Translators' note required for singular/plural strings where both strings are in the singular form

[pidengmor]

There is some confusion for translators in GlotPress over WordPress 4.8.x as some of the singular/plural strings are singular in the originals. For example:

Singular: Audio Widget (%d)
Plural: Audio Widget (%d)

A translators' note would be handy here to explain why the plural is not Audio Widgets in this case.

This currently relates to four strings:

​Audio Widget
​Image Widget
​Media Widget
​Video Widget

[vitormadeira]

Having the very same kind of doubt here in the Portuguese (Portugal) translation.
Thanks for posting this ticket.

[pcarvalho]

any updates on this? we're doing a contributers day next weekend, and fixing this would be an awesome first-good-bug

[westonruter]

@obenland did we neglect to pluralize the second argument to _n_noop()?

[obenland]

I don't think we did. Was thinking of the label as more of a feature description rather than it being instance agnostic

[GaryJ]

I think the Widget in single and plural strings are correct here.

Instead of widget count in numbers, think of it as "Widget A, Widget B, Widget C". In English, it wouldn't make sense to have "Widget A, Widgets B, Widgets C", following English pluralisation rules.

In other locales, it may be that items labelled with numbers, have different variations, even if it's not a count. Extremely rare possibly, or maybe just a coding oversight here resulting in a redundant single/plural split instead of a static string that happens to contain a dynamic non-counting number.

Also, there is a translator comment: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/src/wp-includes/widgets/class-wp-widget-media-video.php?marks=42#L42

[pcarvalho]

number of widgets that use that media item

[pcarvalho]

this is how its being used on the media table: it shows the number of widgets that use that media.

so for singular "Image Widget" or plural "Image Widget (10)"

[anonymized_7658014]

A quick example in a translators note would definitely go a long way. Something along the lines of:

/* translators: used in context of a media item and its appearances, read plural form as
“[media item uploaded to] Image Widget ([and used in] 10 [instances of that widget])” */

(Yes, that is a long comment, but remember it is for people who have no idea what is in your head.)

[Presskopp]

Do they need to know? ;-)

/* translators: Please translate as singular in both cases */