Localizability issues for various high-visibility strings

Relevant Slack thread: https://gitlab.slack.com/archives/C04P44Y06CS/p1734036310627679 (see screenshot in the internal note below)

Document gathering all strings in question

Issue 1) Capitalization

Problem

All German nouns need capitalization. However presently, for strings pulled in via variable, the first letter is rendered in lower case. The string create ticket for example shows issues due to a variable being used.

Example:

Screenshot_2024-12-20_at_13.10.29

Please note: I am not sure where to find the exact strings pulled in here, so I would need your expertise to investigate further.

EN: "create ticket" DE: erstellen ticket

Two issues with this rendering:

  1. The syntax is wrong, while English puts the verb first, German puts the verb last.
  2. In German every noun is capitalized, here the noun is in lower case.

Possible Solution

Easiest would probably be to create a new string that does not contain variables, but instead is a simple translation for "create ticket". For "Create Milestone" this seems to have been the solution and it shows as correct in DE, see screenshot below

Screenshot_2024-12-20_at_13.05.43

Issue 2) Inflection

Example 1:

Due to the string containing a variable and an adjective (new) before the variable we see a wrong inflection of the adjective - as it is not clear which noun is going to be pulled in. For example we would need a different case for (der) Epic vs (das) Ticket as they have different genders.

Screenshot_2024-12-20_at_13.20.36

Crowdin

Screenshot_2024-12-20_at_13.22.10

Neuer Epic, Meilenstein, Branch etc. Neues Ticket, Project etc.

Possible solutions:

Create split strings to account for all different gender inflections (only a solution for German, so maybe too short-sighted).

Change the concatenation, however it is not the most elegant in German, but not wrong.

e.g. %(project): Ticket, neu

## Example 2:

Screenshot_2024-12-20_at_13.29.16

[Crowdin](https://crowdin.com/editor/gitlab-ee/16/en-de?view=side-by-side&filter=basic&value=0#q=Neue%20(r,%20s)

Screenshot_2024-12-20_at_13.31.30

Problem

The string tries to account for different inflections by using both variants, which is not a good solution and highly unusual. The noun is in lower case, which is the second linguistic issue.

Possible Solution:

Change concatenation: %{workItemType}: new

These are just initial thoughts aimed at presenting the issues and opening the space for discussions about possible fixes. From a localization standpoint the severity would be a critical since the strings are highly visible.

Thank you so much and I am looking forward to continuing the discussion in 2025, happy holidays!

Edited by 🤖 GitLab Bot 🤖