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Neil BrownAh, the joy of text localisation.
In this context, Microsoft, it is a zip file, not a postcode file, even though I'm in the UK :)
Ian K Tindale@neil did you have to agree to biscuits?
Alexander ShendiAre you *sure*, it's not a list of postcodes?
Allen but one of the good ones@neil excuse me sir, your postcode is down
James Seward@neil my favourite example of this was subtitles reading, “would you like a glarse of water?”
Uli Kusterer (Not a kitteh)
isa 
@neil Are the support pages written in Hindi and then translated with Bing translate?
Oriel Jutty 
@neil Hah. Speaking of #Microsoft #L10n, there is also https://what.thedailywtf.com/post/1746468 (where the "update definitions" button was translated as a compound noun (i.e. "definitions of 'update'"), not a command ("update the definitions").
Or the Excel documentation where the list of #excel built-in functions was first sorted alphabetically, then translated, so entries like
Or the Excel documentation where the list of #excel built-in functions was first sorted alphabetically, then translated, so entries like
UND and ZÄHLENWENN appear very high up in the list (corresponding to their position in English, AND and COUNTIF).
GunChleoc@barubary @neil Actually, one of the main tasks of a #Microsoft translator is to guess whether something's a noun or a verb. They have gotten better at providing comments in some projects, but your mileage may vary.
Martin Hierholzer
CF Bolz-Tereick@neil I had a fun one recently too, cross language though. Saw an Amazon Store kind of page with a subsection confusingly named "Laundry". Turned out to be underwear, and what must have happened is German "Wäsche" being translated to laundry, which is one of the meanings. But in a fashion store kind of context it means undergarments. Language is just too hard 😅
BobOHara@neil I am rather too interested about your trousers than I have any right to be
Nemo_bis 🌈@neil This is depressing. #L10n and #i18n used to be the one thing #Microsoft did better than average.
Walter van Holst@whvholst True. I think I gave Microsoft a grand total of 5 € in my life, and it was for a mouse which proved to be excellent.
Dec [{(
)}]@nemobis @neil That must have been a very long time ago - we're still waiting for them to figure out plural forms. This article from 2014 is still relevant: https://akerbeltzalba.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/while-420km-below-the-iss-a-dani-is-sharpening-his-stone-axe/
That being said, they're the only proprietary software providers that support my language.
@gunchleoc Fun article; you presumably mean this sentence: «no Microsoft product I'm aware of can handle non-English type plurals properly in ANY other language».
Now, I suspect this might be a slight exaggeration. Microsoft participates in #CLDR and I bet they have at least *some* product with plural support. It's even mentioned in their docs for some languages:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/localization/ministyleguides/mini-style-guide-russian#10-be-careful-with-number-placeholders
But unfortunately plural support is abysmal in most projects. Even in #Wikimedia. :[
https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Plural#Table_of_plural_formats_used_by_projects
@nemobis They do participate in the CLDR, but they don't have any support for it in VisualStudio or their lspkg format, so developers can't use any of it.
What we have gotten over the years is individual developers coming up with hacky solutions to solve the problem for their project. I have stopped counting the number or in-line plural form syntaxes they have come up with. More often than not, plural forms still aren't offered to us.
@gunchleoc Who uses #lspkg? I never heard of it before.
VisualStudio should support any existing standard but I don't expect or want Microsoft to come up with a standard for FLOSS projects.
For example, the #RubyOnRails community has settled on a rather good standard. (Mentioned in the [[Plural]] page above.)
https://guides.rubyonrails.org/i18n.html#pluralization
While e.g. #Mozilla has a long-standing tradition to come at #FOSDEM every other year with yet another proposal for a new #L10n "standard". :D
Rails Internationalization (I18n) API — Ruby on Rails Guides
Rails Internationalization (I18n) APIThe Ruby I18n (shorthand for internationalization) gem which is shipped with Ruby on Rails (starting from Rails 2.2) provides an easy-to-use and extensible framework for translating your application to a single custom language other than English or for providing multi-language support in your application.The process of "internationalization" usually means to abstract all strings and other locale specific bits (such as date or currency formats) out of your application. The process of "localization" means to provide translations and localized formats for these bits.1So, in the process of internationalizing your Rails application you have to: Ensure you have support for i18n. Tell Rails where to find locale dictionaries. Tell Rails how to set, preserve, and switch locales. In the process of localizing your application you'll probably want to do the following three things: Replace or supplement Rails' default locale - e.g. date and time formats, month names, Active Record model names, etc. Abstract strings in your application into keyed dictionaries - e.g. flash messages, static text in your views, etc. Store the resulting dictionaries somewhere. This guide will walk you through the I18n API and contains a tutorial on how to internationalize a Rails application from the start.After reading this guide, you will know: How I18n works in Ruby on Rails How to correctly use I18n into a RESTful application in various ways How to use I18n to translate Active Record errors or Action Mailer E-mail subjects Some other tools to go further with the translation process of your application
hypebeast respawned 
@neil does it also say the website uses biscuits instead of cookies?
NK30 
@neil So che German version would be "Postleitzahl-Datei"?
Or would that make them suspicious?
Or would that make them suspicious?
Sören@NK30 @neil they aren’t suspicious about Fenster 11 Enterprise (Auswertung), so who knows https://developer.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/
Derek 🌈@neil we all know what happens when we assume things. 😂
Luna Macrosystems✡️🤖🏳️⚧️@neil I always wondered what "English (UK)" would change in the UI...
Joe ❌👑@neil That is a weird error. While an American might abbreviate "ZIP code" to "zip" in informal speech, documentation and instructions would rarely do this, and we deal with zip files a lot, so it seems like a very ill advised "localization".
HedgiePT@neil They've been using a lot of machine translation lately... and it shows 😞
@neil could be tricky if you need to do up your postcode.
Anton Piatek@neil first rule of i18n is you always translate the whole sentence. Never individual parts or words... Fail in 1
Ángel Domínguez 🎹 
@neil Hmm, smells of machine translation.
Zombie Byron Kilbourn@neil Not quite the same, I remember seeing some thesaurus-happy spambot swapping out "me" with "pine tree state". (Reason to follow in case anybody would rather figure it out on their own).
@neil "ME" is the USPS abbreviation for Maine. "The Pine Tree State" is one of Maine's nicknames.
sky "carbonated" piss@neil average windows auto translation
Gavin