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How to use prepositions with placeholders
Vestluse postitaja: Claire Gerard
Claire Gerard
Claire Gerard  Identity Verified
Prantsusmaa
Local time: 18:25
inglise - prantsuse
+ ...
Jul 31, 2019

Hi everyone,

I'm translating a website with lots of placeholders, and I am not sure how to handle the prepositions in front of city name placeholders, since in French it could be "à", "au" or "aux" depending on the city. Has anyone managed to figure that one out in the past ? In French or in another language.

Thanks,
Claire
 
Thomas T. Frost
Thomas T. Frost  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 17:25
taani - inglise
+ ...
Suggestions Jul 31, 2019

I occasionally get texts with placeholders, just not for cities. Sometimes you can reword the sentence to avoid articles, etc.

E.g. instead of 'il y aura une exposition à Avignon,' you might say 'il y aura une exposition. Ville : Avignon.' This is not very elegant, of course. Sometimes one can find a better wording to avoid the problem, sometimes not. In some cases I'm left with the choice between potentially getting the article wrong or using the equivalent of 'le/la'.

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I occasionally get texts with placeholders, just not for cities. Sometimes you can reword the sentence to avoid articles, etc.

E.g. instead of 'il y aura une exposition à Avignon,' you might say 'il y aura une exposition. Ville : Avignon.' This is not very elegant, of course. Sometimes one can find a better wording to avoid the problem, sometimes not. In some cases I'm left with the choice between potentially getting the article wrong or using the equivalent of 'le/la'.

In the end, this is an IT problem, not a translation problem. If clients use such systems without having thought through how they work linguistically, it really is their problem. We can point out the problems, but we're not magicians. ▲ Collapse


Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Melanie Meyer
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
 
Erik Freitag
Erik Freitag  Identity Verified
Saksamaa
Local time: 18:25
Liige (2006)
hollandi - saksa
+ ...
Inform your client Jul 31, 2019

Thomas T. Frost wrote:
If clients use such systems without having thought through how they work linguistically, it really is their problem. We can point out the problems, but we're not magicians.


IMHO, informing the client is the most important point. Cover your back and let them know that it often is impossible to find a translation that is grammatically correct and elegant/idiomatic at the same time; after that, try to make it work without overthinking it. After all, the reason why people use placeholders is to save money, which is all fine, but not at the expense of the translator.

This is especially important if your client is a direct one (as opposed to a translation agency, who should of course be familiar with this problem to begin with anyway).

Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
 


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How to use prepositions with placeholders







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