Dear developers!
I am translating your game into Russian language and we have a problem.
The grammar rules in Russian differ from ones in English. This language is fusional (inflected) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusional_language). It means that suffixes for most words in sentence depend on the subject person's gender. This specificity causes some translation problems, especially while translating titles for backstories (e.g. "Courtesian"). Gender suffixes work under a complicated set of rules and it doesn't seem possible to conform these rules for every case in a gender-neutral way. This issue heavily affects quality of Russian (and possibly, many other languages) localization.
The only available option for backstory titles is using male gender everywhere. As a result we may have translation which is not pleasant for players to read. This solution makes me sad both as a translator and as a girl.
So, I am asking you for help. Please make possible for us to use different forms for different genders. In any way you may find convenient for you.
I am really looking to getting your answer.
Thank you in advance!
This makes me sad too) Both as a girl and as an aesthete.
Actually, as I see, Germans have the same problem with their female "-in" suffix ("Lehrer" - male teacher, "Lehrerin" - female teacher).
I'm sure, there are at least 5 more languages having the same problem.
You only need to add two additional lines. Like this:
<titleMale>Policeman of Glitterworld</titleMale>
<titleShortMale>Policeman</titleShortMale>
<titleFemale>Policewoman of Glitterworld</titleFemale>
<titleShortFemale>Policewoman</titleShortFemale>
It will be usefull for English too! Housewife, stay-at-home Dad, washwomen, fisherman, etc.
The problem is the same for all Latin languages too.
I've sended an e-mail about that and Ludeon are aware. Every language in the world has its own particularities (not only for gender or plurals), and they are not going to work on that by now.
Maybe if many people asks, they will react. By now, as Catalan translator, I try to correct gender mistakes using lexical juggling when I can.
peeqa's solution seems doable, I think.
Fixed, thanks. In the next version there will be <titleFemale> and <titleShortFemale>. By default if no titleFemale is specified the normal title will be used (<title> and <titleShort>).
Tynan, ison, thanks for your replies, but there is that problem again.
How TS already said, we have a different suffixes for M/F genders (for example, word "teacher")
Quote
<title>Учитель</title>
<titleFemale>УчительНИЦА</titleFemale>
Well, that example is not a problem anymore, but this is (following the description of "[PAWN_name] was born ..."):
Quote<desc>[PAWN_nameDef] рождаЕТСЯ ...</desc>
this is "present informant" time, closest analogue - present continous. Commonly used by journalists, but not in dialogues - because of it's "prolongation", it describes an event that hasn't finished yet. It would be much better to use past simple just like original do:
Quote
<desc>[PAWN_nameDef] родиЛСЯ ...</desc>
<desc_female>[PAWN_nameDef] родиЛАСЬ ...</desc>
Hope, you will add it in 1.0. TY in advance :)
I think this new feature (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=43979.0) should solve this (though you may want to wait for the next build).
It's now possible to do this (note {} instead of []):
{PAWN_gender ? родиЛСЯ : родиЛАСЬ}
Please let me know if it works for you.