[Parley-devel] [parley] [Bug 205261] can't properly specify multiple translations

[Ansa]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=205261

--- Comment #4 from Ansa <ansa.ansa at gmx.net> ---
You raise an interesting point. I do not have a definite opinion on this
matter, but here are some thoughts:

It seems to me that for my files, there would be no problem if comma serves a
double purpose as a translation equivalent separator and a punctuation mark. In
general, where order is important, Parley would "think" that I have entered two
translation equivalents (the first and second half of the sentence), by chance
in the same order in which they are shown in the editor. No problem there. I do
not think that it is likely that I would enter the parts of a sentence in wrong
order (and if I do, there is a way to change the automatic marking).


Commas are usually also used for one thing where order is very important, and
that is basic forms of words in inflective languages. While the Inflection
practice is great for practicing full paradigms of a few words, it is also
necessary to remember additional information about all items in the practice,
and the Inflection practice is too exhaustive for that. For example:

English     come, came, come   (verb forms)
German   das Haus, -es, ä-er    (gender represented by article and two
additional noun forms)
Latin         fēmina, æ F               (the genitive form and gender together
imply which paradigm the word belongs to - you need to know these two bits of
information to be able to produce the other forms, but you do not need to know
all the remaining forms by heart)
Finnish    kaupun/ki, gin, kia, keja               (noun forms necessary and
sufficient for deriving all other forms of the noun; I use the / to mark the
place after which the respective endings are added, so this should be read as
"kaupunki, kaupungin, kaupunkia, kaupunkeja")

Most of the time, I think remembering the right order is not a problem here
either, but I see that it might be a bit more tricky than in the sentence case.

An example from my actual file is that of two translation equivalents with
inflections given. The inflections are separated by a comma and the equivalents
by semicolon:
* yhdeksik/kö, ön, köä, köjä; ys/i, in, iä, ejä       (These are Finnish names
of the number nine.)
For this particular case, the suggested solution with separation by semicolon
only would be the best one.


I also like to group translation equivalents, using comma for synonyms and
semicolon for unrelated senses. However, I do this mostly on the "Known"
language, so it is either used as a question, or it is used in Flashcard
practice; either way, it is not really necessary for Parley to separate the
line into a list:
* to act; to function, work, operate
Here, it would be best if both separators could be recognised.


Another interesting point is this: when the "correct" answer is shown, how will
it be organised? Will it be reordered to mirror the user's answer more closely,
listing missed equivalents at the end? Take the case of my item
* yhdeksik/kö, ön, köä, köjä; ys/i, in, iä, ejä
If I write
ys/i, in, iä, ejä; yhdeksik/ko, on, koa, koja
(making a mistake in the diacritics, and listing the items in a different
order), it is much easier to recognise where the error is if the correct answer
would be reordered. On the other hand, if there is some kind of automatic
reordering, it becomes far more important to conceptually distinguish between
punctuation marks and translation equivalent separators.


I checked my file and it does contain sentences with semicolons. They are not
all too frequent, but not completely infrequent either.


Lastly, what about users with existing files? I think it is more likely that
current users have files where translation equivalents are comma separated than
semicolon separated.

As always, I am most fond of giving users the choice (by allowing them to list
all separators that should be used as translation equivalent separators). In my
case, I would probably choose both the comma and the semicolon and then pay
close attention to the cases where they play a different role. I would be
grateful for automatic reordering of parts of the answer, as the chances that I
list items where order is important in some kind of wrong order are rather
small.

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