translation: grammatical problems for generic texts and plurals
There are some strings where the translation does not fit the grammatical gender of every possible word which could be filled in. An example from the german translation file:
#: theme/templates/projects/project_questions_add_field_help.html:4
msgid ""
"Please enter each %(name)s separately by clicking on the green button below. "
"You can remove each %(name)s by clicking on the cross (×) on the right "
"side of each line."
msgstr ""
"Bitte jeden %(name)s einzeln eingeben durch klicken auf den grünen Knopf. "
"Ein einzelnes %(name)s kann durch einen Klick auf das Kreuz (×) auf "
"der rechten Seite einer Zeile entfernt werden."
If the variable name
would be something like "Kontakt" this would work, the sentence would be shown as:
"Bitte jeden Kontakt einzeln eingeben ..."
but if name
is "Schlagwort" the sentence is shown as
"Bitte jeden Schlagwort einzeln eingeben ..."
The upstream text does not have this problem in this case, as it is:
"Please enter the %(name_plural)s line by line. You can add %(name_plural)s "
"using the green button and remove them using the blue cross (×)."
msgstr ""
"Bitte nutzen Sie für die %(name_plural)s jeweils eine eigene Zeile. Sie "
"können weitere %(name_plural)s mit dem grünen Button hinzufügen und mit dem "
"blauen Kreuz (×) entfernen."
For name_plural
the plural form is inserted, for our example this would be "Kontakte" or "Schlagworte".
The upstream does have this problems in other locations however, example:
#: projects/templates/projects/project_questions_questionset_head_help.html:4
#, python-format
msgid ""
"Please fill in the form for each %(name)s. The different %(name_plural)s "
"will be referred to in following questions. You can add a new %(name)s using "
"the green button. Once created, you can edit or delete %(name_plural)s using "
"the buttons in the top right corner."
msgstr ""
"Bitte füllen Sie das Formular für jeden %(name)s aus. Die verschiedenen "
"%(name_plural)s werden eventuell in späteren Fragen wieder verwendet. Sie "
"können einen neuen %(name)s mit dem grünen Button hinzufügen. Bereits "
"angelegte %(name_plural)s können mit den Buttons oben rechts bearbeitet oder "
"wieder entfernt werden."
One problem to also note here is that the grammatical number needs to be the same for the english original text and the translation. It is not possible to use e.g. %(name_plural)s
in the translation file where its %(name)s
in the original.