Woocommerce-ios: i18n: UI label improvement suggestions

[naokomc]

I put together a list of strings that may be improved with a wording change or addition of context.

1. "No address specified." (code)

   • Issue: the word "address" can mean physical address or email address
   • Solution: Add a translator's comment

2. "This app requires Jetpack to connect to your Store. Read the" (code)

   • Issue: split sentence that can't be translated in some languages
   • Solution: Use a placeholder and form a complete sentence

3. "Updated %@" (code)

   • Issue: when the placeholder is replaced with "Just now", this sentence doesn't translate well (at least in Japanese).
   • Solution: show examples of the placeholder in the comment (e.g. Stats summary date such as "just now" or "1 second ago" so that the translator can find a creative workaround to avoid the issue. My translation for this string in Japanese is "更新: %@ (similar to 'Updated: %@')", which absorbs the sentence structure differences when various phrases are used for the date.

4. "Payment of (totalValue) received via (order.paymentMethodTitle)" (code)

   • Issue: when the payment method placeholder is replaced with COD, the past tense "received" doesn't sound correct.
   • Solution: show a different message if the payment is not actually received?

5. "%1$s placed a %2$s order from %3$s" (code)

   • Issue: when the person placeholder is replaced with "someone", it can be translated differently. In the case of Japanese, username takes "さん (san)" (something similar to a title like Miss or Mr) AFTER the name, such as "Naoko san". But if "san" is added to "someone", it doesn't sound good.
   • Solution: Something like this works across languages if the verb changes depending on the object's sex: "%2$s order from %3$s (user: %2$s)". Also, it's ideal if a separate sentence such as "%2$s order from %3$s (user: unknown)" is set up. The last part about the unknown user may not be necessary in this case.

[mindgraffiti]

Thank you for the bug report @naokomc. This is very helpful!

[bummytime]

This is so good @naokomc — THANK YOU!

I do have one quick question for you, are you also seeing the notifications tab not translated?

[bummytime]

Just following on to the previous comment ☝️ — it appears like we had some issues with this tab name (issue: #631) which are being addressed in #634.

[naokomc]

For Japanese only, we had an issue with some of the vendor translations being copied from English (this is unusual and they are investigating what happened).

I've fixed them but the v1.0 app was shipped with a partially translated language file. I spot-checked and the issue doesn't seem to exist in other languages, so please select a different language if you are testing v1.0.

[mindgraffiti]

@naokomc for Item 2, the full string is:

"This app requires Jetpack to connect to your Store. Read the configuration instructions."

There is no easy way to fix the broken-apart string because of the text link in configuration instructions is styled differently than the rest of the text. I can make it all one string so the context is preserved, but it will have HTML artifacts in it. It would look like this (code):

"This app requires Jetpack to connect to your Store. Read the <a href=\"https://jetpack.com/support/getting-started-with-jetpack/\">configuration instructions</a>."

Is this an acceptable alternative?

This isn't ideal from a code standpoint (hardcoding a URL into a translation string), but I would be happy to use this option if it works well for translators.

[mindgraffiti]

Item 5 moved to its own ticket, Ref. #644

[naokomc]

Can you say this instead?

This app requires Jetpack to connect to your Store. See: configuration instructions

(no period at the end)

[mindgraffiti]

@naokomc I can remove the period but the closing a tag will still be there:

"This app requires Jetpack to connect to your Store. Read the <a href=\"https://jetpack.com/support/getting-started-with-jetpack/\">configuration instructions</a>

[bummytime]

Just a quick heads up, the "final" solution for Item 3 — the "Just now" copy — will be part of the fix for #600 (PR coming very shortly!)

[naokomc]

@mindgraffiti Oops, yes please leave the closing tag.
FYI I also suggested "Read the" to be changed to "See:" to avoid a split sentence.

[mindgraffiti]

@naokomc can you elaborate? How does replacing "Read the" with "See:" avoid a split sentence? Both words break up the second sentence.

[naokomc]

@mindgraffiti
When translating "Read the" into Japanese, the translator has to be creative and actually use something like "Refer:" (参照:) since Japanese verb comes after the object (Instead of "Read XX.", we say "XX ← read." where ← is a particle that explains the relationship between XX and read). This is also true for Hindi and Korean.

Wikipedia on subject–object–verb language:

Edit:
As long as it's explained what will come after "Read the" translators should be able to figure out an appropriate translation.