Sometimes it is necessary to complement the translation of an essay
with translator’s notes. The special message *GNUN-SLOT:
TRANSLATOR'S NOTES* is designed to serve this purpose. If your
translation doesn’t have notes, you should “translate” the
msgstr as a space (SPC)—otherwise the PO file will be
considered incomplete, which is not what you want. Here is an example
how to use translators’ notes in a PO file:
# type: Content of: <p> msgid "" "To understand the concept, you should think of <q>free</q> " "as in <q>free speech,</q> not as in <q>free beer.</q>" msgstr "" "Translated message, where you want to clarify beer<sup><a " "href=\"#TransNote1\">1</a></sup>, presumably because the " "expression in your language is different" … … # type: Content of: <div> #. TRANSLATORS: Use space (SPC) as msgstr if you don't have notes. msgid "*GNUN-SLOT: TRANSLATOR'S NOTES*" msgstr "" "<h3>Translator's notes</h3>\n" "<ol>\n" "<li id=\"TransNote1\">Note clarifying the text.</li>\n" "</ol>\n"
Certainly, everything in the msgstrs should be in your native
language; we use English here, so that everyone understands
the example. If you have more notes, each subsequent one should be with
incremented number, i.e. ‘TransNote2’, ‘TransNote3’, etc. and
you have to add them as more <li> elements accordingly.
Do not worry about the \n character—it is inserted
automatically when you press RET. It is not compulsory that
notes start on a new line, this is the recommended way simply because
it is easier to edit them.
It is important to follow this specification, because notes will look consistent in all languages and will be clearly distinguishable from authors’ footnotes, if any. Furthermore, it will be easier to define a special CSS class for them, and also to convert the translations in other formats such as Texinfo—when these conversions are implemented.