diff --git a/src/linguist/shared/qm.cpp b/src/linguist/shared/qm.cpp
index 8c3fc3f..d772855 100644
--- a/src/linguist/shared/qm.cpp
+++ b/src/linguist/shared/qm.cpp
@@ -552,12 +552,17 @@ bool loadQM(Translator &translator, QIODevice &dev, ConversionData &cd)
                 goto end;
             case Tag_Translation: {
                 int len = read32(m);
-                if (len & 1) {
+                m += 4;
+
+                // -1 indicates an empty string
+                // Otherwise streaming format is UTF-16 -> 2 bytes per character
+                if ((len != -1) && (len & 1)) {
                     cd.appendError(QLatin1String("QM-Format error"));
                     return false;
                 }
-                m += 4;
-                QString str = QString((const QChar *)m, len/2);
+                QString str;
+                if (len != -1)
+                    str = QString((const QChar *)m, len / 2);
                 if (QSysInfo::ByteOrder == QSysInfo::LittleEndian) {
                     for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); ++i)
                         str[i] = QChar((str.at(i).unicode() >> 8) +