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<title>GNU gettext utilities: 12. The Translator's View</title>
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<a name="Translators"></a>
<a name="SEC232"></a>
<h1 class="chapter"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC226">12. The Translator's View</a> </h1>
<a name="Organization"></a>
<a name="SEC233"></a>
<h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC227">12.1 Organization</a> </h2>
<p>For some software packages, each translator works on her own
and communicates directly with the developers of the package.
For some other software packages, on the other hand,
translators are organized
into <em>translation projects</em> and <em>translation teams</em>.
</p>
<p>A <em>translation project</em> applies to a group of software packages
and shares procedures and methodologies regarding the translation.
</p>
<p>There are currently three major translation projects:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
The &ldquo;Translation Project&rdquo;, which is used
by all kinds of Free Software packages, but in particular by GNU packages.
It has its home at <a href="https://translationproject.org/">https://translationproject.org/</a>.
</li><li>
The &ldquo;KDE Localization Project&rdquo;, which is used by KDE packages.
It is at <a href="https://l10n.kde.org/">https://l10n.kde.org/</a>.
</li><li>
The &ldquo;GNOME Localization Project&rdquo;, which is used by GNOME packages.
It is at <a href="https://l10n.gnome.org/">https://l10n.gnome.org/</a>.
</li></ul>
<p>A <em>translation team</em> is a group of translators for a single language,
in the scope of a translation project.
</p>
<a name="Responsibilities"></a>
<a name="SEC234"></a>
<h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC228">12.2 Responsibilities in the Translation Project</a> </h2>
<p>The following rules and habits apply to the Translation Project.
</p>
<p>The translator's responsibilities are:
</p><ul>
<li>
She submits a translations disclaimer to the Free Software Foundation
(once only, and
only when she wants to translate a package that requires a disclaimer).
<p>A disclaimer is a legal document
that allows the software package to distribute her translation work.
It is not as strong as a copyright assignment.
Merely, it says that the signer
will never make use of the copyright on her translations:
will never forbid copying them,
and will never ask for some kind of compensation.
This guarantees that the FSF (and everyone else)
will always be allowed to freely distribute these translations.
The FSF wishes to have this guarantee in a legally binding manner,
to be on the safe side.
</p>
<p>There are two ways to submit the disclaimer:
Either online through
<a href="https://crm.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?gid=91&amp;reset=1">this form</a>
on the FSF's web site,
or by printing, signing, and submitting
the file &lsquo;<tt>disclaim-translations.txt</tt>&rsquo; found in the GNU gettext distribution.
</p>
</li><li>
Agree with the other translators of the same team
who is &ldquo;in charge&rdquo; for the translations of a particular package.
</li></ul>
<p>The Translation Project has a coordinator.
He can be reached at &lsquo;<samp>coordinator@translationproject.org</samp>&rsquo;.
His responsibilities are:
</p><ul>
<li>
He maintains the web site <a href="https://translationproject.org/">https://translationproject.org/</a>.
</li><li>
When he receives a release or prerelease announcement
from one of the software package maintainers,
he extracts the POT file(s)
and sends notifications to all translation teams about it.
</li></ul>
<p>The responsibilities of the package maintainers are:
</p><ul>
<li>
To incorporate the translations in the software package before a release.
</li><li>
To forward bug reports about the translations
to the respective translation team.
A developer or maintainer should never apply a translation fix himself,
because that would cause conflicts with the translation team.
</li></ul>
<a name="Dialects"></a>
<a name="SEC235"></a>
<h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC229">12.3 Language dialects</a> </h2>
<p>For many languages, a translation into the main dialect is intelligible
by all speakers of the language.
Speakers of another dialect can have a separate translation if they wish so.
In fact, since the fallback mechanism implemented in GNU libc and GNU libintl
applies on a per-message basis,
the message catalog for the dialect needs only to contain
the translations that differ from those in the main language.
</p>
<p>For example,
French speakers in Canada (that is, users in the locale <code>fr_CA</code>)
can use and do accept translations
produced by French speakers in France (typical file name: <code>fr.po</code>).
Nevertheless, the translation system with PO files
enables them to produce special message catalogs (file name: <code>fr_CA.po</code>)
that will take priority over <code>fr.po</code> for users in that locale.
Similarly for users in Austria,
where message catalogs <code>de_AT.po</code> take priority
over the catalogs named <code>de.po</code> that reflect German as spoken in Germany.
</p>
<p>The situation is different for Chinese, though:
Since users in the People's Republic of China and in Singapore
want translations with Simplified Chinese characters,
whereas Chinese users in other territories
(such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao)
want translations with Traditional Chinese characters,
no translator should ever submit a file named <code>zh.po</code>.
Instead, there will typically be two separate translation teams:
a team that produces translations with Simplified Chinese characters
(file name <code>zh_CN.po</code>)
and a team that produces translations with Traditional Chinese characters
(file name <code>zh_TW.po</code>).
</p>
<a name="Translating-plural-forms"></a>
<a name="SEC236"></a>
<h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC230">12.4 Translating plural forms</a> </h2>
<p>Suppose you are translating a PO file, and it contains an entry like this:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">#, c-format
msgid &quot;One file removed&quot;
msgid_plural &quot;%d files removed&quot;
msgstr[0] &quot;&quot;
msgstr[1] &quot;&quot;
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>What does this mean? How do you fill it in?
</p>
<p>Such an entry denotes a message with plural forms, that is, a message where
the text depends on a cardinal number. The general form of the message,
in English, is the <code>msgid_plural</code> line. The <code>msgid</code> line is the
English singular form, that is, the form for when the number is equal to 1.
More details about plural forms are explained in <a href="gettext_11.html#SEC222">Additional functions for plural forms</a>.
</p>
<p>The first thing you need to look at is the <code>Plural-Forms</code> line in the
header entry of the PO file. It contains the number of plural forms and a
formula. If the PO file does not yet have such a line, you have to add it.
It only depends on the language into which you are translating. You can
get this info by using the <code>msginit</code> command (see <a href="gettext_6.html#SEC53">Creating a New PO File</a>) &ndash;
it contains a database of known plural formulas &ndash; or by asking other
members of your translation team.
</p>
<p>Suppose the line looks as follows:
</p>
<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;
&quot;%10&lt;=4 &amp;&amp; (n%100&lt;10 || n%100&gt;=20) ? 1 : 2;\n&quot;
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>It's logically one line; recall that the PO file formatting is allowed to
break long lines so that each physical line fits in 80 monospaced columns.
</p>
<p>The value of <code>nplurals</code> here tells you that there are three plural
forms. The first thing you need to do is to ensure that the entry contains
an <code>msgstr</code> line for each of the forms:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">#, c-format
msgid &quot;One file removed&quot;
msgid_plural &quot;%d files removed&quot;
msgstr[0] &quot;&quot;
msgstr[1] &quot;&quot;
msgstr[2] &quot;&quot;
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>Then translate the <code>msgid_plural</code> line and fill it in into each
<code>msgstr</code> line:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">#, c-format
msgid &quot;One file removed&quot;
msgid_plural &quot;%d files removed&quot;
msgstr[0] &quot;%d slika uklonjenih&quot;
msgstr[1] &quot;%d slika uklonjenih&quot;
msgstr[2] &quot;%d slika uklonjenih&quot;
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>Now you can refine the translation so that it matches the plural form.
According to the formula above, <code>msgstr[0]</code> is used when the number
ends in 1 but does not end in 11; <code>msgstr[1]</code> is used when the number
ends in 2, 3, 4, but not in 12, 13, 14; and <code>msgstr[2]</code> is used in
all other cases. With this knowledge, you can refine the translations:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">#, c-format
msgid &quot;One file removed&quot;
msgid_plural &quot;%d files removed&quot;
msgstr[0] &quot;%d slika je uklonjena&quot;
msgstr[1] &quot;%d datoteke uklonjenih&quot;
msgstr[2] &quot;%d slika uklonjenih&quot;
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>You noticed that in the English singular form (<code>msgid</code>) the number
placeholder could be omitted and replaced by the numeral word &ldquo;one&rdquo;.
Can you do this in your translation as well?
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">msgstr[0] &quot;jednom datotekom je uklonjen&quot;
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>Well, it depends on whether <code>msgstr[0]</code> applies only to the number 1,
or to other numbers as well. If, according to the plural formula,
<code>msgstr[0]</code> applies only to <code>n == 1</code>, then you can use the
specialized translation without the number placeholder. In our case,
however, <code>msgstr[0]</code> also applies to the numbers 21, 31, 41, etc.,
and therefore you cannot omit the placeholder.
</p>
<a name="Prioritizing-messages"></a>
<a name="SEC237"></a>
<h2 class="section"> <a href="gettext_toc.html#TOC231">12.5 Prioritizing messages: How to determine which messages to translate first</a> </h2>
<p>A translator sometimes has only a limited amount of time per week to
spend on a package, and some packages have quite large message catalogs
(over 1000 messages). Therefore she wishes to translate the messages
first that are the most visible to the user, or that occur most frequently.
This section describes how to determine these &quot;most urgent&quot; messages.
It also applies to determine the &quot;next most urgent&quot; messages after the
message catalog has already been partially translated.
</p>
<p>In a first step, she uses the programs like a user would do. While she
does this, the GNU <code>gettext</code> library logs into a file the not yet
translated messages for which a translation was requested from the program.
</p>
<p>In a second step, she uses the PO mode to translate precisely this set
of messages.
</p>
<a name="IDX1130"></a>
<p>Here are more details. The GNU <code>libintl</code> library (but not the
corresponding functions in GNU <code>libc</code>) supports an environment variable
<code>GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED</code>. The GNU <code>libintl</code> library will
log into this file the messages for which <code>gettext()</code> and related
functions couldn't find the translation. If the file doesn't exist, it
will be created as needed. On systems with GNU <code>libc</code> a shared library
&lsquo;<samp>preloadable_libintl.so</samp>&rsquo; is provided that can be used with the ELF
&lsquo;<samp>LD_PRELOAD</samp>&rsquo; mechanism.
</p>
<p>So, in the first step, the translator uses these commands on systems with
GNU <code>libc</code>:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/local/lib/preloadable_libintl.so
$ export LD_PRELOAD
$ GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED=$HOME/gettextlogused
$ export GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>and these commands on other systems:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED=$HOME/gettextlogused
$ export GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>Then she uses and peruses the programs. (It is a good and recommended
practice to use the programs for which you provide translations: it
gives you the needed context.) When done, she removes the environment
variables:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ unset LD_PRELOAD
$ unset GETTEXT_LOG_UNTRANSLATED
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>The second step starts with removing duplicates:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ msguniq $HOME/gettextlogused &gt; missing.po
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>The result is a PO file, but needs some preprocessing before a PO file editor
can be used with it. First, it is a multi-domain PO file, containing
messages from many translation domains. Second, it lacks all translator
comments and source references. Here is how to get a list of the affected
translation domains:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ sed -n -e 's,^domain &quot;\(.*\)&quot;$,\1,p' &lt; missing.po | sort | uniq
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>Then the translator can handle the domains one by one. For simplicity,
let's use environment variables to denote the language, domain and source
package.
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ lang=nl # your language
$ domain=coreutils # the name of the domain to be handled
$ package=/usr/src/gnu/coreutils-4.5.4 # the package where it comes from
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>She takes the latest copy of &lsquo;<tt>$lang.po</tt>&rsquo; from the Translation Project,
or from the package (in most cases, &lsquo;<tt>$package/po/$lang.po</tt>&rsquo;), or
creates a fresh one if she's the first translator (see <a href="gettext_6.html#SEC53">Creating a New PO File</a>).
She then uses the following commands to mark the not urgent messages as
&quot;obsolete&quot;. (This doesn't mean that these messages - translated and
untranslated ones - will go away. It simply means that the PO file editor
will ignore them in the following editing session.)
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ msggrep --domain=$domain missing.po | grep -v '^domain' \
 &gt; $domain-missing.po
$ msgattrib --set-obsolete --ignore-file $domain-missing.po $domain.$lang.po \
 &gt; $domain.$lang-urgent.po
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>Then she translates &lsquo;<tt>$domain.$lang-urgent.po</tt>&rsquo; by use of a PO file editor
(see section <a href="gettext_8.html#SEC71">Editing PO Files</a>).
(FIXME: I don't know whether <code>Lokalize</code> and <code>gtranslator</code> also
preserve obsolete messages, as they should.)
Finally she restores the not urgent messages (with their earlier
translations, for those which were already translated) through this command:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">$ msgmerge --no-fuzzy-matching $domain.$lang-urgent.po $package/po/$domain.pot \
 &gt; $domain.$lang.po
</pre></td></tr></table>
<p>Then she can submit &lsquo;<tt>$domain.$lang.po</tt>&rsquo; and proceed to the next domain.
</p>
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