Michael:
This is not completely translation related, but are you considering to have a “language free” template ?
For instance the graphical “Checkout” button on the frontend may not make sense to non English speaking people, and it would be better to have the graphic button replaced by a text button + translation.

Hi jsperri,

We are aware of graphical buttons translation issues.

The following wiki page answers why do we have that graphical button in the shopping cart - http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/how-to/creating-css-buttons-vs-image-buttons - it’s just an example to show how to work with graphical buttons.

Almost all other buttons in default design package are simple text buttons.

And even if you created a design package with graphical buttons only - there’s a simple way to get them translated. You just have to make the image paths to go through the translation subsystem, like

Hi Michael,

There was a discussion about a problem with duplicate keys. Did you read it ?
Do you plan to correct the code as proposed in the discussion or to remove duplicate keys ?

Hi SeL,

The solution posted might work under certain conditions (if both duplicates have the same translation) but it is not the thing that has to be fixed. The drawback of that approach is that in case you have the original key translated differently in different modules you will never know which translation variant will be used, because it depends on the order Magento modules are loaded in, that should be the same on your Magento installation but can be changed when upgrading, or installing new modules.

Here in this group a few articles will follow on the details of translations implementation, on how-to make your own design package/theme that can be properly translated into other languages, and what kind of fixes Magento team puts our efforts on regarding the translations.

Thank you.