I18next: How to add 0 plural option for English

[brightpixels]

Hello,
This works as expected for the English language:

{ "photos": "one photo", "photos_plural": "{{count}} photos" }

But I would like to also add a phrase when count is 0 like this

{ "photos_0": "No photos", "photos": "one photo", "photos_plural": "{{count}} photos" }

Above doesn't work because I read somewhere else you said it depends on the language rules. So for Russian above will work but this isn't possible for English. Is there a way to over ride this with something custom? At the moment to deal with this I am using if-else block to check if count is 0 so I can use the translation when count is 0.

[jamuhl]

Yes. English has no extra form for zero - that's why you can't define photos_0 for english.

But there is a plugin to help with this: https://github.com/i18next/i18next-intervalPlural-postProcessor

Just define in the interval the extra form for zero - all others not getting handled by an interval will automatically fallback to regular plural forms.

[brightpixels]

Thank you

[jamuhl]

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[AleksandrChernyavenko]

We can use Context for this purpose. Example:

{
  "photos_0": "no photo",
  "photos": "one photo",
  "photos_plural": "{{count}} photos"
}

const count = 0;
i18next.t('photos', {count: count, context: `${count}`})

[kg-currenxie]

We can't we add _zero? It should be a super common case, and we can skip adding , context:${count}``

{
  "photos_zero": "no photos",
  "photos": "one photo",
  "photos_plural": "{{count}} photos"
}

const count = 0;
i18next.t('photos', { count: count })

Straight from RubyOnRails ;) https://guides.rubyonrails.org/i18n.html#pluralization

[jamuhl]

@kg-currenxie photos_zero is something you like to express -> but by definition it is not a pluralform

so there is the context option or https://github.com/i18next/i18next-intervalPlural-postProcessor/ to express more custom ranges

[kg-currenxie]

yes, i didn't say its a plural form
by definition, its "nothing", and i see it independent from language grammar
its a logical one imo :)

the other plural forms, like arabic can still use the _0 formats

[jamuhl]

@kg-currenxie other languages like arabic have an extra form for zero https://unicode-org.github.io/cldr-staging/charts/37/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html#ar