Common game translations

[ivan]

Ok, I'll try to list the "problematic" IDs:
All the following ones have a singular or plural problem depending on the value of the variable $1, if it's above 1, it should be plural. I think it can be a problem in English and most probably in other languages too for some of them.

• loadingfn, Fichier $1/$2
• loadingf, Fichier $1 sur $2
• levelsc, Terminé : $1/$2
• levelsce, Niveaux terminés : $1/$2
• levelsbe, Bonus gagnés : $1/$2
• levell, Parties : $1

Thanks for pointing this out.
The simplest approach I can think of would be to have 2 versions of the string, one for singular and one for plural:

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loadingf= File $1 of $2 <-- where $1 is the number 1
loadingfs= File $1 of $2 <-- where $1 is any number other than 1 (could be zero)

Do you think this would work?

Here are the ones that would require an article that could require an elision or another form to make the text natural to read, and of course in French the articles have gender and number agreement.

• controlsdevice, Contrôles pour $1 : I used the preposition "pour" when I should have use "du", that would become "de la" in feminine form : Contrôles du clavier, Contrôles de la souris.
• keyboardmd, Attribution des touches pour $1, same as above.
• keyboardpd, Appuyez une touche sur $1, same as above.
• keyboardrdRelâchez toutes les touches sur $1, same as above.
• joystickmd, Attribution des bouttons pour $1, same as above.
• joystickpd, Appuyez sur un bouton sur $1, same as above.
• joystickrd, Relâchez tous les boutons sur $1, same as above.

I'm not sure how and if you want to implement it, a common way to do it is to add extra data (GENDER, ARTICLE, ELISION) to the variable and use a special tag before to change the word that would conflict with the variable.

Looking at those strings, I think they probably should be removed.
Not only because of the elision issue but because $1 is a device name in English. Generally speaking file names and device names should probably be excluded from the doc, as it would not work too well with non-Latin languages ex: "Натиснете клавиш на Keyboard".

Just finished the Brazilian Portuguese translation, and man... that LITERALLY took me hours to finish. The Brazilian Portuguese translation only had the countries' names, most of dates' names and just a little bit of other things (in most pages it only had ~3 translations). So I basically made 85% of all translations, at once, and took forever

Wow thanks so much!

But it is a really cool project, I hope to see it finished eventually. I may use it eventually for my next game. I hope someone also eventually get to make translations easier for game developers, like a library or something. I did something pretty easy for a mod of Mari0, in which I included translations.

I'm afraid this will be one of those projects that keeps growing without ever being entirely completed.
One of the next steps could be to add sheets for different genres of games, like RPG, platformer, adventure, etc.

So, if anyone gets to make an easily readable translation file eventually, I could make a library to translate AND download language translations/translation updates.

INI files is one way to go or perhaps even PO files.
I've set up a couple of domains (fget.net) where the project could be hosted but still haven't found a suitable platform.

[Robin]

As this goes on, I get more and more convinced this should be using gettext instead of those ad-hoc solutions.

[BozoDel]

kikito has made an internationalization library that seems to deal with numbers well. But it doesn't handle gender, or elisions. Maybe it could be expanded upon. I also heard about a great JavaScript framework called L20n, that I haven't really checked out, but if it's all that good, then it might inspire something in Lua.

As this goes on, I get more and more convinced this should be using gettext instead of those ad-hoc solutions.

Hm, one more thing I need to study.

[Cucurbitacée]

Sure, extra IDs for plural/singular clarification would work.

[caldur]

Er... would LOVE to contribute, but the problem is I am based in Mainland China and google docs unfortunately is not reachable from behind the GFW....

[ivan]

Er... would LOVE to contribute, but the problem is I am based in Mainland China and google docs unfortunately is not reachable from behind the GFW....

Caldur, in case you don't have access to Google docs, here is an ini file for Chinese.
Note that the "date" and "territory" sections are already translated.
Any help with would be of great value!

[ivan]

Sure, extra IDs for plural/singular clarification would work.

Alright I've added a couple of new entries, just to make sure:

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Page $1 à $2 (where $1 is the number 1)
Page $1 sur $2 (where $1 is a number other than 1)

Fichier $1 à $2
Fichier $1 sur $2

[caldur]

Caldur, in case you don't have access to Google docs, here is an ini file for Chinese.
Note that the "date" and "territory" sections are already translated.
Any help with would be of great value!

Cool. I'm like half-way through the translation, so if time permits (and I'm on a training anyway so I'm pretty sure it does) I can get it done in a couple days.

One thing I noted, though, that quite a few of the terms are genre or content dependent, so what about separating different components into files, e.g. zh-ui, zh-chess, etc.

[ivan]

Cool. I'm like half-way through the translation, so if time permits (and I'm on a training anyway so I'm pretty sure it does) I can get it done in a couple days.

Hey, thanks so much!

One thing I noted, though, that quite a few of the terms are genre or content dependent, so what about separating different components into files, e.g. zh-ui, zh-chess, etc.

Maybe in the future as the project grows we can do that. Also, it would be nice to have sections for different game genres: RPG, action, puzzle, etc

[caldur]

All right, pretty much done with the translation. Pls note that:
1. There are items whose exact function I am not entirely sure of; I have inserted some comments to signify those
2. I used full-width characters for punctuations consistently. I am not sure how it will look when actually displayed in game, especially in combination with ASCII chars.