Re: use translation context for translations of in-document strings?

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

> On Nov 6, 2022, at 8:05, Patrice Dumas <pertusus@free.fr> wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Nov 05, 2022 at 07:43:17PM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote:
>> On Sat, Nov 05, 2022 at 05:25:07PM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> It will become possible to add translation context to in-document
>>> translated strings in developments to come.  I am not sure in which
>>> situations it will be better to use contexts to be clearer on the
>>> intended use of a translated string.  In particular there are, for HTML,
>>> many direction strings translations that can be used in different
>>> contexts and may have the same words to translate.  For example,
>>> 'Index' is translated in 3 different contexts:
>>> * to represent a button label,
>>> * as a short text for the direction,
>>> * or as the longer direction description
>> 
>> Are there translators who would translate "Index" in more than one
>> way in some language?
> 
> That's more or less my question...

Indeed. We can't know, so adding context is probably a good solution.

>>> Another context that could be added when there is some translation would
>>> be to give an idea on the command being associated with the translation,
>>> or the class of command.  For example there is '{number} {section_title}'
>>> to be translated, which is for a section number, I am not sure that
>>> '{number} {section_title}' is explicit, maybe adding a context, like
>>> 'sectioning command' would be better.
>> 
>> If translators need more advice then it is possible to put comments
>> next to translated strings.  This is done with the -c option of
>> xgettext; see e.g. Info node '(gettext)Bug Report Address' and
>> XGETTEXT_OPTIONS in po/Makefile.
>> 
>> I'm not sure if there is a problem with strings like '{number} 
>> {section_title}'
>> but if there was, do you think these comments would be good enough?
> 
> For this case, it could be the best solution, as what is missing is only
> information, but for the case above, context could be better as in
> addition to missing information, it may be relevant to separate the
> different contexts, to be able to give a different translation for the
> different contexts.

po4a does a pretty good job at showing the "context". I seem to remember that 
it gives the texi "code" as context. As far as I can tell from my conversion of 
the Emacs manuals, that's generally sufficient.

But if Texinfo as a format could add comments *for* the translators and such 
comments could be picked by converters, that would be great.

-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @brandelune
https://traductaire-libre.org
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/