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Another thing: "Are you sure you want to quit?" in Slavic language will have gender of the user embedded. You need to know it to adress user correctly. You ca

by ajuc 12y ago

Another thing: "Are you sure you want to quit?" in Slavic language will have gender of the user embedded. You need to know it to adress user correctly. You can do stilted "To the person that uses this program - are you sure you want to quit?", but that's insane. So everybody just use male version.

bobbles 12y ago
"Are you sure you want to Cancel?" [OK] or [Cancel]
userulluipeste 12y ago
I don't know, in Russian either "ты" (singular/informal) or "вы" (plural/formal) works fine for both genders. Now, for your example, Google translated result is "Вы уверены, что хотите выйти?" which seems fine to me!
- ajuc 12y ago
  "Wy" (plural you) don't work for single person in Polish, it sounds like "communist-speach" to us (almost like you called people "tovarishch") :) It was only used by soviet puppet politicians during communism (as carbon copy of Russian expression). So it needs "Ty" (singular you), and with singular you "sure" translates to "pewien" for male recipients and "pewna" for female. In Polish it should be "Jesteś pewny(or pewien)/pewna, że chcesz wyjść?" So, it's Polish-specific, not Slavic-specific as I thought.
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    How is that typically handled in software? I can also imagine non-software examples where this might be hard (A sign reading "Warning: you are entering a restricted area", etc.)
    - ajuc 12y ago
      I explained poorly, verbs in second person are gender agnostic, adjectives are gender-dependent. The "restriced area" is funny, standard version is "Nieuprawnionym wstęp wzbroniony" ~ "For non-priviledged-ones entry is forbidden", it's plural noun made from adjective, in nominative it would be different for male and mixed/female groups (uprawnieni/uprawnione), but fortunately in plural in dative case it's "uprawnionym" for both genders so it works out OK. I guess it's common and maybe that's why the dative case works that way? In most dialogs in software adjectives are the problem, especially "are you sure". Usually software that don't know your gender for other reasons just use male version. In non-software world in formal documents it's often written like "he/she" in every gender-dependent place, often with passive voice to cut the amount of "/".

by ajuc 12y ago

bobbles 12y ago

"Are you sure you want to Cancel?" [OK] or [Cancel]

userulluipeste 12y ago

I don't know, in Russian either "ты" (singular/informal) or "вы" (plural/formal) works fine for both genders. Now, for your example, Google translated result is "Вы уверены, что хотите выйти?" which seems fine to me!

ajuc 12y ago
"Wy" (plural you) don't work for single person in Polish, it sounds like "communist-speach" to us (almost like you called people "tovarishch") :) It was only used by soviet puppet politicians during communism (as carbon copy of Russian expression). So it needs "Ty" (singular you), and with singular you "sure" translates to "pewien" for male recipients and "pewna" for female. In Polish it should be "Jesteś pewny(or pewien)/pewna, że chcesz wyjść?" So, it's Polish-specific, not Slavic-specific as I thought.
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  How is that typically handled in software? I can also imagine non-software examples where this might be hard (A sign reading "Warning: you are entering a restricted area", etc.)
  - ajuc 12y ago
    I explained poorly, verbs in second person are gender agnostic, adjectives are gender-dependent. The "restriced area" is funny, standard version is "Nieuprawnionym wstęp wzbroniony" ~ "For non-priviledged-ones entry is forbidden", it's plural noun made from adjective, in nominative it would be different for male and mixed/female groups (uprawnieni/uprawnione), but fortunately in plural in dative case it's "uprawnionym" for both genders so it works out OK. I guess it's common and maybe that's why the dative case works that way? In most dialogs in software adjectives are the problem, especially "are you sure". Usually software that don't know your gender for other reasons just use male version. In non-software world in formal documents it's often written like "he/she" in every gender-dependent place, often with passive voice to cut the amount of "/".