plural selectordinal french one vs other error

Fix plural selectordinal error on French one vs other

TL;DR

French ordinals treat only 1 as one, everything else is other, so write your selectordinal cases to match. If your message lists one, two, few like English, French picks wrong for 2 and 3. Check Intl.PluralRules with ordinal true for fr, then keep just the cases French can actually select.

The error

French ordinal for 2 renders the English-style "two" case
{n, selectordinal, one {#er} two {#e} other {#e}} picks wrong in fr

Fix it

Step 1: Check what French ordinals actually select

node -e "for(const n of [1,2,3]) console.log(n, new Intl.PluralRules('fr',{type:'ordinal'}).select(n))"

Expected: fr prints one for 1 and other for 2 and 3.

Step 2: Trim the message to the cases French uses

node -e "console.log('for fr: {n, selectordinal, one {#er} other {#e}} -- drop the two case')"

Expected: The message matches French ordinal rules.

Step 3: Keep per-locale messages where ordinals differ

node -e "console.log('translators should adapt the case list per language, not translate the English cases literally')"

Expected: Each locale has the cases its rules need.

Step 4: Render 1st, 2nd, 3rd in French and confirm

node -e "console.log('1 to 1er, 2 to 2e, 3 to 3e')"

Expected: Ordinals render correctly.

When to use this

• French ordinals pick the wrong selectordinal case
• Ordinal cases were copied from English

When NOT to use this

• Cardinal plurals in French, those follow different rules
• The ordinal logic is right but the suffix text is wrong, fix the copy

Tool and version compatibility

• ICU selectordinal, Intl.PluralRules with type ordinal
• French ordinal rules: 1 is one, masculine 1er

Variant phrasings

Spanish ordinals

Spanish ordinals are simpler, usually just other with º. Same per-locale adaptation applies.

English ordinals as reference

English needs one, two, few, other. The point is each language gets its own case list.

Why it happens

Selectordinal uses the locale's ordinal plural rules, not its cardinal ones. French ordinals only distinguish 1er from the rest, so English-style one/two/few cases never match in French and counts fall through to unexpected cases.

Edge cases

• Gender matters in French ordinals, 1er vs 1re, the message may need a select on gender too
• Translators must rewrite the case list, not just the words
• Test ordinals 1 through 5 minimum, edge counts expose bad case lists

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_7K4eNvydPnoIHSFQdTgMog

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_7K4eNvydPnoIHSFQdTgMog

Thread query: plural selectordinal french one vs other error

TL;DR: French ordinals treat only 1 as one, everything else is other, so write your selectordinal cases to match. If your message lists one, two, few like English, French picks wrong for 2 and 3. Check Intl.PluralRules with ordinal true for fr, then keep just the cases French can actually select.