Talk:Translatability

May be duplicate

This appears to be a duplicate of Writing clearly, though the term "translatability" is a useful one to use. --Nemo 11:55, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Ah, yes, maybe. Thank you. I looked around and couldn't find anything that did what I wanted to do. I'll take a look and see if I can merge anything not already there into that page. (: /Johan (WMF) (talk) 14:52, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

"More translation units"

I had a discussion about translation unit length with some editors, and one of them pointed me here.

The current text of this page says:

Don't put too much text within one translation unit. Create more translation units instead.

There is probably wide consensus about the first part of this, but the second part about Creating more translation units instead is ambiguous. Many people would probably agree that it's a good idea to create more translation units, but how exactly should it be done?

A few translation administrators split paragraphs into many translation units by putting every sentence in a <translate> tag. This is excessive: Although this may be convenient for some translators, it makes editing the source text difficult. It also forces a sentence structure that is too strict: some languages, such as Thai and Burmese, use spaces and division into sentences quite differently from English, and it's better to think in terms of paragraphs than sentences and let translators structure the paragraph.

A more balanced solution would be to ensure that paragraphs are short to begin with. Usually, manuals of style for writing documents like the ones we need on meta and mediawiki.org suggest having no more than five sentences per paragraph. This would be good for all readers in all languages, and not too long for translators.

Here's my suggestion for replacing "Create more translation units instead":

Paragraphs should be no longer than five sentences. In lists, put each item within a translation tag and leave the * or # markup outside the tags.

Other thoughts?

Tagging people who may be interested: @Johan (WMF), @Quiddity (WMF), @Nemo bis, @Nikerabbit, @Shirayuki Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 14:30, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Not sure I agree with telling people that paragraphs shouldn't be longer than five sentences (people might take it a bit too literally), but I like a) the reminder to keep paragraphs shorter and legible and b) pointing out that new paragraphs is a good way to create translation units without messing up the source text. Johan (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Johan (and the proposed change). I also appreciate the examples of specific languages that may need to alter paragraph structure during translation; I'd heard of that before, but always hesitated to mention it because I wasn't sure of specifics. Thanks! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 17:43, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

What statistical basis do you have for the recommendation that paragraphs should be no longer than five sentences? Shirayuki (talk) 23:42, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't have statistics, but it is a recommendation in many style guides. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 01:16, 26 July 2024 (UTC)