Translate a YAML File into Polish

Polish plurals: four forms instead of two

A source file in English, or in many other languages, usually has only one and other. Polish needs four. The choice is not just "one or more": it also depends on how the number ends. Take plik (file):

• one: "%{count} plik": 1 plik
• few: "%{count} pliki": 2, 3, 4, 22, 23, 24…
• many: "%{count} plików": 0, 5 to 21, 25… (so 12, 13 and 14 as well)
• other: "%{count} pliku": fractions such as 1.5

Manuce adapts plurals to the target language. Where the source has two keys, the Polish file gets the forms Polish actually needs, with %{count} kept in each one.

One thing is on your side: your framework must know the Polish plural rule. Without it, only one and other are read, and the screen shows "5 pliku" instead of "5 plików". In Rails this usually comes from a pluralisation module, often shipped with the Polish locale data. In Symfony or i18n-js, make sure the pl locale is properly declared.

Cases, gender and typography inside values

Polish nouns decline, so a word inserted through a variable may not fit the sentence. "Usunięto %{item}" calls for the accusative, but the variable almost always supplies a nominative. Two phrasings avoid the clash: "Usunięto: %{item}" or "Element %{item} został usunięty".

Past-tense verbs also agree in gender. "%{name} dodał komentarz" only works for a man; a woman needs dodała. If your app does not know the user's gender, use a neutral label such as "Autor komentarza: %{name}".

Buttons are normally in the plain imperative, with no polite form: Zapisz, Anuluj, Zaloguj się.

On the typography side, a few points need attention:

• Your UI font must include ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź and ż. Otherwise, empty boxes appear in the interface.
• Polish quotation marks look „like this”. The closing ” is not the ASCII ", so it will not break a double-quoted YAML value.
• Polish labels often run longer than English ones: Settings becomes Ustawienia, Save changes becomes Zapisz zmiany. Check narrow buttons and table columns first.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

You get back the same file, in the same format. Indentation, key order, quoting, comments, line endings, encoding and BOM are all preserved: only the values change.

For Rails, Symfony, Hugo and i18n-js, the language root key is handled, so en: becomes pl:. Anchors, | and > block scalars and comments stay where they are.

Each translated value is compared with its source: %{name}, {name} and any tags must come through unchanged. If a mismatch persists, the source value is kept and the report says so. The report lists the strings translated, plus those left as they were and why. The following are not translated:

• keys and empty values;
• URLs and email addresses;
• numbers, colours and date formats;
• identifiers and anything marked as non-translatable.

What Manuce does not do: it does not change your framework configuration (plural rule, default locale) and it does not translate keys. It does not take glossaries or translation memories either. If a product name must stay as it is, check it in the free sample and then in the delivered file.

Polish carries a surcharge (a ×1.25 coefficient on the per-word rate). You pay only for the words in the values, with keys and tags excluded.

Preparing the file and checking the result

A few checks before sending the file and after delivery will avoid surprises:

• Upload the whole file. Send en.yml or messages.en.yaml in full rather than a fragment, so that anchors and their references stay in the same file.
• Review month names. Date formats such as "%d.%m.%Y" are not translated, but month names are ordinary values. In Polish, a month changes form depending on use: 5 stycznia 2025 inside a date, styczeń on its own as a calendar heading. Check that each key uses the form its context requires.
• Reload the file with your project's parser. Simply loading the locales at start-up is enough. An unquoted value that now contains a colon followed by a space can be read differently.
• Test plurals. Try 1, 2, 5, 12, 22 and 1.5: each should show the correct form.
• Check the display. Open the screens with the longest labels and confirm that the diacritics render in every font you use.

For strings that ship in a live product, the Professional level matches the "ready to hand over" use. Essential is enough to understand a file internally.

In practice

1. Upload your YAML file and select Polish: the quote appears at once, based on the words in the values.
2. Pick a level and read the free translated sample before paying.
3. Pay, then download the Polish file and its report, delivered within minutes for a typical file.
4. Put the file back in your project, confirm the pl plural rule is active and test the screens.