---
title: Pluralizing I18n Translations in Your Rails Application
teaser: How to clean up your Rails views with I18n's built-in pluralization tools.
tags: web,rails,i18n
author: Jessie Young
published_on: 2014-09-09
---

Say we have some I18n text that tells users how many notifications they have.
One option for dealing with a singular vs plural situation would look like this:

```yaml
# config/locales/en.yml

en:
  single_notification: You have 1 notification
  other_notification_count: You have %{count} notifications
```

```erb
<%# app/views/notifications/index.html.erb %>

<% if current_user.notifications.count == 1 %>
  <%= t("single_notification") %>
<% else %>
  <%= t("other_notification_count", count: current_user.notifications.count) %>
<% end %>
```

Kind of ugly, right? Luckily, Rails provides [a simple way to deal with
pluralization in
translations](http://guides.rubyonrails.org/i18n.html#pluralization). Let's try
it out:

```yaml
# config/locales/en.yml

en:
  notification:
    one: You have 1 notification
    other: You have %{count} notifications
```

```erb
<%# app/views/notifications/index.html.erb %>

<%= t("notification", count: current_user.notifications.count) %>
```

Same result, and no conditionals in our views. Awesome.