I am sure that every serious programmer knows that the code he writes should provide at least basic i18n (and possibly l10n) features, but given lack of language knowledge, I have the feeling that it is harder than one might think.

So let me give you my golden rule, and some examples. Please, give yours in the comnents!

Always translate a whole sentence, not just parts of it.

What do I mean by this? The byteflow code for example contains {% trans ‘Archives for ‘ %} {{year}} of yourse this makes sense in English and probably many latin, german or even indo-european languages, but it Hungarian translation is for example a big mess as it reads “for September 2008 archives” (originally 2008 szeptemberi archívum).

The previous expression should be coded with blocktrans as {% blocktrans %}Archives for {{ year }}{% endblocktrans %}

Disclaimer: I am not an internationalization expert, but as I speak around 6 different languages (not including the programming languages) I appreciate the great diversity and beauty of the hundreds of cultures around us, and I think all of them are worth our support.