FW: Translation problem?

[Chris Wilcox <Clwilcox -at- MICRON -dot- COM>]

I'm forwarding this for Geoff. It has some good things to take into
consideration if you're following this issue.

>*************
>Chris Wilcox noted <<Our Belgium facility has requested that we
>translate the documents into French so that the workforce will have
>both of them [English and Belgian French] at their disposal, and
>we've already had instances where controlled documents have been
>translated to the appropriate language for our Malaysia audience
>without regard for the content control... I'm not in the business of
>technical translation, but foresee a nightmare in the making if we
>attempt to have multiple versions of the same documents floating
>around--especially if "corporate" (translation: my department) becomes
>responsible for them (those 2 years of French I took in high school
>probably won't cut it).>>
>
>You raise several important issues here. You're right that problems
>are brewing unless someone takes responsibility for quality control;
>in most corporations, that would be a localisation manager of some
>form. And please note: even if your high school French is excellent,
>it's not going to translate (so to speak) into Belgian French. I've
>just spent two days with a French communications lecturer who
>recounted several horror stories about problems that occurred
>during his stays in Switzerland and Belgium based on differences
>between Quebec French and the local dialects. I do the quality
>control locally for our publications (Canadian English vs. Quebec
>French), and find enough things that need fixing that I'm glad I took
>on that responsibility. (Well, actually I got volunteered, but...) If
>your documentation has any importance to the users, then you should
>strongly recommend that someone take responsibility for quality
>assurance.
>--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
>geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca