Bad string composition

Bug #1363404 reported by Данило Шеган
10
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Ubuntu Calendar App
Confirmed
Low
Unassigned
Ubuntu Translations
Triaged
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

Following string in ../EventDetails.qml:75

 "Every %1"

with the comment "TRANSLATORS: the argument is a day of the week or a list of days" indicates that %1 will be replaced with day names.

That won't work well for at least Serbian, because day names need to be put into declinations when used with "every" instead of the generally used nominative declination.

I am sure other languages would be affected as well.

There'd be more problems like these in the calendar app, but proposing solutions would require careful analysis that I lack the time for right now. As a general rule, expanding all composition into fully spelled out sentences is much better, even if a bit more verbose.

Mihir Soni (mihirsoni)
Changed in ubuntu-calendar-app:
status: New → Confirmed
David Planella (dpm)
Changed in ubuntu-translations:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Low
Changed in ubuntu-calendar-app:
importance: Undecided → Low
milestone: none → postrtm
Changed in ubuntu-calendar-app:
milestone: postrtm → 0.5
Revision history for this message
Nekhelesh Ramananthan (nik90) wrote :

@bugreporter, can you perhaps give an example of how the string should be phrased as? In English, we intend on showing it as "Repeats: Every Thurs." or "Repeats: Every Week". How would that work in Serbian?

Changed in ubuntu-calendar-app:
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Данило Шеган (danilo) wrote :

Unfortunately, for Serbian, it would have to be really spelled out. Different days of the week have different genders, so adjective "every" changes form depending on the day.

Basically, it'd have to be messages for all of

"Every Monday" (сваког понедељка)
"Every Tuesday" (сваког уторка)
"Every Wednesday" (сваке среде)
"Every Thursday" (сваког четвртка)
"Every Friday" (сваког петка)
"Every Saturday" (сваке суботе)
"Every Sunday" (сваке недеље)

Note how "every" is either "сваког" or "сваке".

"Every week" would go into either "сваких недељу дана" or "сваке седмице" (the problem being that the same word is used in Serbian for a week and a Sunday).

Also, it would be even more problematic if independent day names are used in different contexts: they are usually translated in the base nominative form, but in the above, we need to use genitive forms (понедељак vs понедељка, среда vs среде).

I know it's tough for a developer (I am one myself) to accept having to expand and spell out things that seem like completely reusable code, but languages are simply like this.

Changed in ubuntu-calendar-app:
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Данило Шеган (danilo) wrote :

Btw, to make it clear, "every" would also differ in translations for

  "every week" (сваке седмице)
  "every month" (сваког месеца)
...

Revision history for this message
Данило Шеган (danilo) wrote :

And arguably, "Repeats: %1" can stay as-is, though there might not be any value in it if you've got individual messages for all the other cases, and it *is* better for translators to have the full UI message as one string.

Bill Filler (bfiller)
Changed in ubuntu-calendar-app:
milestone: 0.5 → 0.6
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