Thread:Support/About MediaWiki:Articlefeedbackv5-form1-header-found/en/reply (8)

Although it is common in formal English to use the term "they" (and related "their", "theirs"), it is often perceived as ambiguous for translators as this formal plural does not follow the standard person rule, where in fact it designates a single person. All those English translations using these terms should be documented about what is really intended (he/she or several persons). Same remark about the usage of "you" (which is often implicit in the imperative form which is not clearly indicating if this is in fact an infinitive).

When in doubt (such as single action verbs displayed on a button or link), the translation is generally meant as infinitive, but some contexts may put it as part of another resource transcluding/substituting it (in a $1 field) where the effective tense may be different to create grammatically correct sentences in other languages.

English is also very often ambiguous when there are long constructions using words that may be nouns or verbs, notably about their mutual relations (this is often a problem in senteces that have been abbreviated. Here again a specification of context, and/or a link to a sample page using that resource will help disambuguate things, that the initial English native speakers may think they are evident. Remember that translators often don't have the context or even access to a complete page, just to the resource alone.

In some cases, it may be helpful to provide a disambiguation with an imperfect !!FUZZY!! translation into another wellknown language that renders the needed disambiguation (such as French, or Spanish, that have useful disambiguation words like prepositions and more frequent uses of articles and determiners, and make a clear distinction between nouns and verbs).

If a translation needs to be very short, for layout reasons (such as table headers, or field names in a complex form, this should be also indicated and preferably with a test page where we can use the "?uselang=xx" query.

Thanks for translators.

Note to translators: you may display another languages in addition to English for the source message. Some languages are well maintained (French, German, Spanish), and a Google translators may help provide you imperfect translations that will help you understand things. If you discover things that should be noted because it disambiguates things in your language, please edit the "/qqq" page to add the clarifications (in English if possible) without waiting for a response from MediaWiki and extension developers, because it will also often help translators of the same message in many other languages.