22 Apr
2004
22 Apr
'04
1:15 p.m.
The problem is that the fragments you end up with depend on the structure of the language you first wrote the message in. The same sentence in a different language might not break into the same fragments. So it's not just that you have to translate a lot of fragments instead of a few phrases, it's that you can't be sure you can translate the fragments you have into new fragments that'll give you correct phrases.
Having one string to translate, as well as format's nice features that can be used for, for example, putting the logic for handling plurals into the string, is cool.
see my answer to Jeremy. Best, John