Cindy King's International Business Blog » online translation

How To Use Online Translation Tools

Cindy King — Wed, 28 May 2008 09:53:09 +0000

As you know from reading my previous posts, I think free online translation tools are great… for certain tasks.

Use them for you own internal international market research. Find out what your competitors are doing overseas. Do some international product research. Try to identify cultural differences in international markets. Use them to simple try to get deeper insights into foreign cultures.

But… Never use them to write any sales content or sales materials. And think twice about relying on them for any other translations.

Having said that, using an online translation tool can be very quick and helpful. This is especially true if you are translating from a foreign language into your own language. You will probably see the mistakes that the translation tool makes and be able to decide what the writer was saying.

The Best Way To Use Online Translation Tools

There probably is no ‘best way’ to use an online translation tool, but I have a method that works for me. I use this when translating into a language that I can not read at all.

Need a name for the process? I think of it as the translate back and forth process.

I take one piece of text and translate it using the online tool. Then I take the result and translate the new text in the foreign language back into English.

Is this perfect? No.

Does this help? Yes.

This process can give you an idea where the software is stumbling on the translation.

Let’s Test The Process

As an example, I translated “For the first time ever, I have brought this group together for one, extraordinary event” into Russian using an online tool. When I took the Russian and translated it back to English the result was “I first brought this group together for its part, extraordinary event”.

Let’s see…

“For the first time ever, I have brought this group together for one, extraordinary event”

“I first brought this group together for its part, extraordinary event”.

That is not even close.

So I changed the original phrase:

“I have brought this group together for this extraordinary event”

“I brought this group together with this extraordinary event”

Another try:

“For this extraordinary event, I have brought this group together.”

“During this extraordinary event, I have already put this group together.”

Another try:

“For the first time ever, I have brought this group together for one event.”

“I first brought this group together for one event.”

A final try:

“For the first time, I have brought this group together for this extraordinary event.”

“The first time I have brought this group together with this extraordinary event.”

None of these results match the meaning the author first intended.

After working with the translation tools, I started to see that shorter phrases worked best.

When I translated “But that’s not all” into Romanian or French and back, it came back perfect. But…

Bulgarian: But this is not all

Finnish: But it is not all

Japanese: However, it is not the only

This phrase came up with 3 very different results.

I took another example, a much longer phrase, and the results I got were:

“We the people of the United States to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic welfare, to provide for the common defense, promote the general well-being, and secure blessings of liberty for themselves and our posterity, and create what made the Constitution for the United States.”

Can you guess what the original text was in English?

Need a free translation widget to put on your website?

Download this Translation Widget on Get International Clients

Translation Widgets – A Small Step Towards Website Globalization

Cindy King — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:45:49 +0000

Translation Tools

When marketing to an international audience online translation widgets come in handy.

On my personal blog here at cindyking.biz, I chose a WordPress template with the translation widgets integrated. But it is not really ideal.

Get International Clients Newsletter – Translation Tool Reviews

First, a few comments on what the big guys are doing.

My Get International Clients newsletter has been published weekly now for three months.

Every week I have a look at a website that has been voted as one of the top 20 best Global Websites by John Yunker. I only do a brief review and look at 3 different points:

My general first impressions
The choice in language and country navigation tools
The use of templates

There are often some interesting things to note just by looking at these three points. With regards to the choice in language and country navigation tools it is obvious there are a few different solutions available for global companies.

All of the big companies have fully localized and translated websites in a large number of locations.

But not all of their localized websites are translated.

Most of the top 20 Global Websites use some sort of world map in the navigation from one country to the next, and one language to the next.

The important thing is to write the language in the foreign language. This does give the website a better global flavor.

Get International Clients – Translation Widget

And now let’s look at companies at the other end of the scale.

What are the choices for small companies, with one website targeting the world?

On my other blog at Get International Clients I am using another option. An instant translation widget with 24 languages to choose from on all of my pages and articles.

My articles on Get International Clients are longer and more detailed. They are customized to provide real tips and how to instructions for small businesses who want to do something now to get more international clients.

So the articles are more detailed. And they are read all over the world.

I wanted to try an easy translation tool, strategically placed on all of the articles, covering as many languages as possible. And the whole idea behind the Get International Clients website is to provide useful tips and how-tos.

So this downloadable widget helps the Get International Clients readers by giving them a translation service and also provides them extra value.

The widget was made for my readers in China, and in any of the countries where Google Translate supports the language. They can download the Get International Clients Translation Widget, for free, and put it up on their website….it would be a useful service for my readers to offer all of their readers too.

You can read more about the Translation Widget in the Get International Clients Resource Guide.

Small Step Towards Globalization

Translation widgets come in a variety of different formats. Businesses just starting to expand internationally might consider putting up one of these free translation widgets.

They are not ideal tools for any marketing or sales materials. Only human translations can bring you sales results.

But they can be better than nothing in certain circumstances. International thought leadership does not always need 100% accurate translations online. In any event international thought leadership is subject to the many pitfalls in cross cultural communication, with or without translation.

Free translation widgets have one distinct advantage, they clearly identify your openness to the world.

Need a free translation widget to put on your website?

Download this Translation Widget on Get International Clients

Online Translations Tools Write Bad Sales Copy

Cindy King — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:25:30 +0000

Translation For International Sales

If you have been reading my posts here or my articles over at Get International Clients, you know that I find the online translation tools great… For International Market Research.

Although I have not used them for translating content, I read that this is a growing trend in large companies that have too much volume to feasibly translate. But these companies make careful choices in what they translate with these tools.

Online translation tools have improved dramatically. Their use will continue to grow. And I’m really open to this. Even professional translators use software tools to help speed up their process. But they are only part of the process. These translators have the knowledge and skill to accurately proof these translations, and know when to use them.

There is one rule to follow:

Never use online translation to tools alone to translate any sales or marketing copy… ever!

Good sales copy can only be written by a human being. And if you have the right human being writing your sales copy you will get international clients.

Don’t Miss…

Internationalize Your English

And in particular…

Translation Friendly International English