Strings which make localization impossible
-
https://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=79532
https://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Bstatus%5D=either&filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=79533&filters%5Btranslation_id%5D=4151456
These two strings are:
“Comment Likes are”
and
“On for all comments”It’s not clear but I’m guessing that these two are in sequence. I’m also not sure if this is a very twisted way of making a line break or if this is some sort of a selector but this renders the string impossible to translate accurately in languages with word order different from English.
Chopping one sentence into two separate chunks for localization is very bad form for that reason and should be avoided. There should be two strings for this like “Likes for comments are enabled” and “Likes for comments are disabled”.The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
This one is also impossible to localize:
https://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=75343You’ve received %1$s %2$s on %3$s
It has a comment (which is nice): You’ve received $number (likes|follows) on $blog_title
Most languages cannot copy the crazy way in which English makes nouns of adjectives or verbs and Likes and Follows often end up translated with very different syntactic structures. For example in Gaelic, “%s like your comment” is literaly “Said %s that pleasant withthem the comment at you”. A follow on the other hand is very different, so “You gained %d follows” is “Gained you %d people-following”.
Which means that in order to translate the above string, I must employ two very different types of sentence.
Please split the two usages into two localizable strings with plurals.
-
Another batch
https://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=73490
Liked byhttps://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=73491
Liked by you andwhich as far as I can tell go with
https://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Bstatus%5D=either&filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=73492&filters%5Btranslation_id%5D=4151731
%s other personand
If these go together (if not, then the first two are ungrammatically truncated), then they need to be merged into a coherent string because as I explained above, we can’t assume English syntax, just because “Like by” is followed by the subject in English does not mean this works for other languages.
These need to be put together and placeholder and plurals added i.e.
Liked by you (this one is fine)
Likey by >> Liked by %s
Liked by you and + %s other person/people >> Liked by you and %d other person (with plurals) -
This one has just been disimproved:
It used to be
Update %(numberOfSites)d sites to version %(version)s
but is now
Update %(siteName)s site to version %(version)s.Clearly the developers in question did not consider that plural form ONE in many locales covers more than one (e.g. 1, 11, 21… )
This should be returned to what it was.
-
Oh heck, there’s another one.
https://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=147560
These have just appeared. Can someone *please* issue better guidance around plurals? I don’t mind reporting them as I find them but it will be really frustrating if people have to go through these again and again just in case some developer is feeling playful with plurals.
Updating %(siteName)s
used to be
Updating %(numberOfSites)d sitesSame problem as above.
-
Not technically making it impossible but these have multiple placeholders, this should use numbered placeholders by default as most locales will have to change the word order and order of the placeholders. I know localizers can theoretically just do that but many are not aware of this feature and the question keeps coming up.
https://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=62219
https://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=62223
-
“Comment Likes are” […] “On for all comments”
Please see the screenshot here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/comment-likes/#how-to-enable comment-likes
If it doesn’t make sense to split the sentence like that, you can translate it from “Comment Likes: [On for all comments]”.You’ve received %1$s %2$s on %3$s
This string has been updated with a plural.
I will report other ones to our developers.
-
Thanks Naoko
If it doesn’t make sense to split the sentence like that, you can translate it from “Comment Likes: [On for all comments]”.
I’m not sure what putting it in [ ] changes. In any case, this string is still very bad form. Why can’t this be given as ONE sentence, with the tick at the beginning or end to avoid l10n issues across the board?
-
These ones (for refunds) are fixed. Thanks for reporting!
https://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=62219
https://translate.wordpress.com/projects/wpcom/gd/default?filters%5Boriginal_id%5D=62223
Regarding the “Comment Likes are” string, I think the 2 sections are separated for a good reason. As this screenshot https://i0.wp.com/en.support.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/comment-likes-admin.png shows, they have to be placed in a certain order. It’s possible to make it so it reads like “Comment Likes are %s”, but if %s is placed between words in translation (e.g. “Comment Likes %s are.”) it’s difficult to build the HTML the form needs.
-
Thanks for the 2 fixed.
About the other one – the problem is that once you move away from English syntax, there is no telling where the ‘on’ ends up. In my language (and I have thought about this one a lot) I cannot avoid having the ‘on’ part in the *first* sentence because the verb (as in various languages) comes at the beginning of the sentence and because Likes cannot be a noun in my language (and others I suspect). Literally, I must make this
ability telling that pleasant withyou inthe all comment
If the opposite was the case, i.e. Comment Likes are Off for all comments, I would again have to negate that at the head:
not ability telling that pleasant withyou inthe all comment
So wherever the tick goes, it will be in the wrong place. I have considered making the second string empty but WP does not allow me to set an empty string as translated. Even if I just put the last word or last words into the second string, the tick goes in the wrong place.
I cannot see why this tick cannot be at the start and work better for all locales, e.g.
√ Comment Likes are On for all comments
√ ability telling that pleasant withyou inthe all comment
- The topic ‘Strings which make localization impossible’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 
