Re: 24-hour or 12-our clock and %p

[Ask Hjorth Larsen <asklarsen gmail com>]

Hello Hannie

I should clarify: This is when the translator comment says "12-hour
clock format" and there's another string called "24-hour clock
format".  I have to translate both, and I leave the 24-hour clock
format unchanged.  The locale settings should choose the 24-hour clock
format presumably.  But how do I translate the 12-hour one, in case
someone ends up actually seeing that?  There is no correct unambiguous
way to translate it and still respect the translator comment.  So do I
translate it to 24-hour clock (disrespecting comment), 12-hour+am/pm
(incorrect in many countries) or 12-hour (ambiguous)?  Perhaps it
doesn't matter at all, but since I spend time thinking about it every
time, maybe someone had a rule.  Oh well.

I guess I will go for the ambiguous translation in the end, in spite
of the fact that 12-hour clocks on computers are pretty useless :)

Best regards
Ask


2015-03-01 10:47 GMT+01:00 Hannie Dumoleyn <lafeber-dumoleyn2 zonnet nl>:
> We, the Dutch translation team, use the 24-hour clock most of the time,
> since this is custom in our country.
> Hannie
>
> Op 28-02-15 om 20:05 schreef Ask Hjorth Larsen:
> > Hello
> >
> > In many languages including Danish, "am" and "pm" ("%p" in strftime)
> > do not exist.  When using the 12-hour clock one would simply say e.g.
> > "11:32" which is of course ambiguous.  On a computer one would use the
> > 24-hour clock to simply avoid this ambiguity.
> >
> > However we still have to provide a translation for strings like "%l:%M
> > %p".  So what is the most correct translation?
> >
> >   1) Force the user to use 24-hour clock by simply translating it to
> > "%H:%M", or
> >   2) use the imprecise "%l:%M", or
> >   3) retain the alien "%l:%M %p"?
> >
> > The user should probably not be using 12-hour clock in the first
> > place, and so we would presumably rely on the locale settings already
> > making it so that the correct code gets called.  I would therefore
> > guess that option 3) is better.  In some cases, though, the idea might
> > be that the translator chooses the format by means of the translation,
> > and so it would be completely pointless not to use the most natural,
> > 24-hour string.  Are there any rules or specifications for this?
> >
> > Best regards
> > Ask
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