Content & Writing Tycoon

**madmod** · 01-16-2009, 04:09 AM

Hi

Yes, do you translate your site to other languages like chinese or indian? If no, why not?

cheers

**johnlloyd** · 01-16-2009, 07:46 AM

I think that most of the site are setting in on standard language which is english, and in fact you can use this tool http://translate.google.com/?hl=en Google translate.

**madmod** · 01-16-2009, 08:13 AM

well, translation tools are nice but never the same as a real "handmade" translation.
I mean some sites offer english, italian, french etc. This may be a silly question but wouldnt it make more sense to translate into chinese and indian?

**Tanti** · 01-16-2009, 09:07 AM

Of course you should use professional translation if you want your site be user friendly for foreign visitors

I suppose there aren't as many people who can properly translate into Chinese or Indian. I'm speaking about US and Europe.

If you know these languages you can offer your services to different webmasters

**madmod** · 01-16-2009, 09:39 AM

i do not know any of these languages but there are many (affordable) freelancer offering their service.

**tripy** · 01-16-2009, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madmod

Yes, do you translate your site to other languages like chinese or indian?

No.

Quote:

Originally Posted by madmod

If no, why not?

Because I can.

**~kev~** · 01-16-2009, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madmod

Hi

Yes, do you translate your site to other languages like chinese or indian? If no, why not?

cheers

No, my target audience are people that speak english. A lot of those translator scripts do a poor job. I see no reason to embarrass my site with poorly translated material.

Plus, I do a lot of video blogging. I am not going to translate my videos to other languages.

**youngheart** · 01-16-2009, 12:58 PM

Why should I translate into other languages when my site is geared towards the English speaking communities? Anyway, translating correctly is not so simply. Using translation tools may not do the job good enough. Getting people to do it for you may not come out well too.
Unless your target market is the Chinese(or any other languages), then it would be really good to have the site in Chinese(or the other languages). Else, forget about doing any translation.

**London** · 01-16-2009, 02:20 PM

I would use only english websites, because you will get the most users with it in my view: More global...

**marvio** · 01-16-2009, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by youngheart

Why should I translate into other languages when my site is geared towards the English speaking communities? Anyway, translating correctly is not so simply. Using translation tools may not do the job good enough. Getting people to do it for you may not come out well too.
Unless your target market is the Chinese(or any other languages), then it would be really good to have the site in Chinese(or the other languages). Else, forget about doing any translation.

There is truth in those comments but to honest a bit mis-guided. To say a site is geared towards English speaking people then by default the site will be exclusively English therefore excluding speakers of all other languages. That could be a missed opportunity.

Translation tools are highly technical tools used within the translation industry in order to build translation memories and glossaries to assist in the translation process and ultimately reduce overall costs. A non professional would not touch these tools and my summary does not do them justice.

Maybe you refer to automatic or machine translation? If so, then yes I agree. You only get the gist of the translation, there is no context, grammatical inconsistencies, inability to work with trademarks, names, parts etc so the result is poor. A growing business would not want to present to new market poor and sometimes funny content. Try using Google translate on an Italian newspaper site for example.

If you want translation done well get a professional freelance translator or the translation services of an agency, otherwise as you say it may not come out too good.

My main point here is whatever you do don't think for one minute that machine translation is in any way or shape professional. It is great though for translating posts, emails, notes etc.

**madmod** · 01-16-2009, 03:39 PM

Quote:

That could be a missed opportunity.

that's exactly what i ment...

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives...ts_chinese.php

cheers

**youngheart** · 01-17-2009, 08:24 AM

I agree that there could be missed opportunities. On the whole the English communities are very large...unless you find yourself short of people to promote to, then you may want to consider a new language market which requires a new set of resources like professional translators.

For people who have not being doing a roaring business will need to consider this seriously as they will need to invest in new resources which may include money, time, hired workers etc. There may be a budget constraint.

A machine translator will be good enough if you just want to get an idea of the content that are being presented ignoring the grammatical, contextual etc kind of error, but if you want to present to your site visitors, it will requires more than just machine to do it for you.

**Brian07002** · 01-17-2009, 06:40 PM

If you live in the United States - > Default Language = English
If you live in China -> Default Language = Chinese
etc..etc..

You then offer translation options from your site in a drop or whatever. Since many of the bigger sites like microsoft for example have offices in other countries, they put the default language as English. To summarize: If you company was started in the United States, make your website in English, and as you expand, should be easy as pie. Say if you go and open a business in China, make that language Chinese. It's pretty simple.

**tripy** · 01-17-2009, 07:45 PM

Quote:

If you live in the United States - > Default Language = English
If you live in China -> Default Language = Chinese
etc..etc..

It's not always so simple.
I live in Switzerland, and we have 4 official languages.
In order of importance:
1)German
2)French
3)Italian
4)Romantsch

And my country is not an exception. Belgium speaks 2 languages.
And taking your examples, China have more than 1 language. The country is so wast, that the peoples near the Caucasus are not speaking the same language than those near Asia. They are at least 7 recognized different languages in China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese...Spoken_Chinese

The south of France do speak a language that mix Spanish with French, as the north of French have a mixup with German too.
Many countries in Africa and Asia have several official languages too, given their colonial past.

Ex Russia is in the same case. There are 8 recognized derived language based on the "official" russian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian...ived_languages

In my opinion, USA is rather an exception, in the sense that it could keep an uniform language on a humongous territory without that much fragmentation of the dialects.
Maybe the origin of the country (colonization, there is) is the main reason.
But I am no linguist nor historian, even if I'm married with someone whose language preservation is her work.

To make that short, English can be more or less understood more or less everywhere.
Except in China, as I read, where the government even organized night school during the Olympic games to teach peoples how to say "hello" and give basic directions to tourists.

**jusvie** · 01-20-2009, 01:00 AM

No, I don't.. I guess most country in the world are using English language... so I do not have to translate my site..

Quote:

Originally Posted by madmod

Hi

do you translate your site to other languages like chinese or indian? If no, why not?

cheers

**bogs** · 01-20-2009, 01:53 AM

i use a script on my blog that can translate some other languages.. and its pretty cool..

**marvio** · 01-20-2009, 05:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tripy

In my opinion, USA is rather an exception, in the sense that it could keep an uniform language on a humongous territory without that much fragmentation of the dialects.
Maybe the origin of the country (colonization, there is) is the main reason.
But I am no linguist nor historian, even if I'm married with someone whose language preservation is her work.

Actually if I understand correctly that due to how the colonization took place there was a very good chance for a form of German to have become the standard language.

Also a previous poster is right in saying that a language can have many flavours. For example Spanish can be professionally translated into the following explicit flavours:
Spanish Argentina
Spanish Bolivia
Spanish Chile
Spanish Columbia
Spanish Costa Rica
Spanish Dominican Republic
Spanish Equador
Spanish El Salvador
Spanish Guatemala
Spanish Honduras
Spanish Mexico
Spanish Nicaragua
Spanish Panama
Spanish Paraguay
Spanish Peru
Spanish Puerto Rico
Spanish Uruguay
Spanish Venezuela
Spanish International
Spanish Modern

In my opinion if I open up a site and the text is in broken/poor English I have one of 2 opinions:
1) i'm about to be ripped off
2) the business is unprofessional and to be avoided if they cannot bother to present their image/brand/message to me as they do in their native tongue.

Sometimes though it is human nature to ignore what you don't understand. So the business ignores the localization benefits and the user ignores the poorly translated content.

**superpearl** · 02-08-2009, 05:56 AM

if anyone needs english arabic or arabic english translation I'M HERE !!!! and if its small work i'll do it for free