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I have already built some systems and multilingual websites, and in the tools I have known there seems to be a tendency to use the string in the application’s original language (usually English) as the key to the respective translations.
For example, in a gettext:
msgid "My name is %s.\n"
msgstr "Meu nome é %s.\n"
That way, with the gettext, a hypothetical code should be changed from
printf("My name is %s.\n", nome);
for
printf(_("My name is %s.\n"), nome);
The gettext has even a tool that scans code for function calls _, and generates the POT file in the above format, missing only fill the translated text.
Tutorials of other tools usually induce similar practices. However, the use of this type of solution has caused me many problems. Here in Stack Overflow itself, for example. Every time any text is changed in the English original, a new pending translation appears in Transifex, without reference to the previous version of the original or the translation itself. This causes a lot of duplicated work, a lot of inconsistency, and potentially a lot of translated and unused text (because it was lagged).
It seems to me that it makes more sense to use more meaningful names as keys to the dictionary, for example "CloseLinkText" or something like that. But it’s very rare to see someone recommend this, or even see software that uses this type of key.
Questions
Is there any good reason to spread this practice of using English strings as keys?
Is there some major disadvantage, that I would be failing to see, in using keys that give a little more context about what is being translated?
In short, why do so many internationalized systems turn translation work into a nightmare? There is no better alternative?
"It seems to me that it makes more sense to use more meaningful names [...]". What is more significant than the text itself in the original language? The way you suggest, you just created an extra "column" (equivalent to a new language to be manipulated). Incidentally, remembering such "keys" when it is necessary to reuse a string is much harder than remembering the original text (and if the counter-argument is automation with lists of choice, well, why not displaying the original text?). :)
– Luiz Vieira
Using the translated text as a key leads to the natural reuse of already translated phrases. PO and related files also have "space" and are used to saving more context as a comment. There is also a large volume of tools that use these formats (example Poedit, virtaal, Translate-Toolkit, omegat, etc),
– JJoao
@Luizvieira You are right to say that the text itself is self-explanatory, in general it is even (sometimes, when it is a loose word, it is difficult to understand the context). I think having an immutable identifier would avoid other problems, but how few people do it must have some very big disadvantage. Your argument hasn’t convinced me yet :) As for reusing strings that are the text itself, it also has its own problems - for example, "read" (read) in certain contexts would need to be "read", in others it would need to be "read", and so on...
– bfavaretto
It’s true, there are many problems. I even think that the worst is not the translation, but the localization itself (text size in buttons, for example). Anyway, my point is that using the key wouldn’t solve them. This example is very suitable: having different keys to indicate singular and plural is only necessary if the word actually occurs in both contexts. And the professional responsible for making the location will need necessarily consider the context when making the translation (not only the original text, nor any key you produce...) :)
– Luiz Vieira
In other words: the problems mentioned are a fact, but I do not know good arguments proving that the use of different keys from the original text makes the work process (which is the translation itself and the reuse of the text by programmers) effectively better. Anyway, that’s just mine educated Guess (so I’m just commenting, and I won’t dare answer...). :)
– Luiz Vieira
@bfavaretto was trying to find a way to answer but falls into the same problem already mentioned here, you probably know more about it than me, I’ll just add my experience that should not be different from yours and nothing that helps to clarify the problem. What would be great to know about this. Did you try in English? I do not because it is not easy to explain and would probably have to interact a lot and I am not in the patience to spend my English "wonderful".
– Maniero
I didn’t try in English, and to tell the truth I got a little discouraged after the comments of Luiz Vieira and the answer below. @bigown
– bfavaretto