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 f

Answer 1

Well it probably is just that it's easier to read, and so easier to translate. I'm of the opinion that your way is best for scalability, but it does just require that extra bit of effort, which some developers might not consider worth it... and for some projects, it probably isn't.