on., 29.07.2009 kl. 23.01 +0300, skrev Roman Kyrylych: > Hi! > > During my translation of pacman/libalpm files > I've noticed a significant number of inconsistencies > and messages that are difficult to translate to a language > that is quite different from Western European languages > without knowing in what context they are used > and what kind of text can hide behind %s. > (e.g. what "Held by %s" is supposed to mean? > if translated directly to my language without specifying > a type of %s object the meaning will be confusing). > > To all pacman committers: > _please_ use consistent and descriptive text. > I am sure that some messages could be made more specific, > not only simplifying the work of translators, > but also understanding by users. > > In addition, it would be easier for translators if some > native English speaker could check .pot files before string freeze. > It seems to me that there may be some duplicates removed, > and alot of related messages made more consistent. > > I understand that text cosmetics is not a top priority > when developing some new feature, > but doing some text cleanup before string freeze > (while keeping in mind that every single line of text > may and will be translated to a (very) different language, > _and_ trying to make the text look clear for most users) > does worth some time spent. > I can do such work for next pacman releases > (not sure if I can "generate" good English messages > since it's not my native language, but at least I can > point to a text that's not clear to understand/translate etc.) > > I know it's too late to make such changes now, > but I hope this can be done for future pacman releases. >
Agree. I have done some unofficial translation on Pacman 3.2.2 to Norwegian Bokmal, mostly for fun. While a translation seems fine in my editor (Poedit), I have to rewrite approximately 80% of the messages when I see them in a real-life context, using Pacman. this is the main reason I have not submitted a translation yet, because I have a lot of messages I have NOT seen in my day to day use, and I dare not guarantee their consistency and clarity. Dag E. Tangen _______________________________________________ pacman-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/pacman-dev
