Languages - how do you deal with them?

[deniser]

Our site is in English and when viewed in other countries is automatically translated by Google as far as I am aware as I remember being shocked to see it all in Spanish once when I logged onto it in Spain.

But we are getting increasing numbers of notes appended to orders in languages that we don't understand. We can understand 4 or 5 languages between us which means that we can make out most of it but we're completely baffled when it is in a different script such as Russian or Greek which we can view online but doesn't print out.

So far we have been a bit lazy and just ignored it and posted the orders out as is. But I feel a bit bad. Should I spend time trying to run it through an online translator (which may or may not work) or should they communicate in English if they are ordering from the UK?

 

[paultnl]

Put a note on your notes box that you can only respond to notes in x,y,z languages.

 

[TotallySport]

we got emailed by a company the other day that worked as a go between, basically (i think) enquiries from the customers get forwarded to them and if needed they are translated, then forwarded to you, you send them back a reply and they translate it and forward it onto the customer. I just thought it was a little expensive although I didn't really lok at it, if you want me to post a link let me know and I will dig it out.

I will point out I haven't used them or tested the quality of their service.

We simple put the information into babelfish and write a reply then translate it back and let the customer know we have used and online translater.

 

[Astaroth]

I would never use on an online translation for your own site. If your team are multi-lingual then they should know that these tools are ok for getting 75% of the message across they are not to the standard that you should risk your companies persona etc on them.

If your users want to use a tool themselves (like google) then that is their choice. If you want to target certain languages then it is better to have the site correctly translated into those languages. It is not massively complicated to set up localisation so that the site automatically displays in an appropriate language when the visitor hits the site or english if their PC is set to a language you don't support.

 

[Pab]

It's an interesting point Deniser has raised here and one which companies often don't consider.

As a translation company, we're regularly translating websites for clients. Often though, and particularly with smaller companies, little thought is put into the actual servicing of clients obtained from non English-speaking countries. There are, however, a few things you can do to make things go more smoothly:

• Ensure you have as much information as possible in the language of your customers, ideally including an FAQs section. The more information available to website visitors in their languages, the less likely they are to contact you and ask questions. This content should be professionally translated
• Have a tool in place that will allow you quickly understand something. Of all the statistical machine translation tools at the moment, Google Translate is best and produces the most accurate results - especially with Latin-script languages (it's getting a lot better with the others too). Free translation tools are great for getting the gist of something, but shouldn’t be used to communicate out
• Have some professionally translated canned responses. As you're able to obtain the idea of an enquiry from Google Translate, you can use your pre-translated responses to service these enquires. It won’t cover every enquiry, but it should help with most things
• Establish a relationship with a good language service supplier (a translation company). They will be able to help with all the translation of content and responses, and also will be able to assist with ad hoc requests that fall outside of the things you'd previously thought of, including any emergency telephone calls.

Ongoing telephone support for your customers is possible but it adds a new layer of complication. It’s not necessary in many cases though as well thought out and appropriate translations allow many companies to trade successfully with non-English speaking clients. It’s also worth noting that international customers don’t usually expect you to speak languages other than your own.

Finally, when you do find a translation company you want to work with, stick with them. Most use technology that stores and allows the re-use of your previous translations. What this means is, when you go back to them in future with more requests or updates to previous text, you only pay for new content and end up with consistent, on-brand translations. It can also save you quite a bit of money too!

I hope this helps.

 

[Sue Clark MTT]

Heartily agree with Pab - a great answer.

Google translate just won't make the right impression and it's easy to make a good one even on a limited budget.

Good post. Hope you sort it out.