Cross-cultural connections -- kind of
Social media is about social connectivity, and while English may be the de facto language of business, language can be a severe restraint in making connections with different cultures. This post points to a tool that is nothing short of amazing. Not surprisingly, it comes from Google: the Google Translator.
With this tool a user puts in your Web site and chooses from 11 different languages to translate the page into. In three seconds or so, the page appears, but it’s been translated into the chosen language. To test the service, we performed rigorous, extensive research, which consisted of one staff person fluent in Spanish and another who does pretty good with German looking at translated Acronym pages. This extensive research led to the conclusion that “it does a pretty good job.” One example of the confusion they saw: The post “If you can’t beat them, join them” was translated as “If you can’t hit them, join them.”
In case you don’t trust this extensive research, the Wall Street Journal had an article (creepy article, if you ask me, as it talks about how Ford relies on machine translation for translating assembly procedures for its international assembly plants—they say it’s “not perfect” but it’s “good enough”… Good enough? Yikes, I’d rather they be closer to perfect if I drove a Ford.) and ars technica has an in-depth blog post looking at a Spanish translation.
Oh, and, of course, there’s associated widgets. Here's one. If you can find a place for this monstrosity of a widget icon, you can show people that your site is instantly translatable into other languages.
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Comments
Scott, I would urge potential users to perform appropriate due diligence for automated translations, particularly if one's site includes many (important) technical, scientific or discipline-specific terms.
Our association uses automated services for both Spanish and Chinese and our results are not what we would like. We are changing our approach.
Part of the challenge is the specific technical terminology applicable to your field or discipline. This may (or may not) be easily and consistently translated by automated systems, as your comment points out.
There's another issue, however. That issue is that French spoken and written in France in not completely the same as in French provinces in Canada. Spanish in Latin American is not completely the same as in Spain or the Phillipines. In addition, there are regional variations and dialects which affect translations.
The point is if "good enough" is good enough (which it apparently is for Ford--is quality truly Job 1?), then, by all means use the automated translators. But if accuracy is important, manual translations, in both directions, is still the essential standard.
Finally, there is the issue of credibility with your targeted audiences. I don't know about anyone else, but my credibility in an organization and web site is less than 100% if they can't post a simple and accurate declarative sentence in my home language. If they can't arrange a proper noun, verb and modifier, what else can't they do that is more challenging?
Pick your translation process on just how important accuracy is (or isn't).
Just our global experience. YMMV.
Posted by: Virgil Carter | November 10, 2007 8:17 PM