Embedding plural forms into translations - dreamwidth/dreamwidth GitHub Wiki

Table of Contents Introduction Detailed rules A practical example Tricks, special cases, and historical oddities Credits

Different languages have different rules for selecting which form of a word to use depending on an associated item count. English says "0 images", "1 image", "2+ images". French says "0 image", "1 image", "2+ images" (that is, it treats 0 as 1, whereas English treats 0 as 2 and above.) Other languages (such as Russian) have 2 forms for the plural. Others yet (eg, Hungarian) have no distinct singular and plural and hence only one form. None of the supported languages has more than 3 forms (singular, plural1, plural2). The acceptable forms are plural2, plural, and singular, depending on the language. (The last one is probably better written as singular, but is included for completeness.) In those examples, num is the variable holding the number of items. Note that the actual number should be in the same translation string as the plural list, as some languages could conceivably place the item count after the item name, not before.

English (and all languages not listed below):

 [[?num|singular|plural]]

• singular is used when num is 1.
• plural is used in all other cases, including 0.

Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian:

 [[?num|singular|plural1|plural2]]

• singular is used when num is or ends in 1, except when it is or ends in 11.
• plural1 is used when num is or ends in 2, 3, or 4, except when it is or ends in 12, 13 or 14.
• plural2 is used in all other cases, including 0.

French and Brazilian Portuguese:

 [[?num|singular|plural]]

• singular is used when num is 0 or 1.
• plural is used in all other cases, that is when num is 2 or more.

Lithuanian:

 [[?num|singular|plural1|plural2]]

• singular is used when num is or ends in 1, except when it is or ends in 11.
• plural1 is used in all cases besides those described in singular or plural2.
• plural2 is used when num is 0 or within range 10-19; the last two digits of num are in range 10-19; or num is a multiple of 10.

Polish:

 [[?num|singular|plural1|plural2]]

• singular is used when num is 1.
• plural1 is used when num is or ends in 2, 3, or 4, except when it is or ends in 12, 13 or 14.
• plural2 is used in all other cases, including 0.

Hungarian, Japanese, and Turkish:

 [[?num|singular]]

• singular is always used. (as noted above, this is silly, but LiveJournal lets you do it, so...)

Latvian:

 [[?num|singular|plural|nullar]]

• singular is used when num is or ends in 1, except when it is or ends in 11.
• plural is used in all cases besides those described in singular or nullar.
• nullar is used when num is 0.

Icelandic:

 [[?num|singular|plural]]

• singular is used when num is or ends in 1, except when it is or ends in 11.
• plural is used in all other cases, including 0.

A page discussing calendars may mention the number of days in a given month. That reference, in the untranslated English version, may look like monthdays days. In this hypothetical example, monthdays would be replaced by the actual number of days in the month before the page is sent to the user, and you should copy it verbatim to your translation. In addition, you should replace days with the appropriate rule for your language; that rule would typically include appropriate translations for "day" and "days" (including any additional forms your language may use). Thus, the French translation would be monthdays jours. Also, if your language wants the count in another position than just before the item name, you should move monthdays to its proper position in the translated text.

Some translation strings introduced before the plural feature existed have two versions, one for the singular and one for the plural. An example is:

 Code: /userinfo.bml.timeupdate.dayago
 English (LJ): 1 day ago

 Code: /userinfo.bml.timeupdate.daysago
 English (LJ): [[num]] days ago

which would normally be written as

 Code: /userinfo.bml.timeupdate.daysago
 English (LJ): [[num]] [[?num|day|days]] ago

(with a single string for both singular and plural.) The ?... sequence can be used in translations even if the original English text doesn't use it, as long as the English uses num. Thus, for those languages with pluralization rules that don't match English, you could have (in French) il y a num jours for the plural strings (or suitable equivalents for other languages), even though that string in English doesn't use ?... and only uses num. However, it couldn't be used for the singular, which uses neither ?... nor num.

Draft translation from the Perl code by <ljuser>pauamma</ljuser>. Corrections and rewording for clarity by <ljuser>camomiletea</ljuser> and <ljuser>janinedog</ljuser>. Tricks section based on a suggestion by <ljuser>parasti</ljuser> in <ljcomm>lj_latvian</ljcomm>.

Category: Translation