Chinese?

What do I need to do to create a Chinese website?

[pmkpmk]

Hi,

my colleagues from Sales want to have a handful of pages from our website to be available in Chinese. The information will be static, so a one-time translation will do.

However, I wonder what additional technology needs to be implemented to serve pages in Chinese? We use Apache on Linux, and preferably (but not mandatorily) those pages should be handled within our Typo3 CMS.

Any help?

[outrun]

Your using typo3 so you will first have to decide how your going to layout your two langauge pages as you probably know there are 2 ways, First is to have seperate databases and user has to choose which langauge which will have can have its on menu and content and so forth, this is good because if you only plan to do a one time translation and you update the english version you dotn have to translate that page.

Or you can do the alternative page version where the user still has to choose the langauge but there is one database that has alternative langauge for each page, which is good if you plan for every page to have an alternate langauge, it will display the default langauge if the translation for that page is unavailable.

Make sure you choose the correct character set UTF-8 is gaining in its usage but big5 is used a lot. You can set this up in typo3.

Make sure you also enable mbstring for php.

Thats as far as my experience goes im sure there is more to it but it will get you started.

regards,
Mark

[pmkpmk]

Well, using Typo3 for this would be an extra-bonus, but it is not mandatory.

So I do NOT need to add/enable any libraries/modules in Apache?

I'm going to get the Chinese text as a Word-file. Any advice how to convert that one into a web-enabled format?

[bill]

So I do NOT need to add/enable any libraries/modules in Apache?

Not that I know of. All you need is to set the proper character encoding. Just to clarify, UTF-8 may not be a good choice yet. If you're doing a Simplified Chinese page then gb2312 is probably your best option. For Traditional Chinese pages Big5 is what most use.

I'm going to get the Chinese text as a Word-file. Any advice how to convert that one into a web-enabled format?

We just had a thread that touched on that topic Simple Chinese & Traditional Chinese Translation problem [webmasterworld.com]. Just be careful that you don't carry any Word styles or formatting over to your HTML.

[eZeB]

I looked into this a couple of months ago. I have a number of chinese friends who go back and forth to Shanghai where they were born, and have since immigrated to Canada. I was going to get them to translate several websites and they said everyone in China has a software/hardward program or device that will translate English pages to Mandarin or Cantonese (I forget which) or both (?).

Anyway, we descided not to translate anything because it appears they don't need it.

[bill]

I would be very wary of using any software/hardware to translate anything for purposes other than your own entertainment. ;) Machine translation is not very reliable. It may be useful if you want to get the gist of an unknown foreign language page, but it can not be used to replace a human translator for your site.

We've had many threads concerning this topic. Here are a few you might want to read through:

• Creating HTML mark-up for languages you don't know [webmasterworld.com]
  
• language translation [webmasterworld.com]
  
• Questions regarding site translation.... [webmasterworld.com]

[redstorm]

eZeB's opinion seems not right. Translation software is used in many computers in China, but not as wide as you described. What's more, like what bill said, you can not depend on software in many ways.

[songmaike]

. . . . Just to clarify, UTF-8 may not be a good choice yet. If you're doing a Simplified Chinese page then gb2312 is probably your best option. For Traditional Chinese pages Big5 is what most use.

Bill, can you follow-up on this. I've read many similar comments around the internet, but no one has explained why it's better.

I'm beginning work on a new Chinese site and I think it will be rather big in the end. I've been thinking about building it in unicode from the start to avoid any updates down the road seeing that ultimately unicode is the furture choice, but there seems to be strong feelings about for using the gb2312 and Big5 encodings.

[bill]

Well, the arguments have always been that it's better to stick with the traditional encodings for Chinese and Japanese due to support issues. The earlier a language group got online, like Japan, Taiwan & Hong Kong, the less likely they are to have full Unicode support in their software.

As time goes by on the web we're seeing modern browsers with great Unicode support, but you have to remember that your audience may not always be viewing your work on a PC, and even if they are they may not have newer software. It's a question of accessibility...kind of like the question, "when can I stop checking my sites in Netscape 4.x?" There were some legitimate concerns about Unicode support on Japanese sites with certain browsers only a few years ago. That concern is diminishing with the advent of better software, but it still pays to be cautious.

With your Chinese site you probably won't have many issues with UTF-8 if you're looking at the mainland market with Simplified Chinese. If you're targeting the Taiwan/Hong Kong market there may be some arguments to stick with Big 5 encoding.

[songmaike]

Thanks Bill.

I'm in fact looking at the mainland Chinese market, so I think I'll go with a 100% unicode web site.

Thanks for the input!