lp-l10n-ca team mailing list archive

[Toni Hermoso Pulido <toniher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Al 08/06/11 13:54, En/na soslan khubulov ha escrit:
> Hello Catalan Translators!
> I am the coordinator of Ossetian Launchpad Translators.
>
> I am working on Guidelines for Ossetian Translators and I need your help.
> I noticed that Catalan is one of the few languages (as for me they are
> Catalan and Finnish) who uses imperative verbs instead of  infinitive
> ones in option commands, buttons and menu items labels.
>
> Can you say what is the reason for that?

Hello Soslan,

other languages using imperatives are Italian and Romanian.

http://en.ca.open-tran.eu/suggest/Open%20file
http://en.ro.open-tran.eu/suggest/Open%20file
http://en.it.open-tran.eu/suggest/Open%20file

We could even argue that English do as well, and other languages 
misunderstood it when localisation got spread.
'Open file' vs 'To open file'

In any case, the reasoning is that these commands are precisely 
'commands' from the user to the system (so imperative fits well).

Softcatalà, an association devoted to Catalan language translation, 
keeps a style guide that most FOSS projects follow for Catalan language.
It might be an interesting reference for you:
http://www.softcatala.org/guia (in Catalan)

Hope this helps,

--
Toni Hermoso Pulido
http://www.cau.cat