Some of you are
already familiar with that phrase. Coca Cola was faced with the
translation to Chinese of their product name. The words that
sounded closest translated to: bite the wax tadpole. They finally
ended up with words that sounded close and translated: happiness
in the mouth. You can read a few more hilarious examples at:
http://hearsay.simplenet.com/translation/index.html
Jupiter predicted in a recent report that the number of Internet
users in Latin America would grow from 9 million people today to
38 million within three years. A study released by Forrester
Research Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., predicts that most Asian, South
American and Western European nations will hit a point of
electronic-commerce "hypergrowth" over the next four years,
turning the Internet into a more global business engine.
The reason I bring these topics up is that the web by it’s
very nature is global and a growing piece of the pie is going to
be to people who don’t speak English. I own and operate a
site called http://TFBBS.com
which features TeleFinder Server/BBS software that operates on the
Mac platform. The program has sold Internationally and when we
picked up the distributorship we ended up with world wide
distribution.
There are many TeleFinder customers in South America and the only
Spanish I know I learned at Taco Bell. We began getting
correspondance asking for assistance with the program almost
immediately and we had to learn to deal with it quickly.
I remembered that AltaVista at one time offered translation
services for free over the web and they still do, and that
includes web pages. http://world.altavista.com/ will get you what
you need in latin based languages anyway. They even offer Russian.
They don’t however offer any of the Asiatic languages.
Okay now here is the problem. I am using a bit of copy from my
main site page.
Original English:
TeleFinder
Server is a package that gives you everything you need to set up a
complete Internet site for your business, schools, or
organizations. Use TeleFinder to keep in touch with off-site
colleagues, clients, and friends. TeleFinder's Mail and Public
Message areas provide quick and easy communication.
Spanish Translation:
El servidor
de TeleFinder es un conjunto que le da todo que usted necesita
instalar un sitio de Internet completo para su negocio, escuelas,
u organizaciones. Utilice TeleFinder para permanecerse en contacto
con los colegas, los clientes, y los amigos del apagado-sitio.
Translation from Spanish back to English:
The server
of TeleFinder is a assembly that gives everything him that you
need to install a site of complete Internet for your business,
schools, or organizations. TeleFinder uses to remain itself in
contact with the colleagues, the clients, and the friends of the
dull-site.
When did I get a
dull-site? I take it you can see the problem. We are back to the
“bite the wax tadpole” problem. Does the Spanish
translation really sell my product properly or did I just insult
someones mother?
I guess the main point is that if you expect to put up a foreign
language version of your site you need someone who is fluent in
the language and that likes you. You cannot use a translation
package to do all the work for you.
There are services out there that you can send your copy to and
they will send back translated. http://bizbuyer.com
is a place to start if you have a lot of material and a big
budget. They provide the service so that you can receive quotes on
translations of materials. There are literally hundreds of net
based services, so shop around. If you can, get someone else that
is fluent in the language to look over your materials before
announcing your site. Even with a professional translation job
sometimes things get translated out of context. Also remember for
example, that Spanish has several dialects in the U.S. alone. Your
material needs to be as universal as possible.
Useful Translators
The
BabelFish translators of AltaVista do work with limitations, and I
use them frequently to read a foreign language email and to
translate back my answers. You can quickly handle responses that
way and you wouldn’t want your customer to have to wait for
the time it takes to get your responses professional translated
even if you could afford it. I always include a line that we are
using an automatted translator and apologize in advance.
I also use
them to cruise the foreign newsgroups looking for product
discussions of the products I carry and my competitors. While the
translations are less that perfect we usually get by. If I were
running a hobby or simple information site, I might risk the
translation and hope that someone would help me out with the worst
problems. This won’t do for an e-commerce site. How can you
inspire confidence in your consumers.
Bob Nunn is
owner, Operator Headgap Systems, http://headgap.com,
http://tfbbs.com
Board Member, AppleCore of Memphis, Inc., http://memphisapplecore.com
Email: headgap@headgap.com
