In several Debian Installer packages, some embedded variable names such as "You are currently modifying ${PARTITION} properties" can be found. Translators should not translate the variable names and be very careful about keeping braces and “dollar” signs. For instance, the French translation of the above is: “Vous modifiez actuellement les propriétés de ${PARTITION}”.

When translating programs such as dpkg, apt or shadow, translators should be careful about “%s” variables: the translation must have the same number of such variables as the original English string.

Modern PO editing tools will warn translators about such mistakes and msgfmt will also report such errors.