Re: Translations of Owner's Guides?

[Jonathan Price <jonprice -at- AOL -dot- COM>]

I know this is not quite answering your questions, but it's something I've
been working on with Japanese customers.  They tend to find even our best
Western manuals a pain in the you know what when directly translated,
particularly when the translator is living in the U.S., and out of touch with
current Japanese, or computer talk in Japan.
From anecdotal evidence, I have come to the conclusion that you ought to ask
a native speaker to do a complete rewrite (not translation) when going from
the U.S. to any Asian country, to the Germanic parts of Europe, and to
France.  Several Dutch studies show that the French expect a top-down
rational explanation of key concepts, then minor concepts, then, almost
incidentally, procedures, while the Germanic group (Holland, Denmark,
Scandinavia, Germany, Austria) expect no-nonsense how-to stuff right off, and
please postpone any conceptual stuff for later in the book.
Think about it as a native speaker of American: even if the manual started
off terrific in Korean, how useful is it going to be to an American who
hasn't finished high school, if we get a direct translation?  As writers, we
should support real writers around the world.  The translators can come in
going from German to Danish, say, or from one dialect of Chinese to another.
But you need a real writer to make a new manual, to begin with.
(My biased opinion after talking to hundreds of intermediate Japanese users,
who have relied on direct translations of manuals from Apple and IBM).
Jonathan Price
Communication Circle
918 La Senda, NW
Albuquerque, NM 87107