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13 <head>
14 <title>GNU gettext utilities: 12. The Translator's View</title>
15
16 <meta name="description" content="GNU gettext utilities: 12. The Translator's View">
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40 </head>
41
42 <body lang="en" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#800080" alink="#FF0000">
43
44 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
45 <tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_11.html#SEC197" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
46 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_13.html#SEC230" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
47 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
48 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
49 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
50 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
51 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
52 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_toc.html#SEC_Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
53 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
54 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_21.html#SEC389" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
55 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
56 </tr></table>
57
58 <hr size="2">
59 <a name="Translators"></a>
60 <a name="SEC217"></a>
61 <h1 class="chapter"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC210">12. The Translator's View</a> </h1>
62
63
64
65
66 <a name="Trans-Intro-0"></a>
67 <a name="SEC218"></a>
68 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC211">12.1 Introduction 0</a> </h2>
69
70 <p><strong> NOTE: </strong> This documentation section is outdated and needs to be
71 revised.
72 </p>
73 <p>Free software is going international! The Translation Project is a way
74 to get maintainers, translators and users all together, so free software
75 will gradually become able to speak many native languages.
76 </p>
77 <p>The GNU <code>gettext</code> tool set contains <em>everything</em> maintainers
78 need for internationalizing their packages for messages. It also
79 contains quite useful tools for helping translators at localizing
80 messages to their native language, once a package has already been
81 internationalized.
82 </p>
83 <p>To achieve the Translation Project, we need many interested
84 people who like their own language and write it well, and who are also
85 able to synergize with other translators speaking the same language.
86 If you'd like to volunteer to <em>work</em> at translating messages,
87 please send mail to your translating team.
88 </p>
89 <p>Each team has its own mailing list, courtesy of Linux
90 International. You may reach your translating team at the address
91 &lsquo;<tt><var>ll</var>@li.org</tt>&rsquo;, replacing <var>ll</var> by the two-letter ISO 639
92 code for your language. Language codes are <em>not</em> the same as
93 country codes given in ISO 3166. The following translating teams
94 exist:
95 </p>
96 <blockquote><p>Chinese <code>zh</code>, Czech <code>cs</code>, Danish <code>da</code>, Dutch <code>nl</code>,
97 Esperanto <code>eo</code>, Finnish <code>fi</code>, French <code>fr</code>, Irish
98 <code>ga</code>, German <code>de</code>, Greek <code>el</code>, Italian <code>it</code>,
99 Japanese <code>ja</code>, Indonesian <code>in</code>, Norwegian <code>no</code>, Polish
100 <code>pl</code>, Portuguese <code>pt</code>, Russian <code>ru</code>, Spanish <code>es</code>,
101 Swedish <code>sv</code> and Turkish <code>tr</code>.
102 </p></blockquote>
103
104 <p>For example, you may reach the Chinese translating team by writing to
105 &lsquo;<tt>zh@li.org</tt>&rsquo;. When you become a member of the translating team
106 for your own language, you may subscribe to its list. For example,
107 Swedish people can send a message to &lsquo;<tt>sv-request@li.org</tt>&rsquo;,
108 having this message body:
109 </p>
110 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">subscribe
111 </pre></td></tr></table>
112
113 <p>Keep in mind that team members should be interested in <em>working</em>
114 at translations, or at solving translational difficulties, rather than
115 merely lurking around. If your team does not exist yet and you want to
116 start one, please write to &lsquo;<tt>coordinator@translationproject.org</tt>&rsquo;;
117 you will then reach the coordinator for all translator teams.
118 </p>
119 <p>A handful of GNU packages have already been adapted and provided
120 with message translations for several languages. Translation
121 teams have begun to organize, using these packages as a starting
122 point. But there are many more packages and many languages for
123 which we have no volunteer translators. If you would like to
124 volunteer to work at translating messages, please send mail to
125 &lsquo;<tt>coordinator@translationproject.org</tt>&rsquo; indicating what language(s)
126 you can work on.
127 </p>
128
129 <a name="Trans-Intro-1"></a>
130 <a name="SEC219"></a>
131 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC212">12.2 Introduction 1</a> </h2>
132
133 <p><strong> NOTE: </strong> This documentation section is outdated and needs to be
134 revised.
135 </p>
136 <p>This is now official, GNU is going international! Here is the
137 announcement submitted for the January 1995 GNU Bulletin:
138 </p>
139 <blockquote><p>A handful of GNU packages have already been adapted and provided
140 with message translations for several languages. Translation
141 teams have begun to organize, using these packages as a starting
142 point. But there are many more packages and many languages
143 for which we have no volunteer translators. If you'd like to
144 volunteer to work at translating messages, please send mail to
145 &lsquo;<samp>coordinator@translationproject.org</samp>&rsquo; indicating what language(s)
146 you can work on.
147 </p></blockquote>
148
149 <p>This document should answer many questions for those who are curious about
150 the process or would like to contribute. Please at least skim over it,
151 hoping to cut down a little of the high volume of e-mail generated by this
152 collective effort towards internationalization of free software.
153 </p>
154 <p>Most free programming which is widely shared is done in English, and
155 currently, English is used as the main communicating language between
156 national communities collaborating to free software. This very document
157 is written in English. This will not change in the foreseeable future.
158 </p>
159 <p>However, there is a strong appetite from national communities for
160 having more software able to write using national language and habits,
161 and there is an on-going effort to modify free software in such a way
162 that it becomes able to do so. The experiments driven so far raised
163 an enthusiastic response from pretesters, so we believe that
164 internationalization of free software is dedicated to succeed.
165 </p>
166 <p>For suggestion clarifications, additions or corrections to this
167 document, please e-mail to &lsquo;<tt>coordinator@translationproject.org</tt>&rsquo;.
168 </p>
169
170 <a name="Discussions"></a>
171 <a name="SEC220"></a>
172 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC213">12.3 Discussions</a> </h2>
173
174 <p><strong> NOTE: </strong> This documentation section is outdated and needs to be
175 revised.
176 </p>
177 <p>Facing this internationalization effort, a few users expressed their
178 concerns. Some of these doubts are presented and discussed, here.
179 </p>
180 <ul>
181 <li> Smaller groups
182
183 <p>Some languages are not spoken by a very large number of people, so people
184 speaking them sometimes consider that there may not be all that much
185 demand such versions of free software packages. Moreover, many people
186 being <em>into computers</em>, in some countries, generally seem to prefer
187 English versions of their software.
188 </p>
189 <p>On the other end, people might enjoy their own language a lot, and be
190 very motivated at providing to themselves the pleasure of having their
191 beloved free software speaking their mother tongue. They do themselves
192 a personal favor, and do not pay that much attention to the number of
193 people benefiting of their work.
194 </p>
195 </li><li> Misinterpretation
196
197 <p>Other users are shy to push forward their own language, seeing in this
198 some kind of misplaced propaganda. Someone thought there must be some
199 users of the language over the networks pestering other people with it.
200 </p>
201 <p>But any spoken language is worth localization, because there are
202 people behind the language for whom the language is important and
203 dear to their hearts.
204 </p>
205 </li><li> Odd translations
206
207 <p>The biggest problem is to find the right translations so that
208 everybody can understand the messages. Translations are usually a
209 little odd. Some people get used to English, to the extent they may
210 find translations into their own language &ldquo;rather pushy, obnoxious
211 and sometimes even hilarious.&rdquo; As a French speaking man, I have
212 the experience of those instruction manuals for goods, so poorly
213 translated in French in Korea or Taiwan&hellip;
214 </p>
215 <p>The fact is that we sometimes have to create a kind of national
216 computer culture, and this is not easy without the collaboration of
217 many people liking their mother tongue. This is why translations are
218 better achieved by people knowing and loving their own language, and
219 ready to work together at improving the results they obtain.
220 </p>
221 </li><li> Dependencies over the GPL or LGPL
222
223 <p>Some people wonder if using GNU <code>gettext</code> necessarily brings their
224 package under the protective wing of the GNU General Public License or
225 the GNU Lesser General Public License, when they do not want to make
226 their program free, or want other kinds of freedom. The simplest
227 answer is &ldquo;normally not&rdquo;.
228 </p>
229 <p>The <code>gettext-runtime</code> part of GNU <code>gettext</code>, i.e. the
230 contents of <code>libintl</code>, is covered by the GNU Lesser General Public
231 License. The <code>gettext-tools</code> part of GNU <code>gettext</code>, i.e. the
232 rest of the GNU <code>gettext</code> package, is covered by the GNU General
233 Public License.
234 </p>
235 <p>The mere marking of localizable strings in a package, or conditional
236 inclusion of a few lines for initialization, is not really including
237 GPL'ed or LGPL'ed code. However, since the localization routines in
238 <code>libintl</code> are under the LGPL, the LGPL needs to be considered.
239 It gives the right to distribute the complete unmodified source of
240 <code>libintl</code> even with non-free programs. It also gives the right
241 to use <code>libintl</code> as a shared library, even for non-free programs.
242 But it gives the right to use <code>libintl</code> as a static library or
243 to incorporate <code>libintl</code> into another library only to free
244 software.
245 </p>
246 </li></ul>
247
248
249 <a name="Organization"></a>
250 <a name="SEC221"></a>
251 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC214">12.4 Organization</a> </h2>
252
253 <p><strong> NOTE: </strong> This documentation section is outdated and needs to be
254 revised.
255 </p>
256 <p>On a larger scale, the true solution would be to organize some kind of
257 fairly precise set up in which volunteers could participate. I gave
258 some thought to this idea lately, and realize there will be some
259 touchy points. I thought of writing to Richard Stallman to launch
260 such a project, but feel it might be good to shake out the ideas
261 between ourselves first. Most probably that Linux International has
262 some experience in the field already, or would like to orchestrate
263 the volunteer work, maybe. Food for thought, in any case!
264 </p>
265 <p>I guess we have to setup something early, somehow, that will help
266 many possible contributors of the same language to interlock and avoid
267 work duplication, and further be put in contact for solving together
268 problems particular to their tongue (in most languages, there are many
269 difficulties peculiar to translating technical English). My Swedish
270 contributor acknowledged these difficulties, and I'm well aware of
271 them for French.
272 </p>
273 <p>This is surely not a technical issue, but we should manage so the
274 effort of locale contributors be maximally useful, despite the national
275 team layer interface between contributors and maintainers.
276 </p>
277 <p>The Translation Project needs some setup for coordinating language
278 coordinators. Localizing evolving programs will surely
279 become a permanent and continuous activity in the free software community,
280 once well started.
281 The setup should be minimally completed and tested before GNU
282 <code>gettext</code> becomes an official reality. The e-mail address
283 &lsquo;<tt>coordinator@translationproject.org</tt>&rsquo; has been set up for receiving
284 offers from volunteers and general e-mail on these topics. This address
285 reaches the Translation Project coordinator.
286 </p>
287
288
289 <a name="Central-Coordination"></a>
290 <a name="SEC222"></a>
291 <h3 class="subsection"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC215">12.4.1 Central Coordination</a> </h3>
292
293 <p>I also think GNU will need sooner than it thinks, that someone set up
294 a way to organize and coordinate these groups. Some kind of group
295 of groups. My opinion is that it would be good that GNU delegates
296 this task to a small group of collaborating volunteers, shortly.
297 Perhaps in &lsquo;<tt>gnu.announce</tt>&rsquo; a list of this national committee's
298 can be published.
299 </p>
300 <p>My role as coordinator would simply be to refer to Ulrich any German
301 speaking volunteer interested to localization of free software packages, and
302 maybe helping national groups to initially organize, while maintaining
303 national registries for until national groups are ready to take over.
304 In fact, the coordinator should ease volunteers to get in contact with
305 one another for creating national teams, which should then select
306 one coordinator per language, or country (regionalized language).
307 If well done, the coordination should be useful without being an
308 overwhelming task, the time to put delegations in place.
309 </p>
310
311 <a name="National-Teams"></a>
312 <a name="SEC223"></a>
313 <h3 class="subsection"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC216">12.4.2 National Teams</a> </h3>
314
315 <p>I suggest we look for volunteer coordinators/editors for individual
316 languages. These people will scan contributions of translation files
317 for various programs, for their own languages, and will ensure high
318 and uniform standards of diction.
319 </p>
320 <p>From my current experience with other people in these days, those who
321 provide localizations are very enthusiastic about the process, and are
322 more interested in the localization process than in the program they
323 localize, and want to do many programs, not just one. This seems
324 to confirm that having a coordinator/editor for each language is a
325 good idea.
326 </p>
327 <p>We need to choose someone who is good at writing clear and concise
328 prose in the language in question. That is hard&mdash;we can't check
329 it ourselves. So we need to ask a few people to judge each others'
330 writing and select the one who is best.
331 </p>
332 <p>I announce my prerelease to a few dozen people, and you would not
333 believe all the discussions it generated already. I shudder to think
334 what will happen when this will be launched, for true, officially,
335 world wide. Who am I to arbitrate between two Czekolsovak users
336 contradicting each other, for example?
337 </p>
338 <p>I assume that your German is not much better than my French so that
339 I would not be able to judge about these formulations. What I would
340 suggest is that for each language there is a group for people who
341 maintain the PO files and judge about changes. I suspect there will
342 be cultural differences between how such groups of people will behave.
343 Some will have relaxed ways, reach consensus easily, and have anyone
344 of the group relate to the maintainers, while others will fight to
345 death, organize heavy administrations up to national standards, and
346 use strict channels.
347 </p>
348 <p>The German team is putting out a good example. Right now, they are
349 maybe half a dozen people revising translations of each other and
350 discussing the linguistic issues. I do not even have all the names.
351 Ulrich Drepper is taking care of coordinating the German team.
352 He subscribed to all my pretest lists, so I do not even have to warn
353 him specifically of incoming releases.
354 </p>
355 <p>I'm sure, that is a good idea to get teams for each language working
356 on translations. That will make the translations better and more
357 consistent.
358 </p>
359
360
361 <a name="Sub_002dCultures"></a>
362 <a name="SEC224"></a>
363 <h4 class="subsubsection"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC217">12.4.2.1 Sub-Cultures</a> </h4>
364
365 <p>Taking French for example, there are a few sub-cultures around computers
366 which developed diverging vocabularies. Picking volunteers here and
367 there without addressing this problem in an organized way, soon in the
368 project, might produce a distasteful mix of internationalized programs,
369 and possibly trigger endless quarrels among those who really care.
370 </p>
371 <p>Keeping some kind of unity in the way French localization of
372 internationalized programs is achieved is a difficult (and delicate) job.
373 Knowing the latin character of French people (:-), if we take this
374 the wrong way, we could end up nowhere, or spoil a lot of energies.
375 Maybe we should begin to address this problem seriously <em>before</em>
376 GNU <code>gettext</code> become officially published. And I suspect that this
377 means soon!
378 </p>
379
380 <a name="Organizational-Ideas"></a>
381 <a name="SEC225"></a>
382 <h4 class="subsubsection"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC218">12.4.2.2 Organizational Ideas</a> </h4>
383
384 <p>I expect the next big changes after the official release. Please note
385 that I use the German translation of the short GPL message. We need
386 to set a few good examples before the localization goes out for true
387 in the free software community. Here are a few points to discuss:
388 </p>
389 <ul>
390 <li>
391 Each group should have one FTP server (at least one master).
392
393 </li><li>
394 The files on the server should reflect the latest version (of
395 course!) and it should also contain a RCS directory with the
396 corresponding archives (I don't have this now).
397
398 </li><li>
399 There should also be a ChangeLog file (this is more useful than the
400 RCS archive but can be generated automatically from the later by
401 Emacs).
402
403 </li><li>
404 A <em>core group</em> should judge about questionable changes (for now
405 this group consists solely by me but I ask some others occasionally;
406 this also seems to work).
407
408 </li></ul>
409
410
411 <a name="Mailing-Lists"></a>
412 <a name="SEC226"></a>
413 <h3 class="subsection"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC219">12.4.3 Mailing Lists</a> </h3>
414
415 <p>If we get any inquiries about GNU <code>gettext</code>, send them on to:
416 </p>
417 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">&lsquo;<tt>coordinator@translationproject.org</tt>&rsquo;
418 </pre></td></tr></table>
419
420 <p>The &lsquo;<tt>*-pretest</tt>&rsquo; lists are quite useful to me, maybe the idea could
421 be generalized to many GNU, and non-GNU packages. But each maintainer
422 his/her way!
423 </p>
424 <p>Fran&ccedil;ois, we have a mechanism in place here at
425 &lsquo;<tt>gnu.ai.mit.edu</tt>&rsquo; to track teams, support mailing lists for
426 them and log members. We have a slight preference that you use it.
427 If this is OK with you, I can get you clued in.
428 </p>
429 <p>Things are changing! A few years ago, when Daniel Fekete and I
430 asked for a mailing list for GNU localization, nested at the FSF, we
431 were politely invited to organize it anywhere else, and so did we.
432 For communicating with my pretesters, I later made a handful of
433 mailing lists located at iro.umontreal.ca and administrated by
434 <code>majordomo</code>. These lists have been <em>very</em> dependable
435 so far&hellip;
436 </p>
437 <p>I suspect that the German team will organize itself a mailing list
438 located in Germany, and so forth for other countries. But before they
439 organize for true, it could surely be useful to offer mailing lists
440 located at the FSF to each national team. So yes, please explain me
441 how I should proceed to create and handle them.
442 </p>
443 <p>We should create temporary mailing lists, one per country, to help
444 people organize. Temporary, because once regrouped and structured, it
445 would be fair the volunteers from country bring back <em>their</em> list
446 in there and manage it as they want. My feeling is that, in the long
447 run, each team should run its own list, from within their country.
448 There also should be some central list to which all teams could
449 subscribe as they see fit, as long as each team is represented in it.
450 </p>
451
452 <a name="Information-Flow"></a>
453 <a name="SEC227"></a>
454 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC220">12.5 Information Flow</a> </h2>
455
456 <p><strong> NOTE: </strong> This documentation section is outdated and needs to be
457 revised.
458 </p>
459 <p>There will surely be some discussion about this messages after the
460 packages are finally released. If people now send you some proposals
461 for better messages, how do you proceed? Jim, please note that
462 right now, as I put forward nearly a dozen of localizable programs, I
463 receive both the translations and the coordination concerns about them.
464 </p>
465 <p>If I put one of my things to pretest, Ulrich receives the announcement
466 and passes it on to the German team, who make last minute revisions.
467 Then he submits the translation files to me <em>as the maintainer</em>.
468 For free packages I do not maintain, I would not even hear about it.
469 This scheme could be made to work for the whole Translation Project,
470 I think. For security reasons, maybe Ulrich (national coordinators,
471 in fact) should update central registry kept at the Translation Project
472 (Jim, me, or Len's recruits) once in a while.
473 </p>
474 <p>In December/January, I was aggressively ready to internationalize
475 all of GNU, giving myself the duty of one small GNU package per week
476 or so, taking many weeks or months for bigger packages. But it does
477 not work this way. I first did all the things I'm responsible for.
478 I've nothing against some missionary work on other maintainers, but
479 I'm also losing a lot of energy over it&mdash;same debates over again.
480 </p>
481 <p>And when the first localized packages are released we'll get a lot of
482 responses about ugly translations :-). Surely, and we need to have
483 beforehand a fairly good idea about how to handle the information
484 flow between the national teams and the package maintainers.
485 </p>
486 <p>Please start saving somewhere a quick history of each PO file. I know
487 for sure that the file format will change, allowing for comments.
488 It would be nice that each file has a kind of log, and references for
489 those who want to submit comments or gripes, or otherwise contribute.
490 I sent a proposal for a fast and flexible format, but it is not
491 receiving acceptance yet by the GNU deciders. I'll tell you when I
492 have more information about this.
493 </p>
494
495 <a name="Translating-plural-forms"></a>
496 <a name="SEC228"></a>
497 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC221">12.6 Translating plural forms</a> </h2>
498
499 <p>Suppose you are translating a PO file, and it contains an entry like this:
500 </p>
501 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">#, c-format
502 msgid &quot;One file removed&quot;
503 msgid_plural &quot;%d files removed&quot;
504 msgstr[0] &quot;&quot;
505 msgstr[1] &quot;&quot;
506 </pre></td></tr></table>
507
508 <p>What does this mean? How do you fill it in?
509 </p>
510 <p>Such an entry denotes a message with plural forms, that is, a message where
511 the text depends on a cardinal number. The general form of the message,
512 in English, is the <code>msgid_plural</code> line. The <code>msgid</code> line is the
513 English singular form, that is, the form for when the number is equal to 1.
514 More details about plural forms are explained in <a href="gettext_11.html#SEC207">Additional functions for plural forms</a>.
515 </p>
516 <p>The first thing you need to look at is the <code>Plural-Forms</code> line in the
517 header entry of the PO file. It contains the number of plural forms and a
518 formula. If the PO file does not yet have such a line, you have to add it.
519 It only depends on the language into which you are translating. You can
520 get this info by using the <code>msginit</code> command (see <a href="gettext_6.html#SEC45">Creating a New PO File</a>) &ndash;
521 it contains a database of known plural formulas &ndash; or by asking other
522 members of your translation team.
523 </p>
524 <p>Suppose the line looks as follows:
525 </p>
526 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">&quot;Plural-Forms: nplurals=3; plural=n%10==1 &amp;&amp; n%100!=11 ? 0 : n%10&gt;=2 &amp;&amp; n&quot;
527 &quot;%10&lt;=4 &amp;&amp; (n%100&lt;10 || n%100&gt;=20) ? 1 : 2;\n&quot;
528 </pre></td></tr></table>
529
530 <p>It's logically one line; recall that the PO file formatting is allowed to
531 break long lines so that each physical line fits in 80 monospaced columns.
532 </p>
533 <p>The value of <code>nplurals</code> here tells you that there are three plural
534 forms. The first thing you need to do is to ensure that the entry contains
535 an <code>msgstr</code> line for each of the forms:
536 </p>
537 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">#, c-format
538 msgid &quot;One file removed&quot;
539 msgid_plural &quot;%d files removed&quot;
540 msgstr[0] &quot;&quot;
541 msgstr[1] &quot;&quot;
542 msgstr[2] &quot;&quot;
543 </pre></td></tr></table>
544
545 <p>Then translate the <code>msgid_plural</code> line and fill it in into each
546 <code>msgstr</code> line:
547 </p>
548 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">#, c-format
549 msgid &quot;One file removed&quot;
550 msgid_plural &quot;%d files removed&quot;
551 msgstr[0] &quot;%d slika uklonjenih&quot;
552 msgstr[1] &quot;%d slika uklonjenih&quot;
553 msgstr[2] &quot;%d slika uklonjenih&quot;
554 </pre></td></tr></table>
555
556 <p>Now you can refine the translation so that it matches the plural form.
557 According to the formula above, <code>msgstr[0]</code> is used when the number
558 ends in 1 but does not end in 11; <code>msgstr[1]</code> is used when the number
559 ends in 2, 3, 4, but not in 12, 13, 14; and <code>msgstr[2]</code> is used in
560 all other cases. With this knowledge, you can refine the translations:
561 </p>
562 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">#, c-format
563 msgid &quot;One file removed&quot;
564 msgid_plural &quot;%d files removed&quot;
565 msgstr[0] &quot;%d slika je uklonjena&quot;
566 msgstr[1] &quot;%d datoteke uklonjenih&quot;
567 msgstr[2] &quot;%d slika uklonjenih&quot;
568 </pre></td></tr></table>
569
570 <p>You noticed that in the English singular form (<code>msgid</code>) the number
571 placeholder could be omitted and replaced by the numeral word &ldquo;one&rdquo;.
572 Can you do this in your translation as well?
573 </p>
574 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">msgstr[0] &quot;jednom datotekom je uklonjen&quot;
575 </pre></td></tr></table>
576
577 <p>Well, it depends on whether <code>msgstr[0]</code> applies only to the number 1,
578 or to other numbers as well. If, according to the plural formula,
579 <code>msgstr[0]</code> applies only to <code>n == 1</code>, then you can use the
580 specialized translation without the number placeholder. In our case,
581 however, <code>msgstr[0]</code> also applies to the numbers 21, 31, 41, etc.,
582 and therefore you cannot omit the placeholder.
583 </p>
584
585 <a name="Prioritizing-messages"></a>
586 <a name="SEC229"></a>
587 <h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC222">12.7 Prioritizing messages: How to determine which messages to translate first</a> </h2>
588
589 <p>A translator sometimes has only a limited amount of time per week to
590 spend on a package, and some packages have quite large message catalogs
591 (over 1000 messages). Therefore she wishes to translate the messages
592 first that are the most visible to the user, or that occur most frequently.
593 This section describes how to determine these &quot;most urgent&quot; messages.
594 It also applies to determine the &quot;next most urgent&quot; messages after the
595 message catalog has already been partially translated.
596 </p>
597 <p>In a first step, she uses the programs like a user would do. While she
598 does this, the GNU <code>gettext</code> library logs into a file the not yet
599 translated messages for which a translation was requested from the program.
600 </p>
601 <p>In a second step, she uses the PO mode to translate precisely this set
602 of messages.
603 </p>
604 <a name="IDX1089"></a>
605 <p>Here are more details. The GNU <code>libintl</code> library (but not the
606 corresponding functions in GNU <code>libc</code>) supports an environment variable
607 <code>GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED</code>. The GNU <code>libintl</code> library will
608 log into this file the messages for which <code>gettext()</code> and related
609 functions couldn't find the translation. If the file doesn't exist, it
610 will be created as needed. On systems with GNU <code>libc</code> a shared library
611 &lsquo;<samp>preloadable_libintl.so</samp>&rsquo; is provided that can be used with the ELF
612 &lsquo;<samp>LD_PRELOAD</samp>&rsquo; mechanism.
613 </p>
614 <p>So, in the first step, the translator uses these commands on systems with
615 GNU <code>libc</code>:
616 </p>
617 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/local/lib/preloadable_libintl.so
618 $ export LD_PRELOAD
619 $ GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED=$HOME/gettextlogused
620 $ export GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED
621 </pre></td></tr></table>
622
623 <p>and these commands on other systems:
624 </p>
625 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED=$HOME/gettextlogused
626 $ export GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED
627 </pre></td></tr></table>
628
629 <p>Then she uses and peruses the programs. (It is a good and recommended
630 practice to use the programs for which you provide translations: it
631 gives you the needed context.) When done, she removes the environment
632 variables:
633 </p>
634 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ unset LD_PRELOAD
635 $ unset GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED
636 </pre></td></tr></table>
637
638 <p>The second step starts with removing duplicates:
639 </p>
640 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ msguniq $HOME/gettextlogused &gt; missing.po
641 </pre></td></tr></table>
642
643 <p>The result is a PO file, but needs some preprocessing before a PO file editor
644 can be used with it. First, it is a multi-domain PO file, containing
645 messages from many translation domains. Second, it lacks all translator
646 comments and source references. Here is how to get a list of the affected
647 translation domains:
648 </p>
649 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ sed -n -e 's,^domain &quot;\(.*\)&quot;$,\1,p' &lt; missing.po | sort | uniq
650 </pre></td></tr></table>
651
652 <p>Then the translator can handle the domains one by one. For simplicity,
653 let's use environment variables to denote the language, domain and source
654 package.
655 </p>
656 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ lang=nl # your language
657 $ domain=coreutils # the name of the domain to be handled
658 $ package=/usr/src/gnu/coreutils-4.5.4 # the package where it comes from
659 </pre></td></tr></table>
660
661 <p>She takes the latest copy of &lsquo;<tt>$lang.po</tt>&rsquo; from the Translation Project,
662 or from the package (in most cases, &lsquo;<tt>$package/po/$lang.po</tt>&rsquo;), or
663 creates a fresh one if she's the first translator (see <a href="gettext_6.html#SEC45">Creating a New PO File</a>).
664 She then uses the following commands to mark the not urgent messages as
665 &quot;obsolete&quot;. (This doesn't mean that these messages - translated and
666 untranslated ones - will go away. It simply means that the PO file editor
667 will ignore them in the following editing session.)
668 </p>
669 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ msggrep --domain=$domain missing.po | grep -v '^domain' \
670 &gt; $domain-missing.po
671 $ msgattrib --set-obsolete --ignore-file $domain-missing.po $domain.$lang.po \
672 &gt; $domain.$lang-urgent.po
673 </pre></td></tr></table>
674
675 <p>The she translates &lsquo;<tt>$domain.$lang-urgent.po</tt>&rsquo; by use of a PO file editor
676 (see section <a href="gettext_8.html#SEC63">Editing PO Files</a>).
677 (FIXME: I don't know whether <code>KBabel</code> and <code>gtranslator</code> also
678 preserve obsolete messages, as they should.)
679 Finally she restores the not urgent messages (with their earlier
680 translations, for those which were already translated) through this command:
681 </p>
682 <table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ msgmerge --no-fuzzy-matching $domain.$lang-urgent.po $package/po/$domain.pot \
683 &gt; $domain.$lang.po
684 </pre></td></tr></table>
685
686 <p>Then she can submit &lsquo;<tt>$domain.$lang.po</tt>&rsquo; and proceed to the next domain.
687 </p>
688
689 <table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
690 <tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC217" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
691 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_13.html#SEC230" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
692 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
693 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
694 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
695 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
696 <td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
697 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_toc.html#SEC_Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
698 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_toc.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
699 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_21.html#SEC389" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
700 <td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="gettext_abt.html#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
701 </tr></table>
702 <p>
703 <font size="-1">
704 This document was generated by <em>Bruno Haible</em> on <em>February, 21 2024</em> using <a href="https://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/"><em>texi2html 1.78a</em></a>.
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706 <br>
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