6 ms·

Do you expect that gmail supports querying for "في: سلة المهملات"?

edent 6y ago
In https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/general https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/general it has settings for both Arabic and Farsi. So, yes. Or do you expect users in language A to also know language B in order to work with the interface?
pmlnr 6y ago
Yes. It's effing gmail. It's a search engine with email functionality.
vertis 6y ago
Yes absolutely it should. I think you get a pass if you're a tiny startup on some of your i18n and a11y. But not if you're one of the biggest software companies in the world. Users should not be expected to know a second language if you offer products in their language. I agree that Arabic and Farsi are somewhat outliers here, but this behaviour impacts languages like German 'Papierkorb' I would expect searching in:papierkorb to work as expected.
- input_sh 6y ago
  I'm definitely not a German speaker, but I don't think it should be "in" in "in:papierkorb".
  - vertis 6y ago
    'in' is the same word in German, though I'm not 100% certain either, because my German is basic. "Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch".
    - account42 6y ago
      Yes, but localization is not just a matter of finding matching words. In this example, "in dem" (in the) already has a very common abbreviation/colloquialism - "im" - so is a much more natural to use that.
      - vertis 6y ago
        Sure, this was less me trying to correctly localize it, since I would never do that with my absolutely rudimentary command of German (I use phrase.com and professional translators for that) and more defending against the person that knew even less German than me and was making like I hadn't considered that side of the ':'. I am familiar with 'im' and 'am', from a translating them back to English (while learning), but lack the ability to know the correct times to use them (as in this case).
  - unhammer 6y ago
    "in" actually happens to mean more or less the same in German :-) Of course, it's not quite grammatical without the determiner, making it "in dem Papierkorb" which contracts to "im Papierkorb", but then you could say that about English as well, still we don't write "in:the bin", so "in:Papierkorb" should be OK. If you want a challenge, there are languages that prefer postpositions ("Trash:in"?) or case suffixes ("Trashin"?) or even circumfixes ("iTrashn"??) – and some case suffixes may happen to be formally equal to the nominative for certain words (so "Trash" could be ambiguous between "in:Trash" and "Trash"). Happy localising.
    - jerf 6y ago
      In this case, I'd say the colon is "localized" to the "computer" language, which can stay constant in all human languages as it is equally a foreign language in all human languages. Though the order could be changed as appropriate. Despite the advances in AI, computers still need humans to meet them in the middle in their own language quite a bit.
    - vertis 6y ago
      That's really useful for my German learning. I knew that "im" was "in the" I didn't realise it was a contraction. Very slowly learning the language.

In https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/general https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/general it has settings for both Arabic and Farsi. So, yes. Or do you expect users in language A to also know language B in order to work with the interface?

pmlnr 6y ago

Yes. It's effing gmail. It's a search engine with email functionality.

vertis 6y ago

Yes absolutely it should. I think you get a pass if you're a tiny startup on some of your i18n and a11y. But not if you're one of the biggest software companies in the world. Users should not be expected to know a second language if you offer products in their language. I agree that Arabic and Farsi are somewhat outliers here, but this behaviour impacts languages like German 'Papierkorb' I would expect searching in:papierkorb to work as expected.

input_sh 6y ago
I'm definitely not a German speaker, but I don't think it should be "in" in "in:papierkorb".
- vertis 6y ago
  'in' is the same word in German, though I'm not 100% certain either, because my German is basic. "Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch".
  - account42 6y ago
    Yes, but localization is not just a matter of finding matching words. In this example, "in dem" (in the) already has a very common abbreviation/colloquialism - "im" - so is a much more natural to use that.
    - vertis 6y ago
      Sure, this was less me trying to correctly localize it, since I would never do that with my absolutely rudimentary command of German (I use phrase.com and professional translators for that) and more defending against the person that knew even less German than me and was making like I hadn't considered that side of the ':'. I am familiar with 'im' and 'am', from a translating them back to English (while learning), but lack the ability to know the correct times to use them (as in this case).
- unhammer 6y ago
  "in" actually happens to mean more or less the same in German :-) Of course, it's not quite grammatical without the determiner, making it "in dem Papierkorb" which contracts to "im Papierkorb", but then you could say that about English as well, still we don't write "in:the bin", so "in:Papierkorb" should be OK. If you want a challenge, there are languages that prefer postpositions ("Trash:in"?) or case suffixes ("Trashin"?) or even circumfixes ("iTrashn"??) – and some case suffixes may happen to be formally equal to the nominative for certain words (so "Trash" could be ambiguous between "in:Trash" and "Trash"). Happy localising.
  - jerf 6y ago
    In this case, I'd say the colon is "localized" to the "computer" language, which can stay constant in all human languages as it is equally a foreign language in all human languages. Though the order could be changed as appropriate. Despite the advances in AI, computers still need humans to meet them in the middle in their own language quite a bit.
  - vertis 6y ago
    That's really useful for my German learning. I knew that "im" was "in the" I didn't realise it was a contraction. Very slowly learning the language.