Bug 796972 - translatable strings broken up, causing translation to sound wrong
Summary: translatable strings broken up, causing translation to sound wrong
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Satellite
Classification: Red Hat
Component: Content Management
Version: 6.0.0
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: Unspecified
Assignee: Tom McKay
QA Contact: Og Maciel
URL: https://breakout.usersys.redhat.com/h...
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks: 818210 834324
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2012-02-23 23:36 UTC by Hedda Peters
Modified: 2019-09-26 15:55 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Translated strings for System Engine were used in the wrong context due to strings being broken up and translated individually. A single string has been created for several definitions to remove ambiguity from the strings to translate. Translated strings are now taken contextually.
Clone Of:
: 818210 834324 (view as bug list)
Environment:
Last Closed: 2012-12-04 19:42:21 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Product Errata RHSA-2012:1543 0 normal SHIPPED_LIVE Important: CloudForms System Engine 1.1 update 2012-12-05 00:39:57 UTC

Description Hedda Peters 2012-02-23 23:36:30 UTC
Description of problem:
In SAM gui (see URL provided) some translations look wrong due to the translatable strings being broken up, translated individually, and put back together.

- Example: the strings "+New" and "User" appear as individually translatable strings for the localization team, however, on the GUI they are combined to show the string "+ New User". That works in English, but does not work in many other languages where word order, declination etc has to be adjusted.
- Example: "showing 1 of 1 results ( 1 total organisations )" The localized version in de-DE sounds completely wrong, likely the words had to be translated individually here too.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Looking at:
https://breakout.usersys.redhat.com/headpin/organizations
https://translate.zanata.org/zanata/project/view/katello Version 1.0


How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. open SAM gui 
2. go to tab "organizations" for example
3. 
  
Actual results:
translation sounds wrong

Expected results:
translation okay


Additional info:

Comment 1 Hedda Peters 2012-03-20 23:45:07 UTC
Same report from our Russian translator:

"Example: Viewing (1 out of 1) results (1 Total Users).

It contains severals different strings like: "Viewing" , "(1 out of 1)",
"results", (Number), "Total", "Users".

Translated words put together in the same order do not make sense. Add required
use of grammartical cases and plural form, and it just doesn't look right.

Comment 2 Tom McKay 2012-04-30 20:03:25 UTC
To be clear, would the following string be better?

    Viewing (%s out of %s) results (%s Total %s)

Is there a way to get a note to the translators so that everyone understands what each %s is, or will it be obvious?

Comment 3 Tom McKay 2012-04-30 20:46:41 UTC
  Branch: refs/heads/master
  Home:   https://github.com/Katello/katello
  Commit: 5056da560fa8971ce02db55f27def108461e735e
      https://github.com/Katello/katello/commit/5056da560fa8971ce02db55f27def108461e735e
  Author: Tom McKay <thomasmckay>
  Date:   2012-04-30 (Mon, 30 Apr 2012)


Note to translators:

"Viewing <span id=\"current_items_count\">0</span> of <span id=\"total_results_count\">0</span><span> results (<span id=\"total_items_count\">0</span> Total %s)</span>"

is the string to translate. The <span id=....>0</span> must remain intact but may be repositioned. Hopefully the names of the spans will help everyone determine how best to order them in context of the specific language.

Comment 4 Hedda Peters 2012-04-30 22:23:05 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)

> To be clear, would the following string be better?
> 
>     Viewing (%s out of %s) results (%s Total %s)

This would be much better, yes.

 
> Is there a way to get a note to the translators so that everyone understands
> what each %s is, or will it be obvious?

Sometimes these variables are obivious, but sometimes they can be ambigous or on occasion just impossible to guess. So generally any additional information for the translators about what the variables stand for would be of great help.

There is still a problem though:
If I'm not mistaken, the last %s here can stand for several different terms e.g. Systems, Organisations, etc: Viewing (1 out of 5) results (5 Total Systems). Some languages might have to translate "Total" in different ways depending on the word that follows. 

I described the same problem in my OP, when using "+New" together with different words that follow. "+New" needs to be translated differently depending on the word that follows.

Comment 5 Noriko Mizumoto 2012-05-01 03:15:44 UTC
> > To be clear, would the following string be better?
> > 
> >     Viewing (%s out of %s) results (%s Total %s)
> 
> This would be much better, yes.
> 
I agree, it is much better than translating the words separately. 
This might be separate issue, but please note that using multiple variables in a sentence can make some Asian languages translation harder to preserve the order of the variables. "%s out of %s" is typical example. 

While, with the below, it can be repositioned (changed the order) when translating, so it seems better for me. It is certainly helpful if a name of 'span' is determined. It is still not sure the difference of 'total results count' and 'total items count'. 
"Viewing <span id=\"current_items_count\">0</span> of <span
id=\"total_results_count\">0</span><span> results (<span
id=\"total_items_count\">0</span> Total %s)</span>"

Comment 6 Tom McKay 2012-05-01 12:11:25 UTC
"Viewing <span id=\"current_items_count\">0</span> of <span
id=\"total_results_count\">0</span><span> results (<span
id=\"total_items_count\">0</span> Total %s)</span>"

DO NOT TRANSLATE <span id=\"*_count\">0</span> as this is HTML syntax. I will change the code to remove this items to avoid confusion.

Comment 7 Tom McKay 2012-05-02 13:23:24 UTC
  Branch: refs/heads/master
  Home:   https://github.com/Katello/katello
  Commit: 67820f45f96cde46661c053bbb9413280c577112
      https://github.com/Katello/katello/commit/67820f45f96cde46661c053bbb9413280c577112
  Author: Tom McKay <thomasmckay>
  Date:   2012-05-01 (Tue, 01 May 2012)

Two changes:

"+ New Something" instead of "+ New %s" to allow translation as a unit.

Removed HTML from total string to avoid any chance of confusion. It is now: "Viewing %s of %s results (%s Total %s)"

Comment 11 Og Maciel 2012-09-17 21:15:37 UTC
Verified using:

* candlepin-0.7.8-1.el6cf.noarch
* candlepin-selinux-0.7.8-1.el6cf.noarch
* candlepin-tomcat6-0.7.8-1.el6cf.noarch
* katello-1.1.12-7.el6cf.noarch
* katello-all-1.1.12-7.el6cf.noarch
* katello-candlepin-cert-key-pair-1.0-1.noarch
* katello-certs-tools-1.1.8-1.el6cf.noarch
* katello-cli-1.1.8-4.el6cf.noarch
* katello-cli-common-1.1.8-4.el6cf.noarch
* katello-common-1.1.12-7.el6cf.noarch
* katello-configure-1.1.9-3.el6cf.noarch
* katello-glue-candlepin-1.1.12-7.el6cf.noarch
* katello-glue-pulp-1.1.12-7.el6cf.noarch
* katello-qpid-broker-key-pair-1.0-1.noarch
* katello-qpid-client-key-pair-1.0-1.noarch
* katello-selinux-1.1.1-1.el6cf.noarch
* pulp-1.1.12-1.el6cf.noarch
* pulp-common-1.1.12-1.el6cf.noarch
* pulp-selinux-server-1.1.12-1.el6cf.noarch

Comment 13 errata-xmlrpc 2012-12-04 19:42:21 UTC
Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012-1543.html


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