Re: Foreign language translation of Winhelp rtfs

[Tom Brophy <tom -at- TCRAFT -dot- COM>]

Hi Sean,

> I've noticed that while many recognize writing in English is 
> a skill, and that particular training, experience, and education 
> are needed to hone that skill, those same folks automatically 
> assume that anyone who hails from a foreign land is automatically 
> capable of authoring in their native tongue.
> It's amusing to notice this and even more amusing to point it 
> out to those who make this mistake. Just as Americans can do poorly 
> in school with English language skills and writing, so too can 
> Italians do poorly with Italian language skills and writing . . ..

Indeed. I've dealt with clients who expected to find lots of Renaissance folk who could translate/localize software, doc and help; debug and fix the software/help; and while they're at it, could they re-DTP the docs as well please :-) Some have taken umbrage when I've suggested that such folk are quite hard to find.

> If 'twere me, and I cared, I'd ask all the necessary questions to get
> involved in or feel satisfied with the upcoming translation effort. 
> Please let us know what plans were made and the direction your 
> company took. I am holding out hope that I will hear of a company that 
> did things the right way the first time.

Alas, there is no ONE right way - there are far too many variables to contend with. What's right for one project can end up costing you a fortune for another - it depends on what your hot criteria are. Project success will always be some function of cost, quality and time-to-market. Optimizing one of these criteria will generally adversely affect the other two. If you and your localization vendor don't agree on which is THE hot item, you've got a project failure.

Cheers,
Tom


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000