Translation of 2.1 language files: let's start with English.

Started by Antechinus, February 26, 2022, 08:58:57 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Antechinus

I have been looking through some of the languages files for 2.1. I do not actually expect this to make it to GitHub, but honestly even the default English files in 2.1 are clumsier than they need to be.

Examples:
$txt['watch_board'] = 'Watch this Board';
$txt['unwatch_board'] = 'Stop watching Board';
$txt['watch_topic'] = 'Watch this Topic';
$txt['unwatch_topic'] = 'Stop watching Topic';
$txt['watching_topic'] = 'Topic you are watching';
$txt['watching_this_topic'] = 'You are watching this topic, and will receive notifications about it.';
The actual words are fine, but the misuse of capitlisation in the first four strings is ludicrous. Basic English grammar tells you this would be more sensible:

$txt['watch_board'] = 'Watch this board';
$txt['unwatch_board'] = 'Stop watching this board';
$txt['watch_topic'] = 'Watch this topic';
$txt['unwatch_topic'] = 'Stop watching this topic';
$txt['watching_topic'] = 'Topic you are watching';
$txt['watching_this_topic'] = 'You are watching this topic, and will receive notifications about it.';
This is really basic stuff. If they are sentences, even short ones, capitlise the first letter of the sentence, and the first letter of any proper nouns in the sentence. If there are no proper nouns in the sentence, do not capitalise words that should not be capitalised.

For anyone who is educated in English the correct way of doing things reads much more smoothly than what 2.1 proves by default.

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

I'm sure there's a lot that could be polished further, and since we are on GitHub anyone can suggest improvements :)
Slava
Ukraini!
"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

Irisado

Just to pick up on this, capitalisation and consistency was discussed during proofreading of language strings during the development of 2.1.  It is a known inconsistency, but ultimately it requires a lot of community input to eliminate all such inconsistencies.  Many were removed, but others will have slipped through the net.  Help to track them down and to eliminate them is greatly appreciated, however, I suspect that the Development Team would need this to be posted on GitHub ;).
Soñando con una playa donde brilla el sol, un arco iris ilumina el cielo, y el mar espejea iridescentemente

m4z

"Faith is what you have in things that don't exist."
--Homer Simpson

Es gibt hier im Forum ein deutsches Support-Board!

shawnb61

I do not think this is an issue.

It is fairly common to capitalize significant subjects in important headers & buttons & links, etc.   I see the same practice on numerous sites, including GitHub, XenForo forums, etc., etc.
Address the process rather than the outcome.  Then, the outcome becomes more likely.   - Fripp

Advertisement: