-generated">A button that saves the current color setting.</note>
</trans-unit>
- Mark a finished translation
state="translated" (Xcode shows it as done). A unit with no <target> falls back to the source at runtime — nothing breaks, so leaving a string untranslated is safe.
- Leave brand names and empty-source units alone (e.g.
CFBundleName, copyright).
- The maintainer merges
<target>s back into the real String Catalog with xcodebuild -importLocalizations. You only ever edit the xliff; never touch Source Contents.
- Always read each unit's
<note> — it gives the real UI context and frequently decides the correct term.
- Plural strings (String Catalog
%#@…@ variations) export as separate trans-units with ids like key|==|plural.other. zh-Hans has a single CLDR plural category — translate only the plural.other unit (keep the %#@…@ / %lld tokens intact); plural.one / few / many don't apply to Chinese.
Translation workflow (per string)
Apple already shipped a Chinese term for almost every UI concept — the job is to find it, not invent it. Don't translate from memory. For each string:
- Read the actual UI context. Use the
<note> and what the control does in the running app. The same English word splits by function — Filter the search action is 筛选, a saved Filter rule object is 过滤器. Context, not the word alone, picks the term.
- Find Apple's term. Check reference/terminology.md and reference/pitfalls.md first — they are a verified cache and a list of known traps, not the whole language. For any term not there, or where context is ambiguous, verify against an authoritative source, in this order: the live macOS/iOS system UI in zh-Hans → Apple's zh-CN docs (
support.apple.com/zh-cn, the matching app's 使用手册) → Apple Style Guide. WebFetch the Apple zh-CN page rather than guessing. See reference/sources.md.
- Apply the hard rules below — placeholders, code tokens, punctuation, spacing.
- Flag disputes instead of guessing. If two Apple-plausible terms compete and context can't decide, or your only source is non-Apple (e.g. Microsoft), or no settled zh term exists at all — some developer/API terms have none, since
developer.apple.com is English-only (e.g. Hardened Runtime, whose 强化运行时/加固运行时 compete with neither official; contrast QoS class names, which do have settled WWDC renderings — see pitfalls) — present the options with their evidence and let the user choose; don't silently pick. A string with no <note> and more than one plausible Apple term is a flag by default; don't pick one just to look decisive. A unit left with no <target> safely falls back to the source at runtime, so it's fine to leave a pending one untranslated. Once resolved, add it to reference/terminology.md so the next run hits the cache.
Hard rules
- Placeholders: the target must keep the same set of format specifiers as the source —
%@, %lld, %d, %.1f, %u, and positional %1$@ / %2$@. Reorder with positional specifiers; never drop, add, or alter one. 进程 %A is wrong; 进程 %@ is right.
- Don't translate code tokens: CPU, GPU, QoS, PID, JSON, CSV, SSD, RAM, vmmap, dylib, plist, and signal names (SIGTERM / SIGKILL / SIGINT / SIGSTOP / SIGCONT).
- Markdown links: translate the label, keep the URL unchanged —
[Documentation](https://…) → [文档](https://…).
- Punctuation: full-width Chinese marks in Chinese text (：，。（）「」？！), but half-width for code tokens and their parentheses —
中断 (SIGINT), not 中断（SIGINT）.
- CJK / Latin spacing: one space between a Chinese run and an adjacent Latin word or number —
显示 CPU 使用率, vmmap 路径. A standalone unit like 30s stays 30s.
- Second person → 你, not 您: Apple's zh-Hans addresses the user as 你, declarative and imperative alike (macOS User Guide: 「你的隐私和安全至关重要」). The "professional tone = 您" instinct is wrong here. Drop a possessive the context already scopes —
输入许可证密钥, not 输入你的许可证密钥. See reference/pitfalls.md.
- Counts: Chinese has no plural inflection — a counted noun takes a measure word, default 个 (
%lld 个进程, not %lld 进程). Pick the noun's conventional measure word and keep it consistent across the app.
Terminology
The glossary is a verified cache, not the authority — the authority is Apple's live UI and zh-CN docs (step 2 above). A term being absent means "go verify and add it," not "translate freely." A few high-frequency entries:
| English | zh-Hans | Watch out |
|---|
| Save | 存储 | not 保存 |
| Copy | 拷贝 | not 复制 |
| Finder | 访达 | |
| Force Quit | 强制退出 | |
| Inspector | 检查器 | |
| Sockets | 套接字 | |
| Resident Memory | 常驻内存 | RSS |
| Series (chart) | 序列 | Apple Numbers 数据序列 — not Excel 系列 |
| Documentation | 文档 | not 文稿 (that is the Documents folder) |
Full glossary with sources: reference/terminology.md.
The cases where the obvious translation is wrong: reference/pitfalls.md.
Validation
After editing the xliff, run this loop until clean:
- [ ] XML is well-formed: xmllint --noout <file>.xliff
- [ ] Placeholder parity: each <target> has the same specifiers as its <source>
- [ ] Spot-check terminology: against reference/terminology.md
For bulk work, scripts/inject_targets.py inserts <target>s from an id→translation JSON map and reports any placeholder mismatch. Run it, then run xmllint:
python3 scripts/inject_targets.py path/to/zh-Hans.xliff path/to/translations.json
xmllint --noout path/to/zh-Hans.xliff
See the script header for the JSON format.
Sources
Authoritative references (Apple Style Guide, String Catalog docs, Activity Monitor / Numbers zh-CN guides) are in reference/sources.md. Prefer the live macOS system UI and Apple's own zh-CN material over third-party blogs.
