[openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website] Incorrect translation choice time_ago for 21 hours ago (Issue #5878)

Nitai Sasson notifications at github.com
Thu Apr 3 17:46:58 UTC 2025


NeatNit left a comment (openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website#5878)

> > * nothing instead of "%{count}", probably in languages without indefinite article
> 
> That's interesting, do you have examples? I wonder if these languages just have a choice between saying "day ago" vs "1 day ago" or whether they strictly can't use the number. I understand that "day ago" instead of "a day ago" is common, but I haven't found if there are languages where you can't use a number 1 with a noun.

This is pretty much the case in Hebrew. Forcing in the 1 is readable but feels kinda awkward.

Natural: לפני יום = a day ago. There is no "a" in Hebrew.

Still pretty natural: לפני יום אחד = one day ago.

Feels unnatural: לפני יום 1 (with digit 1 instead of the word one) - honestly it *could* be just a personal thing for me but this feels wrong to read.

Less unnatural to read, but completely unnatural to say: לפני 1 יום - again, this might be a personal thing for me.

The thing is, for 1 the word order is "ago day [one]", but for any other number of days it's "ago {number} days". This is why the digit 1 has no natural place.

Incidentally, it seems [[the current Hebrew translation]](https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Osm:Datetime.distance_in_words_ago.x_days/he) uses "yesterday" and the word for "the day before yesterday", which you explicitly say isn't ideal.

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