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I was thinking about this, and it seems it would be a good idea, but I tend to think that most people in the business world, and otherwise, in Europe speak English as a second language.
So do you think that it is needed to spend the time?
We have looked at this, as we are marketing across Europe from the UK.
The "Auto" translation of pages make a pretty poor job in most cases, with a lot of work needed to get the page looking presentable.
Key phrase translation is even more trouble, with the pages having very poor prospects without some form of specialist linguistic correction.
We concluded that sticking with English versions in the big internationally accessed SE's were best.
This is worthwhile for us, but it's essential IMO that you have fluent speakers of that language on hand to deal with customer service issues etc which can be costly.
Reality is that each European or global country is very different to the USA, and to each other country too.
In some countries a large proportion of the population will have English as a second language and be happy to use English (Netherlands for example). In such cases you can do fine with an English language site, provided it still has 'local value' to the visitors too.
In other countries, maybe half the population *could* understand English, but national pride will make them choose a local site in their own tongue foremost (France for just one example). Much of the time, if your pages are not in French you'll do little business in France provided there is *any* alternative.
In still other countries, English is not widely spoken or known. This doesn't only include countries with poorer education, but also those countries with closer links to other non-english countries where German, Italian or Spanish may be the most common choice of second language.
If you are truly interested in global marketing then you need global accessibility. At the very least the site should have English, German, French and Spanish languages support. The costs of translation will soon be recovered in sales.
However, do be aware that just as England and the USA and Canada share a common language but have many differences too, so are other countries not made identical simply by sharing a common language.
Slang is always local, like the word 'Fanny' for example, which is an acceptable word for butt in the US, but a not-so-acceptable term for the female genitalia in the UK. Be very careful to always get the site checked over by a local for such gaffes whenever possible.
there will be more Internet users in Europe than in the US within a matter of months
there are more people speaking Chinese than any other language, eventually there will be more Chinese speakers on the Internet than English speakers
we currently work in eleven languages, this will be going up to fifteen later this year...the English part of the site was overtaken in usage by the translations months ago...we get nearly as many visitors to the Spanish index as to the English one...German and French are not all that far behind...I've barely started promoting in Chinese
India is becoming a powerhouse of web activity...it is probably already well worth doing business in Hindi...as the North African nations get connected Arabic is becoming a major web language (our number 4 just ahead of Portuguese)
it is going to pay to build multilingual sites if it doesn't already
though there are major issues about how best to do this
Language issues have been discussed in great depth and on many occasions at WebmasterWorld's European forum. An overview is found in the Strategy Primer [webmasterworld.com] where there are also links to two of the biggest language discussions.
