Hi all- These are very good points made by everyone. I vote for Sam's option #2 (and Eugene's original suggestion,) which is to make the wording generic so that we don't need to deal with pluralizing words. i.e. Use sentences like "Please choose the group(s)" and "There was one file(s) found on XDisk" even though that means the sentences will not always be as precise as it could be. I think it would be too much work to deal with the flexibility of handing a plural and singular version of all text.
Thanks, Beth -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Keith Pierce Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 6:08 PM To: Mifos functional discussions Subject: Re: [Mifos-functional] Define mandatory/hidden fields stringdepluralization Sam's third option comes closest to a correct solution in all languages. Unfortunately, it does not go far enough. Sometimes parts of an entire sentence must be modified based on the quantity. In this example the verb as well as the noun object must be modified for 0, 1 or many: For currentLocale = en_US: There are no files on XDisk. There is one file on XDisk. There are 2 files on XDisk. There are 3 files on XDisk. For currentLocale = fr_FR Il n'y a pas des fichiers sur XDisk. Il y a un fichier sur XDisk. Il y a 2 fichiers sur XDisk. Il y a 3 fichiers sur XDisk. This link describes how to use Java's MessageFormat class to implement such a scheme. This elaboration of Sam's third option is what we'd have to do in order to be grammatically correct in all situations. It would be work to refactor to comply with the pattern, but it only has to be done once. http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/i18n/format/choiceFormat.html Keith Pierce On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 11:46 AM, Sam Birney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > This is a good question. Appending an 's' is not a very good i18n solution. > > Some languages, like Spanish, pluralize the adjective (when there is one) as well as the noun. Also the verb conjugation changes when the noun is the subject. > > Other languages handle it differently, and some of them don't even have the letter 's' in their character sets. > > Here are the three options I like, maybe the PMs can chime in about suggesting which we should do for v1.1: > > 1. ignore it, live with a little poor grammar, which happens to work out pretty much OK for French and Spanish. > > 2. reconstruct the wording as Eugene suggests, to sidestep the problem. > > 3. have a singular form and plural form in properties files for each relevant phrase, e.g.: > GROUP_FIELD=group field > GROUP_FIELDS=group fields > > which can then be translated separately according to each locales rules of pluralization. > > thoughts? > Sam > > > > On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 4:48 PM, Eugene Pavlenko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Hello, > > > > > > > > During the i18n effort, a couple words were encountered that are pluralized (appended an s to) manually in the jsp layer. I'm curious if the strings containing these words could be tweaked slightly, in order to allow the aforementioned words to be present there in a singular case. > > > > The strings encountered were on the Define mandatory/hidden fields page. > > > > They are: > > > > > > > > Assigning Clients to positions > > > > Groups Fields > > > > > > > > I propose changing these to: > > > > Assigning a Client to positions (I'm not sure if this is the best way to phrase this) > > > > Group Fields > > > > > > > > Does anyone object to / see some problems with this? > > > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > Eugene > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - > > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft > > Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. > > http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > > Mifos-functional mailing list > > Mifos-functional@lists.sourceforge.net > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mifos-functional > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft > Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. > http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ > _______________________________________________ > Mifos-functional mailing list > Mifos-functional@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mifos-functional > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Mifos-functional mailing list Mifos-functional@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mifos-functional ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Mifos-functional mailing list Mifos-functional@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mifos-functional
