From: Junio C Hamano Date: Mon, 23 May 2016 00:44:15 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH 05/21] i18n: sequencer: mark entire sentences for translation Message-ID: In-Reply-To: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason writes: > For what it's worth I agree with you and disagree with Eric here and > Junio in the "[PATCH 03/21] i18n: advice: internationalize message for > conflicts" thread. > > Of course there's a trade-off in source code verbosity when you have > to change every occurance of (pseudocode): > > "our %s failed" # %s can be revert or merge > > to: > > if (action == "merge") > gettext("our merge failed") > elsif (action == "revert") > gettext("our revert failed") > > But forcing the translator to turn every such occurrence that flows > naturally in English into "the '%s' command failed" leads to a worse > translation. > > For example, if I ever get around to doing the Icelandic translation > which I've had on my backlog I might translate something like this: > ... > I.e. even though you might be running "git merge" or "git revert" the > UI is talking about those terms in the translated using native terms > for the action of merging or reverting, but referring to the literal > command names in English. > ... > It just doesn't flow as well, and leads to a more verbose translation. OK. I couldn't judge your example in Icelandic, but I have enough trust in you to believe your conclusion ;-). > Now instead of referring to the translated verb I'd already > established I have to just refer to literal command names. > > Both this change and the change you submitted in > <1463585274-9027-4-git-send-email-vascomalmeida@sapo.pt> and Junio > didn't like in are > actual examples of cases where if I was (finally getting of my ass to) > doing the Icelandic translation I'd take advantage of this.