| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Approaching badly translated websites? Thread poster: Paul Betts
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Hi all,
Scenario: you stumble upon a badly translated site.
Most likely, the company falls into either of these categories:
a) If it's a global, well known brand, they most likely already have a translation provider, and it's most likely a (multilingual) agency. In that case, they wouldn't consider dealing with solo translators anyway. They'll be grateful that you point out a quality flaw, but they'll use it to pressure and haggle their existing provider, not choo... See more Hi all,
Scenario: you stumble upon a badly translated site.
Most likely, the company falls into either of these categories:
a) If it's a global, well known brand, they most likely already have a translation provider, and it's most likely a (multilingual) agency. In that case, they wouldn't consider dealing with solo translators anyway. They'll be grateful that you point out a quality flaw, but they'll use it to pressure and haggle their existing provider, not choose your services.
b) If it's a "here today - gone tomorrow" dot.com or unknown company, their budget/brand consciousness/ambition is low, that's why they ended up with a bad translation in the first place. The content was translated internally, by a non-professional translator or 1-cent-agency.
Worst case, they might give you a translation job but end up not paying!
c) The company is serious about their image, but their content is static. Many sites have versions in EN/DE/FR/IT/ES, but treat the content as a placeholder that doesn't need to be updated. OK, you might convince them to get a proofreading/updating assignment, but there's a lot of canvassing and pitching for a tiny one-off job, and you'll never hear from them again.
d) This is the kind of companies that you should target: small enough to want to deal with solo translators (vs. agencies), but big/successful enough to have a continous flow of new content that they will send you.
Think ROI (return of investment): does the company have the funds and consider your language/market to be important enough for the "product" they're selling? Would they spend maybe 300-3000 EUR on your language, confident that the investment will come back to them in the form of more business?
- Sometimes, a badly translated site means the answer to this question is "no".
It might even be a better signal to come across a mono- or oligo-lingual site that is not translated to your language yet. If you're lucky, it's a native company, just about to break and become successfull abroad. If your timing is right, you can convince them to translate the site into a new (your!) language.
With this approach, it would probably pay off more reading the business pages to find out with companies are securing new deals overseas, than searching for tacky translations... Of course, this is just one field of translation. If you work for NGOs, government authorities, etc it's a completely diferent ball game. Someone else with have to chip in on that.
Just my two cents worth....
Good luck,
Jan
[Edited at 2007-05-22 08:43]
[Edited at 2007-05-22 08:44] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Italian music website | May 22, 2007 |
I dwelled upon an Italian music website and discovered that it's English section needed "patching up". I registered on the forum there and ended up "fixing" their translations.for free because I liked the band hosted there! I enjoyed that a lot.
Robert.
| | | | Paul Betts 
Local time: 00:02
French to English
TOPIC STARTER
I am so very pleased with the number and quality of responses and shared actual experiences - it gives me much to think about. So I will review the framework approach that I had put together before the thread, with your help comments, pointers and reflections. I will - if people don't mind adding further critiques - offer two slightly different strategies to split test. Equally if people are interested, the results! (Perhaps it may be of some benefit to forum colleagues.)
I know ... See more I am so very pleased with the number and quality of responses and shared actual experiences - it gives me much to think about. So I will review the framework approach that I had put together before the thread, with your help comments, pointers and reflections. I will - if people don't mind adding further critiques - offer two slightly different strategies to split test. Equally if people are interested, the results! (Perhaps it may be of some benefit to forum colleagues.)
I know some people think it may be abit daft and a waste of time, but the principle reason (aside from my shared dismay at the quality of translations), is that I have web design experience in both sides of my language pair - so there could be a pay off for me if some design/update/consultancy work falls my way.
Anyhoo in the interim, please feel free to add any more comments about any other approach subtleties that may be of help, and I will do my best to come back as soon as I can pull it all together.
Best regards, Paul.
[Edited at 2007-05-23 22:31]
[Edited at 2007-05-24 11:21] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Web designing | May 24, 2007 |
I have no experience whatsoever with the actual technical part of web designing. I just do the basic translation itself and send it to the administrators who then insert the translation into the designing part. Even if I did do the designing, it wouldn't help much because the websites usually have their own "resident" web designer.
Rob
[Edited at 2007-05-24 21:56]
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