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Address people the way Apple does in every language - #7

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Jeehut merged 5 commits into
mainfrom
wip/apple-address-style
Oct 13, 2026
Merged

Jeehut merged 5 commits into
mainfrom
wip/apple-address-style

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@Jeehut Jeehut commented Oct 8, 2026 •

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Overview

The translations now follow Apple's localization style guides for how each language addresses people. Where Apple uses a formal register, so does this package now: French „vous“, Russian «Вы», Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Greek, Croatian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, Indonesian, Malay and Hindi. European Portuguese uses the third person without a pronoun. Turkish sentences use the plural imperative „-in“, never the stiff „-iniz“. Polish uses a capitalized „Ty/Twój“. Languages where Apple addresses people informally stay as they were: German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, the Nordic languages, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Brazilian Portuguese.

Buttons take the form Apple uses for buttons in each language, because the polite form belongs in sentences:

Button form Languages
Infinitive fr, ru, uk, cs, sk, pt-PT, kk, lt
Singular imperative bg, hr, tr
Noun form hu, el
Polite plural imperative ro

Field placeholders and instructions count as sentences.

Impact on apps using this package

No API changes. The package is meant to match the wording Apple's own UI uses, so this corrects it towards what apps already expect; it fits a minor version. Apps that ship these languages will show the corrected text there.

Examples (before → after)

Lang Source Before After
fr Follow the App Suis l'application Suivre l’application
fr-CA Follow the App Suivez l’application Suivre l’application
ru Follow the App Следуй за приложением Следить за приложением
pt-PT Follow the App Segue a aplicação Seguir a aplicação

Changed values per language: fr 5, pt-PT 5, fr-CA 4, ru 4.

How this was verified

  • Every catalog was checked entry by entry and per plural, device and substitution variant. The check covers placeholders (count, type, position), leading and trailing whitespace, and the ellipsis rule. It reports no placeholder or ellipsis issue. The few remaining whitespace notes predate this branch.
  • swift build succeeds.

Apple's own wording for standard texts

Short UI strings (buttons, labels, titles) now use the exact wording Apple's own iOS 27 UI uses for the same English text, looked up per language in Apple's localizations, wherever the context matches. This also fixes several mistranslations. A value only got longer where Apple's wording or a rule demands it.

Lang Key Before After
ms Legal Undang Undang-undang
th Legal ชอบด้วยกฎหมาย ทางกฎหมาย
fr Legal Juridique Mentions légales
es Legal Legal Aviso legal
tr More apps from Developer Developer'dan diğer uygulamalar Geliştiriciden diğer uygulamalar
cs Rate the App Hodnocení aplikace Ohodnotit aplikaci
bg Follow the App Следвайте приложението Следвай приложението
tr Follow the App Uygulamayı Takip Edin Uygulamayı Takip Et
hu Follow us on %@ Kövessen minket a %@ Kövessen minket itt: %@
pt-PT Developer on %@ Desenvolve em %@ Programador em %@
zh-Hant Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 常見問題 (FAQ) 常見問題(FAQ)

Changed values: 158 (bg 6, ca 8, cs 6, da 5, el 6, es 3, fi 5, fr 6, fr-CA 2, he 8, hi 1, hr 6, hu 10, id 3, it 5, ja 3, kk 4, ko 2, ms 5, nl 4, pl 2, pt-BR 1, pt-PT 6, ro 4, ru 2, sk 5, sv 3, th 8, tr 6, uk 4, vi 5, zh-HK 6, zh-Hans 2, zh-Hant 6).

Jeehut added 3 commits October 8, 2026 10:09
French now uses the infinitive for buttons and "vous" in sentences,
Russian the capitalized formal address, and European Portuguese the
formal third person. 14 values changed (fr 5, ru 4, pt-PT 5). The
catalog has no three-dot ellipses and the code has none in user-facing
strings.
Set ru link buttons to the infinitive (2 strings).
Apple's French style guide puts buttons, options and input placeholders in the infinitive. Convert the remaining vous/tu imperatives in fr and fr-CA (Choisir, Saisir/Entrer, Essayer, Toucher pour ..., Suivre ...).
@Jeehut Jeehut changed the title Address people and write ellipses the way Apple does Address people the way Apple does in every language Oct 8, 2026
Use Apple's iOS 27 wording for "Legal", "Privacy Policy", "Contact
Support", "App Links" and "Social Links" where Apple has the same text.
Buttons follow each language file (cs/sk/ru/uk infinitive, bg/hr/tr
singular imperative, hu/el noun).

Fix errors: "Developer" and "Friends" were left in English in many
languages, "Legal" was cut off or meant "lawful" in ms, th and vi, the
kk FAQ title repeated itself, and hu, tr, fi and he platform phrases had
wrong articles, "address" or stray spaces.
The package needs Swift tools 6.2, but the macOS 15 image ships Swift
6.1, so every CI run failed before compiling anything.
@Jeehut
Jeehut merged commit 9b404be into main Oct 13, 2026
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