[freeciv-i18n] Re: Freeciv po files

[Egbert Hinzen <egbert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 21 Aug 2002, Davide Pagnin wrote:

> de.po:5255: number of format specifications in 'msgid' and 'msgstr' does
> not match
>
> This error is triggered by this translation:
>
> #: server/unittools.c:1902
> #, c-format
> msgid "Game: %s lost to an attack by %s's %s%s."
> msgstr "Spiel: %s beim Angriff von %ss %s verloren."
>
> (notice the lack of %s%s in the translation)
>
> I using this instead completely wrong (in german?)
>
> #: server/unittools.c:1902
> #, c-format
> msgid "Game: %s lost to an attack by %s's %s%s."
> msgstr "Spiel: %s beim Angriff von %ss %s%s verloren."

Yes, it is.

As far as I remember the last %s can be an 's' or empty.
The German plural isn't an 's'. So it would be wrong to use it.


> (I say this because some lines after the relevant one, there is this
> translation:
>
> #: server/unittools.c:1931
> #, c-format
> msgid "Game: You lost %d unit to an attack from %s's %s%s."
> msgid_plural "Game: You lost %d units to an attack from %s's %s%s."
> msgstr[0] "Spiel: %d Einheiten bei einem Angriff von %ss %s%s verloren."
>
> (which is wrong because it has only 1 plurar but has the %s%s
> verloren...)


... and because of the last %s.

Thanks for the hint, I corrected it to:

#: server/unittools.c:1931
#, c-format
msgid "Game: You lost %d unit to an attack from %s's %s%s."
msgid_plural "Game: You lost %d units to an attack from %s's %s%s."
msgstr[0] "Spiel: 1 Einheit bei einem Angriff von %ss %s verloren."
msgstr[1] "Spiel: %d Einheiten bei einem Angriff von %ss %s verloren."


> even if german singular and plural forms are equal in this case, the
> correct .po file should be:
>
> #: server/unittools.c:1931
> #, c-format
> msgid "Game: You lost %d unit to an attack from %s's %s%s."
> msgid_plural "Game: You lost %d units to an attack from %s's %s%s."
> msgstr[0] "Spiel: %d Einheiten bei einem Angriff von %ss %s%s verloren."
> msgstr[1] "Spiel: %d Einheiten bei einem Angriff von %ss %s%s verloren."


This is wrong:
As you can see above it's not so easy.


> What other translators/maintainers think?

But in this (and at least 2 other cases) the problem can be solved
easyly by  changing the sources: The English plural 's' shouldn't be used
any longer. Instead plural forms should be used.