[Translators-l] new messages for the Content Translation extension

[Philippe Verdy]

In most wikis, verbs used in UI buttons or links are using the infinitive
form rather than the imperative.

It is more formal/polite as the imperative sounds like you're giving a
strong order, when in fact you're just describing the action that will be
done **if** the user follows the link or click the button.

An imperative is still sometimes used when this is a directive / policy, or
a strong recommendation, or in usage guides describing a list of action to
perform in a precise order to perform a task correctly and completely, or
when there's an incitation generally with an exclamation mark (such as
"Donate now!"), or a "Please...".

For example, the "Edit" or "Talk" or "Publish" or "Cancel" buttons are
normally just an infinitive, not an imperative: we are not instructing the
user to do it immediately, we just offer her some options to do something
(or something else).

Notes:
* Some languages still prefer using the imperative form in a less formal
form. Sometimes they also do not hesitate to talk directly to the user,
such as German using "Du" rather than the formal "Sie" for translating the
English "you". Still, German also has a more "formal" translation using
infinitive and "Sie", with a language variant coded as "de-formal".
* Some other languages prefer the formal form by default, but also have an
informal form, such as Dutch, with a language variant coded
as "nl-informal".
* With these variants, users can choose the correct form they prefer and
that sound look more correct for them.


2016-12-05 16:02 GMT+01:00 Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni at mail.huji.ac.il>:

> Hmm, it depends on your language's user interface translation conventions.
> Both can be OK. The feature in question is already deployed to Wikipedia in
> all languages, so you can simply try translating an article with an infobox
> that is available in the Esperanto Wikipedia, and see what works better.
>
> Hope it helps, and thanks for your translations!
>
> בתאריך 5 בדצמ׳ 2016 03:57 PM,‏ "mathieu stumpf guntz" <
> psychoslave at culture-libre.org> כתב:
>
> Are this sentences using imperative or infinitive form for the leading
>> verbs? I went with the infinitive form in the Esperanto translation…
>>
>> Le 25/11/2016 à 15:18, Amir E. Aharoni a écrit :
>>
>> Hi translators!
>>
>> A first release of a major new feature of the Content Translation
>> extension will be deployed to Wikipedia next week: A template editor.
>>
>> It will give the article translators much more control over how the
>> template adaptation works.
>>
>> There are only a few messages to translate for this. Here's a direct link
>> for translating it in translatewiki.net :
>> https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:Translate?filter=!
>> translated&action=translate&group=ext-contenttranslation
>>
>> Thank you!
>>
>> --
>> Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
>> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
>> ‪“We're living in pieces,
>> I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
>>
>>
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