Why do people use plain english as translation placeholders?

Question

This may be a stupid question, but here goes.

I've seen several projects using some translation library (e.g. gettext) working with plain english placeholders. So for example:

_("Please enter your name"); 

instead of abstract placeholders (which has always been my instinctive preference)

_("error_please_enter_name"); 

I have seen various recommendations on SO to work with the former method, but I don't understand why. What I don't get is what do you do if you need to change the english wording? Because if the actual text is used as the key for all existing translations, you would have to edit all the translations, too, and change each key. Or don't you?

Isn't that awfully cumbersome? Why is this the industry standard?

It's definitely not proper normalization to do it this way. Are there massive advantages to this method that I'm not seeing?

Answer 1

Yes, you have to alter the existing translation files, and that is a good thing.

If you change the English wording, the translations probably need to change, too. Even if they don't, you need someone who speaks the other language to check.

You prep a new version, and part of the QA process is checking the translations. If the English wording changed and nobody checked the translation, it'll stick out like a sore thumb and it'll get fixed.

Answer 2

1. The main language is already existent: you don't need to translate it.
2. Translators have better context with a real sentence than vague placeholders.
3. The placeholders are just the keys, it's still possible to change the original language by creating a translation for it. Because when the translation doesn't exists, it uses the placeholder as the translated text.