Plurals Support
Background
Plurals are a mechanism of language that allows a speaker or writer to differentiate types of nouns or phrases. In English we have two plural forms singular and plural. These forms are represented in different ways:
Standard: appending an “-s”, “-es” or changing “-y” to “-ies” for a singular noun.
Example: cat - cats, baby - babies
Irregular plural: some nouns do not follow specific rules
Example: mouse - mice
No change: some nouns have no change between forms
Example: deer - deer,
Latin and Greek: some forms derive from Latin or Greek origin
Example: cactus - cacti
English forms are just the beginning, in Arabic there are six forms and completely different rules. The localization industry has created multiple syntax’s including ICU and i18n to support this eccentricity of language.
Lilt’s Plural support
At Lilt we provide automated support for the ICU plurals syntax. Users can upload files with the ICU syntax, easily translate, and export with correct formatting.
Upload
Create a new job
Toggle the “Enable ICU Plural support for the job” flag to on
Import a file which has the ICU syntax
Select target languages
Create job

Translate and Review
Linguists can navigate the CAT tool and modify all of the forms for both the source and target languages. The number of forms for both source and target are automatically determined by the CLDR rules for that language; however, a linguist can easily delete an existing form or “Add another” depending on the sentence and context.


Pretranslate and Data Sources
After a segment containing plurals has been translated it will appear in the Data Source entries. Future source text with the exact number of forms and segment text will match 100%, and the Data Source will be leveraged. If pretranslation is used, the target will be populated with Data Source entries if the match score is greater than 75%, otherwise MT will be created for each form of the target language.

Export
Once the file has gone through the appropriate workflow, it can be exported using the standard workflow. The exported file will have both the source and target forms in the ICU format.