Things vary a bit with translation depending on the theme you’re using and the way in which you’re dealing with translation (e.g. plugin, theme langugae pack etc). Could you provide a bit more info?
Just generally, all strings for translation should be output in the theme using the __() and _e() PHP functions. So you might check the theme to make sure that this is the case for the strings you are talking about. Unless they are treated like this, my understanding is they won’t be translated.
Secondly, the strings need to appear in the language file (*.po or *.mo). That would be the second thing I’d check.
Finally, some plugins (like WPML) have facilities for string translation. I think they pick up any untranslated strings and list them for you in their admin interface for you to translate. But I could be wrong (about exactly how it works, I mean).
HTH
PAE
