Keep it simple

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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…
- Oh god, I've never thought about that.
  
  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).
  
  In Russian, numbers ending in one are singular, except for eleven which is plural.
  
  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....
  
  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).
  
  Neat! I didn't know that. Is that common in other Slavic languages?
  
  English has inconsistent plurals too, one sheep, two sheep, zero sheep, one goose, two geese,...
- El Bola sounds like a very racist super villain too! Probably not what most customers are looking for in a translation...
- although a bit clunky, writing "the {{objectType}} object" would get around this particular issue.
- If by "every other language" you mean "a handful of Indo-European languages, then sure.

140 comments