El dissabte, 2 de maig de 2020, a les 13:11:55 CEST, Johan Ouwerkerk va escriure: > On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 12:36 PM Eloy Cuadra <ecua...@eloihr.net> wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > There is a widespread problem across many text strings to be translated: > > some isolated words are gender invariable in English, but not in many > > languages. > > > > For example, let's consider this case of a cascade menu: > > > > New > > > > Folder > > > > File > > > > What prevents you from arbitrarily re-naming a particular top level > entry? E.g. if you see "New", why not translate it as though it were > "Create" if that makes your translation work more naturally? > > I understand you'd want to stick as close as possible to the upstream > default, but languages being languages no doubt someone will point out > that verbs, too, could be conjugated differently depending on the > object. Or aspect, time, mood, actor, tense, whether or not it is > reflexive, medium, or otherwise. It could be that the verb might > change completely: i.e that creating a new folder somehow requires a > different translation of "create" than creating a new file would. > Which might mean that "New > File" is much more appropriate as a > starting point for *those* languages, because it avoids all the > verb-related pitfalls. > > English cares very little for any of that, so trying to account for it > in English might only serve to render it clumsy and awkward. > Conversely there are features which English is very particular about > like articles which many other languages don't bother with at all. > > All in all I think it is just easier if translation teams took some > liberties to get the point across rather than hoping for English to > become more like their native language. In particular this avoids most > of the need for complicated rules about "what words to use when".
I don't think you understand what he is proposing. There's no request to change the English strings at all, just to add context to them. Please read https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Localization/i18n#Adding_Context_with_i18nc.28.29 Cheers, Albert > > Regards, > > - Johan >
