In D4023#76891, @aacid wrote:

I find the comments misleading (maybe because i'm not english native) but

if (daysTo < -1) {
      switch (date.dayOfWeek()) {
      case 1:
          return tr("Last Monday",    "day in the previous week");
      case 2:

Why does it have to be the previous week? If today is Wednesday and the date we're referring to is Monday, daysTo will be -2 and it will still be the current week and not the previous, no?

else if (daysTo > 1) {

switch (date.dayOfWeek()) {
case 4:
    return tr("Next Thursday",  "day in the week after this");

If today is Monday and the date we're referring to is Thursday, daysTo will be 3 and it's not "the week after this" it's "this week".

Or am i understanding something wrong?

You're right. What's a better phrasing? Or, is the context even necessary for translators here?

Maybe something like "the most recent such day before today" and "the next such day after today"?

In D4023#76899, @mpyne wrote:

In D4023#76891, @aacid wrote:

I find the comments misleading (maybe because i'm not english native) but

if (daysTo < -1) {
      switch (date.dayOfWeek()) {
      case 1:
          return tr("Last Monday",    "day in the previous week");
      case 2:

Why does it have to be the previous week? If today is Wednesday and the date we're referring to is Monday, daysTo will be -2 and it will still be the current week and not the previous, no?

else if (daysTo > 1) {

switch (date.dayOfWeek()) {
case 4:
    return tr("Next Thursday",  "day in the week after this");

If today is Monday and the date we're referring to is Thursday, daysTo will be 3 and it's not "the week after this" it's "this week".

Or am i understanding something wrong?

You're right. What's a better phrasing? Or, is the context even necessary for translators here?

I'd say let's go with context, or maybe even better english (or more codepaths?)

Can you as a native speaker confirm this theory i've heard?

If we are on "Monday 16", "Next Wednesday" means "Wednesday 25" if you want "Wednesday 18" you should say "This Wednesday"

Maybe something like "the most recent such day before today" and "the next such day after today"?

In D4023#77304, @aacid wrote:

Can you as a native speaker confirm this theory i've heard?

If we are on "Monday 16", "Next Wednesday" means "Wednesday 25" if you want "Wednesday 18" you should say "This Wednesday"

Yes, if you are on a Monday the 16th, the immediate next Wednesday (18th) would generally be referred to as "this Wednesday" while the Wednesday following (25th) would be "next Wednesday".

This might not be true for all English dialects though. E.g. en_GB seems to have the immediately following Wednesday (18th) as "Wednesday next", while the Wednesday after (25th) would "Wednesday week".

However if the number of days between now and then is long enough then many people would still refer to the later date as "next" instead of "this". This is reflected in some other APIs. For instance I tried adding a new calendar entry to a Google-based account for "next Thursday" from today (Sunday) and it added it for 4 days from now instead of 11 days from now. However even when adding an entry for "next Monday" (i.e. tomorrow or 8 days from now), Google still chose tomorrow.

As long as our behavior in the code is consistent there shouldn't be much problem with using "Next $day" even in en_US since we're used to computer outputs not being precisely reflective of natural speech, and even in the U.S. there are people who always use "Next $day" in their natural speech to refer to the immediately succeeding day.

As a result, I would keep the current scheme (at least for en_US) since that way there's less "magic" needed for the user in trying to decode what date the computer is trying to refer to.