I am soon to be setting up a Wordpress website of around 6 to 8 pages. However it will need to be in 3 different languages.

I am thinking of simply having the same website duplicated 3 times, such as website.com/english, website.com/chinese etc.

However I understand that this could be a pain to maintain, as any updates would need to be made 3 times.

Is this the only way of taking care of it? I did look into WP translation plugins recently however they only translate the content and cannot modify the text that is hardcoded into the template files.

Auto translators are mostly complete garbage and simply make you look stupid to people who actually speak or read the language.

For example:
http://www.webmasterground.com/link-...html#post48277
http://www.webmasterground.com/link-...html#post48281
http://www.webmasterground.com/gener...html#post47795

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Auto translators are mostly complete garbage and simply make you look stupid to people who actually speak or read the language.

For example:
http://www.webmasterground.com/link-...html#post48277
http://www.webmasterground.com/link-...html#post48281
http://www.webmasterground.com/gener...html#post47795

Haha, the second one was particularly amusing.

So do you think it would be best having multiple copies of the same website set up, one for each language? Or would I be best using some sort of JavaScript approach?

its one type of duplicate content in so many sites.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Auto translators are mostly complete garbage and simply make you look stupid to people who actually speak or read the language.

For example:
http://www.webmasterground.com/link-...html#post48277
http://www.webmasterground.com/link-...html#post48281
http://www.webmasterground.com/gener...html#post47795

So true, and links = so funny.

Not all auto translators are that bad. I have not had any complaints with the one that I use.

Not all auto translators are that bad. I have not had any complaints with the one that I use.

Which one do you use?

Make a custom plug-in to translate all your pages from English to other 3 languages. Anyone with experience in developing wordpress plugin can easily make that for you. HIre a Wordpress professional and just do it.

Word for word translators are more likely to turn the content into gibberish.

Google Translate is just a piece of JavaScript to add to your site and visitors can select whatever language they like.
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2005/11/a...o-website.html

But it's pretty nasty.

To be worth doing, its gotta be worth paying a professional translator to translate your content.

As for your WordPress setup, the best solution is the WPML Plugin which works great.
http://wpml.org/
It's a commercial project now but the price is very reasonable - $29

SEO Geo-targeting is another topic you might want to read up on.
http://tinyurl.com/288xdcc