On 14/04/2006, at 4:55 PM, Christian Perrier wrote:
Quoting Davide Viti (zinosat@tiscali.it):Another check I'm playing with is the following: make sure all the strings containing the comment: "#. Translators, this is a menu choice.MUST BE UNDER xx COLUMNS" are really under xx columns. The following need to be fixed:Actually, this check is meaningless for languages that will only be displayed in the graphical installer. The 65 columns limit is only mandated by the newt interface. This means that only the mk, ru and wo translations needs some shortening...not the bn one.
Since the Level 1 file is best practice in context :) I suggest including this information in at least one of the comments. I did have trouble in some cases, with keeping my translation below 65 columns, so my translations are compressed, not as clear as they would be if I had more space.
Vietnamese has a persistent space problem in translations, because our language is monosyllabic. A five-syllable English word takes up much less space than five single-syllable words, with spaces in between.
For example (3 syllables): msgid "terminal" msgstr "thiết bị cuối"I try to use the shortest words possible, and have found some good compromises, but the more complex the original string, the less likely it is that a Vietnamese translation will occupy a similar number of columns.
from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm Việt hóa phần mềm tự do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN