GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 552419
Use plural forms
Last modified: 2009-01-02 12:43:17 UTC
#: ../gnome-session/gsm-inhibit-dialog.c:627 A program is still running: and #: ../gnome-session/gsm-inhibit-dialog.c:631 Some programs are still running: look like they need the use of ngettext
#: ../gnome-session/gsm-inhibit-dialog.c:628 Waiting for program to finish. Interrupting program may cause you to lose work. #: ../gnome-session/gsm-inhibit-dialog.c:632 Waiting for programs to finish. Interrupting these programs may cause you to lose work. same here
To educate developers I normally always add a reference to the wiki: http://live.gnome.org/TranslationProject/DevGuidelines/Plurals
While I agree with you in principle that ngettext is better in general, I don't see anything wrong with the current gnome-session code, plural-handling-wise. http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gnome-session/trunk/gnome-session/gsm-inhibit-dialog.c?revision=5119&view=markup#l623 Is there a translation problem that is caused by this way of handling plurals ?
The problem is the "this way of handling plurals". This particular case works for english and languages with 2 plural forms, but not necessarily for others, which have more. Ngettext was invented with reason, please use it. However, I think a real example against this practice would be benefical to have in the wiki. I'll ask on gnome-i18n@, stay tuned :).
Well, It seems that this practice is rather ok. In bug #552053, Russian translators are complaining for dropping the ngettext in case of uncounted plurals. On the list, I got only one reply[1], which says it's ok to not to use plurals for Slovak. While these are certainly not all of the affected languages, I'd consider it enough for now to close this. http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-i18n/2008-November/msg00088.html