i18n; singular and plural function

So I'm building a custom theme, which I like to be translation ready.

I have a string with a variable, so I do something like

<?php
echo __('This collection contains %s items.', $numItems);
?>

But since $numItems might be '1', I would like to modify the string so it echos 'item' (singular) instead of 'items' (plural).
In WordPress there is a function _n() for this. How could I acomplish this in Omeka?

You might have to just do a check on $numItems:

<?php if ($numItems == 1) {
echo __('This collection contains %s item.', $numItems);
} else {
echo __('This collection contains %s items.', $numItems);
}

Hey Patrick,
Thanx. yes, that was my back up plan. Just wondering if there was a nicer/ better way.
Thanx!

There's no better option with the current version, but there is an active pull request that aims to add a mechanism for allowing plurals in translations. I think you can look forward to seeing it or something like it in a future release.