The 'make distcheck' command runs a build in dist directory subdirs and then runs intltool -m which in turn complains about translations in a built file:

---------- Begin Example ----------
$ make distcheck
<snip>
make[2]: Entering directory '/home/gedakc/workspace/gparted/gparted-0.28.0-git/_build/sub/po'
INTLTOOL_EXTRACT="/usr/bin/intltool-extract" XGETTEXT="/usr/bin/xgettext" srcdir=../../../po /usr/bin/intltool-update --gettext-package gparted --pot
rm -f missing notexist
srcdir=../../../po /usr/bin/intltool-update -m
The following files contain translations and are currently not in use. Please
consider adding these to the POTFILES.in file, located in the po/ directory.

sub/gparted.desktop.in

If some of these files are left out on purpose then please add them to
POTFILES.skip instead of POTFILES.in. A file 'missing' containing this list
of left out files has been written in the current directory.
Please report to https://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=gparted
if [ -r missing -o -r notexist ]; then \
  exit 1; \
fi
Makefile:207: recipe for target 'check' failed
make[2]: *** [check] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/gedakc/workspace/gparted/gparted-0.28.0-git/_build/sub/po'
Makefile:591: recipe for target 'check-recursive' failed
make[1]: *** [check-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/gedakc/workspace/gparted/gparted-0.28.0-git/_build/sub'
Makefile:800: recipe for target 'distcheck' failed
make: *** [distcheck] Error 1
---------- End Example ----------

I encountered this issue on kubuntu 16.04.  After much Internet searching, I finally came across the following upstream bug report:

  intltool confused by separate build-dir
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/intltool/+bug/1117944

The work around many other projects are using is to add an additional line to POTFILES.skip for each skip file prefixed with "sub/"

Patch to follow.

Curtis