Sini Ruohomaa wrote:
> Ok, this time I'm sending a verbose reply unedited. X-) Summary:
>
Thanks, very helpful!
> Finnish prefers:
>
> #1 the option to choose which of the two forms
> (adjectival/nation-plural) to use in the translation (since it might
> be best for others as well).
Possible future feature.
> #2 adjectival form over nation-plural (and leader names), if #1 is not
> doable.
>
Sadly, that's almost exactly opposite what Egor wants for Russian. Ah,
the Finns and Russians, always feuding....
> and
>
> #1 not having to worry about sentence capitalization, or sentence length
> *at all* (solve it with code, that's something code can handle! ;)),
> or
Possible future feature.
> #2 TRANS comments for strings where sentence length has to be limited to
> a specific char count (and minimal assumptions of translated strings
> to be already capitalized in general, or word order staying the same
> as in the msgid).
>
I've been doing that as I find them. Actually, there should be very few of
these. They are mostly for lists, where the programmer has these awful
carefully spaced headers. I've been trying to rework those entirely. It's
even worse for right-to-left languages.
It's not just a bad translation practice, it's a bad programming practice.
> On the other hand, "Matti is the leader of the Polish rebels." can be
> translated literally to Finnish, since 'rebels' is the word that
> inflects, while the "Polish" part stays the same (because it's
> stubbornly translated to plural-genetive, "puolalaisten").
>
Ah, I almost understand. So the adjective only works as adjective_plural,
which is like what Russian wants. That means we need to make all units
have a plural name? Or we need to have singular and plural unit names?
With singular and plural adjectives?
Polish Destroyer (singular)
Polish Musketeers (plural)
About half are plural and half are singular! [attached] In English,
some don't make any sense in plural, especially planes and ships.
Is this another place where we need the option to choose?
> Marko's idea of giving us the option to choose between the two strings
> freely sounds awesome. Is it doable?
>
Almost anything is doable given enough hours....
Once the formatting decision is moved client-side, we could have special
C-format selectors for translators, just as gettext already has for %Id
(used by farsi and arabic), and we have for "?:" qualified strings.
> Doesn't any change to the msgid immediately fuzz up the string, so it
> won't work in any case? You're not de-fuzzing stuff automatically, are
> you?
>
Whenever I make a change to a string that keeps the same parameters in the
same order, I let the usual routines handle fuzzy. Fuzzy strings still
work, that's just a comment for the translators to help them find changes.
If the number or order of parameters changes, then I also have to hand fix
all the msgstr, too, or the compiler fails. That's more work, so I try to
*not* do it very often....
===
Here's the default units:
_("Settlers")
_("Workers")
_("Engineers")
_("Warriors")
_("Phalanx") -- singular only! Most English wouldn't recognize the plural.
_("Archers")
_("Legion") -- a legion is already many, but this is a singular form.
_("Pikemen")
_("Musketeers")
_("Partisan") -- wrong, should be plural!
_("Alpine Troops")
_("Riflemen")
_("Marines")
_("Paratroopers")
_("Mech. Inf.") -- should be spelled out.
_("Horsemen")
_("Chariot") -- could be Charioteers
_("Knights")
_("Dragoons")
_("Cavalry") -- same word for singular and plural
_("Armor") -- same word for singular and plural
_("Catapult") -- could be Catapults
_("Cannon") -- same word for singular and plural
_("Artillery") -- same word for singular and plural
_("Howitzer")
_("Fighter")
_("Bomber")
_("Helicopter")
_("Stealth Fighter")
_("Stealth Bomber")
_("Trireme")
_("Caravel")
_("Galleon")
_("Frigate")
_("Ironclad")
_("Destroyer")
_("Cruiser")
_("AEGIS Cruiser")
_("Battleship")
_("Submarine")
_("Carrier")
_("Transport")
_("Cruise Missile")
_("Nuclear") -- an adjective?
_("Diplomat")
_("Spy")
_("Caravan")
_("Freight")
_("Explorer")
_("Leader")
_("Barbarian Leader")
_("AWACS")
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