Mulitlingual page

[attinder]

I want to create a mulitinual page, which will get data from sql server and show it to user in his/her chosen language. is there y way to do that.
I am thinking of doing it with uni code or using hex codes and then showing in particular font.

Please give ur suggestions

regards

[rewboss]

You seem to be asking for some kind of real-time online translation service. In which case, the answer is no, you certainly can't do it automatically.

What kind of data are you using? If it's very simple, just a small number of specific words and/or phrases, you could create a table with all the different translations you will need, and just pull the correct words from the specified column (SELECT spanish FROM dictionary WHERE english='cheese', for example). Beyond that, it's hopeless.

Back in the early 90s, I did a course called "Language, linguistics and the computer", in which I learnt the problems encountered by programmers of online translation services. Ten years later, experience with Babelfish and other translators has proved that little has changed. Linguists still tell the true story of a computer that was fed the English phrase "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" and translated it into Russian as "the liquour is agreeable and the meat is tender". (Or the one that was given "out of sight, out of mind" and came up with "unseen idiot".)

is there y way to do that

A stab in the dark: German keyboard?

[heini]

Multilingual sites are a topic often discussed here.

For a start I'd recommend using the site search [searchengineworld.com]. A good recent thread is this one: 4 ways of delivering different languages [webmasterworld.com]

Feeding the user pages in chosen languages from a database is per se a workable solution. The question, apart from the programming end of things, is this: Where do you get the translated texts from?

As rewboss said - automatic translation tools do not work. They produce terrible results.

So you would first have to get texts translated, by humans, where native speakers in almost any case are a must. Then you could feed the translations to your db and extract it on request.

From the point of search engine optimization anyhow this concept has some serious flaws.

How do you promote a multilingual site for the various languages/countries targeted? How do get the SEs to acknowledge your different languages? How do you get the local directories to list your site? What about targeted internal and external linking?

I'm not saying it's not doable.

But think about the alternative: you could have domains loaded with keywords and with appropriate TLD for each language. You could optimize each version seperately, from the navigation to the meta tags and alt texts. You could make each site a standalone success, supporting each other.
Such a way of delivering content in many languages gives you so much more opportunities.

And the translation will have to be done in either scenario.