neophyte - 1:07 pm on Dec 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

Hello All -

I didn't expect this thread to receive so many responses. Great thanks to all who have participated so far.

Regarding ergophobe's question about what type and volume of content might be translated, it would be for a hospitality (hotel and restaurant) ranking site.

Indeed, the content for this site would be updated regularly with new hotel/restaurant reviews as well as feedback from those who have visited the establishments listed (think TripAdvisor, etc).

English would be the base language but translations are being considered in Japanese, Korean, German, French and Dutch.

Given all of the feedback so far - and potentially regular site additions and feedback comments - this may very well not be a good idea from a standpoint of machine translation accuracy and human translation cost (and accuracy) UNLESS just the home page text was accurately human translated (and checked) with a disclaimer that all other pages will be displayed in English.

Under this scenario, would just a home page translation (and disclaimer that all other site text would be in English), be seen by non-native English end users as a tease? Or would they appreciate this comparatively minor effort to court their interest in the site and it's English content?

Neophyte