Web site translation? What do you really mean?

I have spent the last few weeks working with a web translation company on a project to translate one of our small Flash-based web sites into a localised French language version. I should have realised at the outset that a small, seemingly straightforward, project like this which should be a smooth process might be a little more complicated because, at times, this process has been like pulling teeth. Whatever anyone may tell you about a straightforward language translation, this one has turned out to be far from the simple process it should be.

Can anyone out there assure me this sort of project could ever go well?

For this project I used a company I met at Internet World 2009 who told me at the time they were a one-stop shop for my web project translation needs – I send the source material and they send back a localised translation, all for a reasonable price – simple! At the show they were very approachable and I was most impressed by their skills and service offering – the portfolio showed skills working on web translation projects with a number of leading industry names - I felt quite confident.

One option for this web translation project, had time and resources been freely available, would have been to do it ourselves. We do have Flash onsite and some language translation resource available, however, having worked on projects similar to this some years ago, I am only too aware there are particular differences (nuances?) in localisation of languages and a bad translation or misplaced cultural reference would be quickly spotted by a fluent speaker – of which I am not. Once we got the translated project back we could of course take it from there and keep it generally maintained.

Another option may have been automatic or computerised translation. However, these products often fail to understand context which can lead to some very unusual, and often unexpected, translations – it also takes quite a bit of the “personal nature” of the web site away and distances the viewer.

The initial project should have taken seven days from submission to the end result, however we are now into week five and this project only has just under 500 words. The initial delay was caused because the web translation company asked me to send over the source files but forgot to tell me they had a receive file size limit of 10MB – my email disappeared into the ether until I chased progress several days later. Another delay has been introduced because we use the PC version of Flash while the translation company use the Mac version – and there are a few differences.

I have included a bullet list below of some of the lessons learned which I talk about in more detail in Lessons Learned Translating A Website:

• Understand the project scope especially timescales and any potential additional costs
• Ascertain whether this is a translation or localisation project
• Check the delivery mechanism and ensure you have all the master files included
• Double check the platform you have against the one the developers will use
• Ensure what you get back will be in the format you sent
• Think about text embedded in images or animations
• Understand the skill set of the people doing the work
• Check out your typeface and any licensing issues
• Verify appropriateness of country specific content
• Check the returned file completely before signing the project off

You may think from reading this reflection that this project has really put me off using a web translation company for our “one-stop shop” web translation needs but this is not the case. There have been a number of useful lessons learned which I will carry forward to future projects.

What has been your experience of using a web translation service?