RE: Translation-enabled web pages

Subject: RE: Translation-enabled web pages
From: "Cassandra Greer" <cassandra -at- greer -dot- de>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 22:29:36 +0100


Whoa there, Lee!

Careful with that word 'localization'. It is much much more than the mere
translation of single words (with no Guantanamo that the single word
translation is even correct) or even of a 'regular' translation.
Localization is when you adapt something to meet all the requirements of a
local market. This is not just language but also GUI concerns (pretty much
culture), technical concerns, and legal concerns (here in the EU, we have
legal concerns out the wazoo). This is, for example, the difference between
Mexican Spanish (in NAFTA) and Iberian Spanish (in the EU) or the difference
between Quebecois and French. Localization is of a higher order than simple
translation.

I have mixed feelings about this type of quick translation whether word by
word or the machine translation of whole texts because I know of cases where
companies and communities have lost _a lot_ of money and time because they
tried to cut corners with the likes of Babelfish. It's a fun toy but I
wouldn't want to put my business at risk by using it officially. A newspaper
is something way different than user documentation. I could also see some
legal problems in supplying something like that in your documentation - to
the tunes of 'Well the translation said to do it this way, and now it seems
I've just crashed the network.' This could cost me more than having a real
translation/localization to begin with.

Cass :) (Who is right now localizing software bound for the States including
adapting otherwise technically correct translations so that the Americans
who don't know German won't either laugh their heads off or go 'huh?'



> I see that Ultralingua has an interesting new product for what they
> call "translation-enabling" web pages, which they're testing at the
> International Herald Tribune (http://www.iht.com). It allows you to
> click on any word in an article and see a popup translation of that
> word.
>
> It's pretty cool but not perfect - I clicked on "Guantanamo" and got
> a translation for "guarantee". :) Nevertheless it looks like it could
> be a handy localization tool for some companies. If you can't afford
> to translate your documentation into as many languages as you should,
> you could make at least make it a bit more accessible to people who
> are reading it in something other than their native tongue .
> _____________________________________________________
>
> Lee Hunter - Technical Editor & Information Architect





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Follow-Ups:

References:
Translation-enabled web pages: From: Lee Hunter

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