Chinese website

[entrylevelwebsites]

Hi there

I have a client who wishes to promote his services on his website in Chinese Languages in China.

Any starters on how to code this? All current pages are standard html.

Are the tags in English and the text in Chinese or Unicode? or is the whole site converted to Chinese

(I realise there's more than one language used in China but using Chinese as a generic term)

Some hlp would be fantastic.

Thank you.

 

[cragrat]

I'm not sure how to go about entering the text. but make sure you've got the correct language in your doc type declaration. The W3C seem to recommend zh-Hans for Chinese. Other than that it's the same html/xhtml mark-up.

 

[entrylevelwebsites]

Thanks for that; so you think keep all the coding/formatting the same ie in English but then get the text translated ?

Any idea where the unicode kicks it? I've seen and read a little about unicode but its not really my bag!

(You spend tyears keeping things simple and then someone wants to complicate it!)

 

[gadus6106]

We had a client who needed about 8 versions of a site in different languages, including Chinese. We kept the code separate and used language include files so the various bits of text in all the languages were held in a database and picked up and inserted into the site as appropriate. We used simplified Chinese (the one that's used on the mainland) on the advice of Chinese colleagues and because of the target market. You also need to install the font, obviously.

 

[entrylevelwebsites]

thanks for that - presumably the html is therefore a universal language (it kind of makes sense that it is)?

 

[ozbon]

Yes, the HTML is standard "mark-up", which is primarily there for the browser to understand what to do with the content.

So you'd still have (for example) <div id='content'></div> but the contents would be translated to Chinese (or whatever language)

So long as you make sure that the language marker is set (as Cragrat said) then you should be OK. But you'll need to provide the translated content (i.e. you'll be putting it into the pages and/or database) - the browser won't do the translation for you.

The language marker is more so that the browser knows which character set to use, and I believe (although could be wrong) it's also used by Search Engines in order to assist with flagging content that may need translation etc.

 

[entrylevelwebsites]

perfect! I thought it was the case but it's great when someone (all of you help too)

 

[ukperson1]

Some quick comments:

- To promote a website in china you will definately need to translate it in Chinese (depending on the area of china you wish to target, you need to use the relevant dialect). For translation I would highly recommend www.translate-to-chinese.com who have actually done a lot of work for the chain of Hilton hotels in China.

- There are various chinese character sets as well as codepages. ...and that's for Mandarin (Simplified chinese) alone. They all work but the approach from a technical perspective is different.

- The chinese use different search angines (eg. Baidu is used far more than Google) and the chinese also search in a different way, using a different way of thinking, compared to the british. This is something that needs to be taken into account. You might want to look for doing some Chinese SEO.

 

[Pab]

Many professional translation companies have software that makes working with html a breeze.

If you're using static pages, all you need to provide the company your html files. They will translate it with a human who is supported by computer-aided translation software that preserves the code. The end result is perfectly formatted html page with the foreign language inserted. If you're using a CMS it's even easier.

Let me know if you need any further info. We've translated many websites so I'm happy to advise.

 

[murdoch]

have a client who wishes to promote his services on his website in Chinese Languages in China.

pm if you want me to put you in touch with some Hong Kong based website guys to give you some advice or help..... it might be worth you double checking that you are doing everything correct with them who have more experience of the china market