How are hosted words calculated?

How is your hosted word count calculated in Transifex?

Nina avatar
Written by Nina
Updated over a week ago

Hosted words are the number of source words translated into a specific language in your organization. Duplicate source strings with identical translations in the same language are only counted once.

Example: only translated words are counted

Example: only unique source-translation pairs are counted


Projects With Chinese, Japanese, or Korean as a Source Language

Let's consider a scenario where we need to localize content containing 40,000 Japanese characters. As the ratio of Japanese characters to English words is approximately 1.95, we can convert characters to words using the following formula:

English words = 40,000 / 1.95

Next, we assess the translation progress by counting the number of translated and unique words based on the logic described above.

In cases where English characters are embedded within Japanese, Chinese, or Korean strings, any sequence of characters between whitespaces that can be converted to ASCII (including digits) is considered a word and is counted accordingly.

For instance, the word count of the following phrase is 9 (five characters and four words):

今日 sunny です。 outdoors x %(day)s


Word count for pluralized strings

Let's consider the following example:

- Source Language: English 
- English Plural forms: one, other
- Source string for "one": "Error. The resource is no longer available."
> 7 source words
- Source string for "other": "Error Message. The resources are no longer available."
> 8 source words

The above string needs to be translated into Russian. Russian has the following plural forms:

'1' --> This is the singular form

"few" --> This is one of the plural forms

"many" --> This is one of the plural forms

"other" --> This is one of the plural forms

To calculate the translated word count for the above-pluralized string that has been translated into Russian, you need to use the formula below:

Translated wordcount = [Number of source words in singular source form] + [(Number of source words of "other" ) × (Number of plural forms in the translated target language)]

i.e. (7x1) + (8x3) = 31 words


Smart Tags and Their Impact on Usage

Any string with a smart tag (e.g., 'locked' or 'notranslate') and either an empty translation or a copy of the source will not be counted towards the word count usage.

Scenarios for Better Understanding:


Case #1:

  • An untranslated string is tagged with a 'locked' tag.

  • The string will either be reviewed or proofread with an empty translation.

  • This string will not be counted towards the word count usage.

Case #2:

  • An untranslated string is translated and then marked as 'locked'.

  • The translation is preserved upon tagging.

  • This string will be counted towards the word count usage.

Case #3:

  • An untranslated string is tagged with a 'notranslate' tag.

  • A copy of the source is added to the target.

  • The translation will either be reviewed or proofread.

  • This string will not be counted towards the word count usage.


Word Count With Old Hosting Method (legacy plans)

Your hosted word count is calculated using the following formula (projects using Chinese, Korean, or Japanese as the source language use a slightly different formula, which we will explain later):

Hosted Words = Source Words × Number of Target Languages

So if you have 40,000 Russian source words that you are translating into five languages, your word count is 40,000 × 5 = 200,000.

📝Note: The state of the translations does not affect the above word count. Whether strings are translated or not or how the translations got there (e.g., TM autofill), they still contribute to your subscription’s capacity (aka hosted words).

Every sequence of characters and numbers between whitespace (spaces, tabs, and newlines) is considered a word. In the phrase below, the word count is 8:

"Today I've read that Mars has 2 %(moon)s."

If you're an Organization Administrator, you can see a detailed word count breakdown from your organization's subscription page.


💡Tip

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