a choice

raven — Wed, 28 Mar 2001 19:41:17 +0000

As a person who works in two (and occationaly 3) languages on a site, i've discovered a few facts (mosta re sad so bring on the tissues- i'll wait).
You can run parallel pages- which is the work times two(or 3, etc.)
No program will ever be able to translate one language into another the way it should be- sorry. (on the bright side we will always need people for something!)
Actually, providing you don't want arabic which is very scriptive, a solution or two has been thought up in israel. take a look at some of the goverment sites. get some ideas.
and be happy you don't live in India.
raven

going for nobility

Jo Tomlinson — Wed, 28 Mar 2001 10:23:46 +0000

Oh well.
I'll just have to accept my fate of translating it all. (This would be a little smilie with its hands up looking resigned).

Thanks anyway,
Jo

Megan — Wed, 28 Mar 2001 03:49:16 +0000

... and bad translation is a surefire way to alienate your foreign-language visitors (worse than not having a translation at all sometime I think)

I used to work for the government for awhile and we had terrible problems with translation. We always had to outsource most of the material to get it translated into French and that cost a lot of time and money. Providing a site in multiple languages is a really honourable thing to do but it is a lot of work.

Brian Farkas — Wed, 28 Mar 2001 01:25:37 +0000

I don't think there's any translation software that will work for you, as we haven't developed software with the ability to "think" on its own yet... The most reliable way would be to go with a human translator, as the translator programs will usually simply translate something word for word, and not get the actual meaning.

Brian

adalt — Tue, 27 Mar 2001 15:22:25 +0000

Hi,
I am in the same boat I want to have a Finnish/Engliah website, the only translating software i have tried has been pathetic as they translate word for word & not meaning for meaning, I found the only way was to build 2 sites that run next to each other & sharing databases for forums etc.
If you find anything let me know as 2 languages = 3x the work !!!!

Tony