When a client says, “Translate our website”

当客户说:“翻译我们的网站”

2020-07-06 02:40 Lingua Greca

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Website translations are generally interesting, and often involve a lot of content. Clients generally care a lot about their online presence, so they’re willing to put time, care, and money into their website translation–it’s not just a boilerplate document that no one will ever look at again. Website translations can be a logistical and technological rat’s nest. Clients often have the idea that they want to “translate their website” without having a clear idea of what that means. Translate the whole thing, or just parts? Translate the user interface, or just the content? Display the other language’s content on the same page as the original, or in a whole other version of the site? Let alone the translation process itself…things can rapidly become more complicated than they seemed at first. Always ask at the outset, “What technical process are we going to be using?” My client–for various reasons, including but not limited to translation–wanted to work in Word files. They created all of the new content for the site in Word, then sent me the Word files for translation. For me, this meant that the translation process was very simple; I translated the files in Trados for consistency purposes, but I didn’t have to deal with any HTML files or other translation interfaces. However (big “however”) this meant that the client’s web design firm had to insert all of the French and English content into their page templates, then a staff person had to proofread every single French page, and I had to proofread every single English page. This was time-consuming, but there were minimal opportunities for things to break down, from the technical standpoint. I translated in Word files (simple), the designer pasted the text into the pages (laborious but simple), and I proofread the pages and sent back a table with the corrections (also simple). This is a situation where you sort of have to “pick your poison.” If the website you’re translating is in WordPress (and I’d assume that Squarespace and other platforms have similar plugins), it can be really, really helpful if you can steer the client toward a plugin like TranslatePress. This allows you to translate in the front end of the website; you don’t have to deal with HTML code and no one has to paste text. This is probably the solution I’d pick if a client asked me. However, I think that translation plugins can cause some hassles: “we don’t want to add another technical layer to the project,” “our designer has never used this before and isn’t comfortable with it,” “we want all of the translated files in one place so that we can review them before they’re on the site,” etc. etc. I think the level of resistance you’ll encounter has to do with how tech-savvy the client is. Always (like, always always always) bring up proofreading and QA at the outset of the project. Who’s doing the proofreading and QA, and is the cost included in your initial quote, or is it separate? It’s bad enough to have a typo in a document, but much more publicly embarrassing if there are typos on a client’s website for the whole world to see. The entire site must be proofread before it goes live. When I proofed my client’s English site, I used TextAloud, my favorite speech-to-text tool that I’m always raving about. It was an absolute lifesaver; so much better than visually proofreading web pages for 20 hours. A place to add value: remind the client that a multilingual website is likely (let’s hope!) to generate inquiries from people reading the site in languages other than the original. What then? How will the client follow up on inquiries in other languages? This is particularly important for businesses that provide services or content that depend on language. If the client sells a physical product, maybe this isn’t much of a consideration; a multilingual ordering interface will simply allow people to place orders in their language that are then fulfilled like any other order. But let’s say the client is an Italian ski resort that wants an English website. Probably a good idea. But what happens when they start getting reservation inquiries in English? Will the English website create a demand for English-speaking staff, and can the client fill that demand? You can add a lot of value by flagging this up front, before the client goes crazy with a multilingual online presence.
网站翻译一般都很有趣,而且往往涉及大量内容。 客户通常很关心他们在网上的形象,所以他们愿意在网站翻译上投入时间、精力和金钱——网站不只是一个没有人会再看的样板文件。 网站翻译是逻辑和技术的修罗场。 客户经常有想要“翻译网站”的想法,但是他们对于“翻译网站”却没有一个明确的概念。 是需要翻译整个网站,还是只翻译部分网站? 翻译用户界面,还是只翻译内容? 在网页上同时显示翻译过后的目标语界面和源语界面,还是单独显示翻译过后的目标语界面? 更不用说翻译过程本身了……这可比你一眼看上去复杂多了。 客户总会一来就问:“我们要使用什么技术流程?”我的客户——出于各种原因,包括但不限于翻译——希望用Word文件工作。 他们用Word创建了网站的所有新内容,然后把Word文件发给我翻译。 对我来说意味着,翻译过程会很简单; 为了保证术语一致性,我在Trados中翻译了文件,而且我不必处理任何HTML文件或其他翻译接口。 然而,这意味着客户的网页设计公司必须将所有的法语和英语内容插入到他们的页面模板中,然后需要一个工作人员来校对每一个法文页面,而我则需要校对每一个英文页面。 这很耗时,但从技术角度来看,出错的机会减少。 在Word文件中进行翻译很简单,设计师将文本粘贴到页面中虽然费力但也简单,我校对完页面然后将带有修订痕迹的表格发回也很简单。 在这种情况下,你必须得做出选择。如果你翻译的网站在WordPress中(我想Squarespace和其他平台也有类似的插件),如果你能引导客户使用TranslatePress这样的插件,那会非常有帮助。 这样的话,你可以在网站的前端进行翻译,同时不必处理HTML代码,也无需粘贴文本。 如果有客户问我,这可能是我会选择的解决方案。 然而,在客户引导使用翻译插件方面可能会遇到一些问题,比如客户会提出,“我们不想在项目中再增加一个技术层”,“我们的设计师以前从未使用过这个,不习惯用它”,“我们希望所有的翻译文件都放在一个地方,这样我们就可以在它们上网站之前对它们进行检查”等等问题。这时你遇到的阻力程度则与客户对技术的精通程度有关。 在项目一开始总会提到校对和质检问题。比如,谁负责校对和质检,费用包括在初始报价中,还是单独的? 在文档中出现错别字已经够糟糕的了,但如果客户的网站上出现错别字,让全世界都看到,那就更让人难堪了。 整个网站在上线前必须进行校对。我在校对客户的英文网站时会使用我最喜欢的语音转文本工具TextAloud,我一直对它赞不绝口。它绝对是救命稻草,比人工校对网页20小时要好得多。 一个可以增值的窍门:提醒客户,一个多语言网站很可能引起阅读该网站的人用原始语言以外的语言进行咨询。那怎么办呢?客户将如何跟进其他语言的咨询?这对于提供服务或内容依赖语言的企业尤为重要。如果客户销售的是实物产品,也许这并不是什么考虑因素,多语言订购界面只需要让人们用自己的语言下订单,然后像其他订单一样完成。但假设客户是一家意大利滑雪场,想要一个英文网站。但当他们开始收到英文的预订咨询时,会发生什么?英文网站会不会产生对英语工作人员的需求,客户能不能满足这种需求?你可以在客户疯狂地建立多语言的在线存在之前,通过预先标记这一点来增加很多价值。

以上中文文本为机器翻译,存在不同程度偏差和错误,请理解并参考英文原文阅读。

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