Translation of plural string in English with spaces

[Josep M. Ferrer]

El 5/1/22 a les 21:07, Johnny Jazeix ha escrit:
> Hi,
>
> for GCompris we have one complicated sentence to translate:
> "Place %n boy(s) and %n girl(s) in the center. Then split %n pieces of 
> candy equally between them." (context in this image: 
> https://gcompris.net/screenshots_qt/middle/share.png)
>
> There are mixed plurals and to have the plural correctly translated we 
> use:
>         //~ singular Place %n boy
>         //~ plural Place %n boys
>         text = qsTr("Place %n boy(s) ", "First part of Place %n boy(s) 
> and %n girl(s) in the center. Then split %n pieces of candy equally 
> between them.", boys);
>
>         //~ singular and %n girl in the center.
>         //~ plural and %n girls in the center.
>         text += qsTr("and %n girl(s) in the center. ", "Second part of 
> Place %n boy(s) and %n girl(s) in the center. Then split %n pieces of 
> candy equally between them.", girls);
>
>         //~ singular Then split %n candy equally between them.
>         //~ plural Then split %n candies equally between them.
>         text += qsTr("Then split %n pieces of candy equally between 
> them.", "Third part of Place %n boy(s) and %n girl(s) in the center. 
> Then split %n pieces of candy equally between them.", candies);
>
> For American English, it takes the string from the " //~ 
> singular/plural " lines.
> The issue we have is that we don't manage to have the extra space in 
> the English translation at the end of "boy(s) " (same if we put the 
> space at the beginning of the other part to translate (" and %n 
> girl(s))").
>
> If we add double quotes, they are part of the translation. And if we 
> have an extra space at the end, it is removed.
>
> Is there a way to handle it properly in the code or even reformulate 
> the sentence to make it work more easily while keeping the meaning?
>
> I'm cc-ing multiple list because, in the ideal, we'd like to fix the 
> code without impacting the string for the next release but we can have 
> a better string for after.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Johnny

Hi,

Instead "boys" and "girls", can we use a more neutral gender like 
"kids"? And then this problem is gone :)

Best regards,

Josep M. Ferrer