What are placeholders, and how do we work with them?
You may encounter jobs where the client has included special logic to handle translations involving plural nouns. These clients will use both placeholders within the actual text, as well as instructions that go together with the job to explain how to handle these types of strings. Many companies use placeholders in contexts such as online booking forms, where the text around the placeholder will need to change depending on the input of the user. A placeholder replaces a number in a string of text, and it is the translator’s challenge to correctly translate the noun that follows the placeholder using the correct plural pattern.
Let’s look at how the results of these translations will look like on the client’s website.
✔️ In the first example, the nouns following the numbers are in the correct plural format.
❌ In the second example, the nouns following the numbers are not in the correct plural format.
✔️ Example 1 (Taken from trivago.co.uk)
✔️ In this example, the words following the numbers are in the correct format (1 room, 1 guest – 2 rooms, 2 guests).
❌ Example 2 (Taken from flypgs.com/en)
❌ In this example, the words following the plurals are not in the correct format (1 adult, 1 child is correct – 2 adult, 2 child is incorrect)
How this relates to our translations
The translator’s task is to translate the word following the placeholder so that it appears in the correct plural form.
Let’s look at some examples involving English, Dutch, and Bosnian.
For reference, the three languages form plurals in the following ways:
English | ||
Category | Examples | Context |
‘One’ | 1 | 1 day |
‘Other’ | 2, 3, 4 | 2 days, 3 days, 4 days |
Dutch | ||
Category | Examples | Context |
‘One’ | 1 | 1 dag |
‘Other’ | 2, 3, 4 | 2 dagen, 3 dagen, 4 dagen |
Bosnian | ||
Category | Examples | Context |
‘One’ | 1 | 1 sat |
‘Few’ | 2, 3, 4 | 2 sata, 3 sata, 4 sata |
‘Other’ | 5, 6, 7, 8 | 5 sati, 6 sati, 7 sati, 8 sati |
As we can see, English and Dutch have two plural categories, whereas Bosnian has three plural categories.
When ordering jobs with this special plural logic, it’s important to read the instructions that come with the job. The instructions will explain which number will replace the placeholder in the final website. Here’s an example of what these instructions may look like:
English | This phrase contains a plural noun. It needs to be translated as category ‘Other’. {0} will be replaced with a number that is considered as ‘Other’ in the target language |
Bosnian | This phrase contains a plural noun. It needs to be translated as category ‘Few’. {0} will be replaced with a number that is considered as ‘Few’ in the target language |
Here are two examples of what these flows will look like. Take note that for both the English to Bosnian examples, the source text is exactly the same. The only way to know what is the correct translation is to read the instructions.
English to Dutch
Client Instructions | Source Text | Dutch Target Translation | On the client’s website, the final string will look like this: |
This phrase contains a plural noun. It needs to be translated as category ‘Other’. {0} will be replaced with a number that is considered as ‘Other’ in the target language. | I’ll see you in {0} days. | Ik zie je over {0} dagen. | Ik zie je over 3 dagen. |
English to Bosnian
Client Instructions | Source Text | Bosnian Target Translation | On the client’s website, the final string will look like this: |
This phrase contains a plural noun. It needs to be translated as category ‘Few’. {0} will be replaced with a number that is considered as ‘Few’ in the target language. | I waited {0} hours. | Čekao sam {0} sata. | Čekao sam 4 sata. |
This phrase contains a plural noun. It needs to be translated as category ‘Other’. {0} will be replaced with a number that is considered as ‘Other’ in the target language. | I waited {0} hours. | Čekao sam {0} sati. | Čekao sam 5 sati. |
IMPORTANT: Do not translate the placeholder. It is only there to indicate that a number will appear in the target text.
Helpful links:
The following link provides a list of examples of plural forms in different languages:
https://unicode-org.github.io/cldr-staging/charts/37/supplemental/language_plural_rules.html
The following link (under the heading ‘Choosing Plural Category Names’) provides further information about how the different categories of plural form work:
