Site Translation

[Jay_Calvert]

My site has been getting a lot of attention from Germany, Netherlands and other countries whose main language is not english.

To help accomodate them, is there any easy way to translate my site for them, into their language or other languages for that matter?

Thanks

Jay Calvert
<snip>

[edited by: trillianjedi at 7:29 pm (utc) on Feb. 22, 2005]
[edit reason] Please see TOS - no URL drops or sigs please. Thanks ;-) [/edit]

[Mr Bo Jangles]

Having done it, I can tell you that it costs money to have done properly, but if you shop around you can spend wisely.
If you google for freelance translation sites, there are some really excellent sites that freelance web translators are members of, and where you can post (for free) details of your job and receive bids/offers, or you can name a fixed price you are prepared to pay.

Having then done it all, there is the on-going 'drag' of having to maintain the translated pages when you make some significant change to your primary language pages.

I suspect it's a deal of work for disproportionate return.

Cheers,

[Jay_Calvert]

Has anybody been able to use bablefish effectively, would you consider this an option?

[babelfish.altavista.com...]

They have a 'Translate this page' type ad that you can put on your site, but is it stealing hits from you if you use it?

Jay

[lammert]

I just tried babelfish to translate this thread to Dutch. LOL! To be honest, I didn't understand the translation. It uses words that were common some centuries ago. These words are still in the dictionaries, but are no part of the active language anymore. Word translation according to context is bad. The program translated your word "site" to "place" for example. Maybe the German translation is better though.

My advice: If you want a serious translation, hire a native speaker an let him/her translate your site.

If translation is necessary depends on the people you want to target. The higher educated people in Holland can read English websites without problems, but if you are targetting the consumer market a local language version helps.

<added>
This is your original post, first translated from English to Dutch, than back to English with Babelfish. You might understand why hiring a human translator is better.

My a lot attention of Germany has, the Netherlands and other countries got of which head language it is none English. Them, are there any easy manner my place for them, in their language or other translate languages for that question to adapt to help?
</added>

[henry0]

Never and ever trust any tool

If you are looking for a translator seek a translator that was born in the country corresponding to the language your site will be translated in

I was born FR, am US citizen and can pick up in 10 secs any translation done as I described above, although totally correct it will lack a great deal of feeling. Can't you pick up my "accent" through my post :)

regards

Henry

[Staffa]

I suspect it's a deal of work for disproportionate return.

Agreed when talking about 3-4 years ago. For the last year or so things have been changing.