| |
| |
|
 |
This enclycopedia is a work in progress. Please do not hesitate to email me if you disagree with this article or found an any error in this page. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
gender
[Article still incomplete]
Let's take a simple example to show how gender may affect the way a program is written.
Say that you have a little program that helps you search a name, an address or a city in a database. The program uses the following strings for its output messages.
item1 = "name"
item2 = "address"
item3 = "city"
msg1 = "% found"
msg2 = "% not found"
This work perfectly in English, and you'll may see the following messages on the screen:
name found
city found
The problem is that in French the translation will be:
nom trouvé
ville trouvée
Since the translation of "found" will indeed change based on the gender of the subject, it is impossible to use the same dynamic string construction scheme and each message may have to be written out separatelly (which may seem much less efficient).
msg1 = "name found";
msg2 = "name not found";
msg3 = "address found";
...
For those trying to find programatic shortcuts remenber that of course the gender of each word may change between language (e.g. "moon" translates into a feminin word in French and a masculin word in German...). Languages may have 2, 3 (e.g. German) or 4 (e.g. Czech) genders.
As a conclusion dynamically build sentences should be considered with extrem caution has they may cause difficulty during translation.
|
Related directory category:
Global Knowledge > Languages
Article submitted by: Thierry Sourbier (i18nGurus editor & i18n consultant)
Last modified: 2008-05-03
Rate this article:
|
directory 
encyclopedia Beta