this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Memes

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
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[–] Katana314 44 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Where this really sucks is in programming when you write things like “The {{objectType}}” in your translations file.

Your program will replace objectType with the actual thing, so “The Ball”. All good, right? But then every other language has the weird conjugation, so “El Bola” doesn’t make sense anymore…

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

El Bola sounds like a very racist super villain too! Probably not what most customers are looking for in a translation...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh god, I've never thought about that.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Some languages also consider different numbers in different way. I have one ball, two balls, and zero balls. Zero might not be plural like in English. Also, some language have a dual distinction that changes thing when there are two of something (not just singular and plural, but singular, dual, and plural).

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

English has inconsistent plurals too, one sheep, two sheep, zero sheep, one goose, two geese,...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In Russian, numbers ending in one are singular, except for eleven which is plural.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's even more complicated with two plural declensions except for all numbers in 10-20 range having second form

0 мячей

1 мяч

2 мяча, 3 мяча, 4 мяча

5 мячей, 6 мячей, 7 мячей, 8 мячей, 9 мячей, 10 мячей,

11 мячей, 12 мячей, 13 мячей, 14 мячей, 15 мячей, 16 мячей, 17 мячей, 18 мячей, 19 мячей, 20 мячей

21 мяч

22 мяча, 23 мяча, 24 мяча,

25 мячей, 26 мячей, 27 мячей, 28 мячей, 29 мячей, 30 мячей,

... the rest goes the same as 0-10/20-30....

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

In English that's called paucal vs plural forms, Polish has the same rules as Russian.

Sidenote: there are translation systems that support it, e.g. Qt does (https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/i18n-plural-rules.html).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

although a bit clunky, writing "the {{objectType}} object" would get around this particular issue.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

If by "every other language" you mean "a handful of Indo-European languages, then sure.