Building and maintaining a website requires extensive and thorough work, even more so when working with multiple languages. Although machine translation has made significant progress over the past few decades, it is best that businesses and individuals don’t rely on it solely, if at all. This is where professional translators enter the picture. In this article, I will discuss the aspects of website translation and share tips for delivering quality work in accordance with the image that the website wishes to convey.
Aspects of Website Translation
Websites come in all shapes and forms, whether it is an inspiring artist’s showcase website, a prestigious university’s official website or that of your favorite local Italian restaurant. The highly interconnected world we live in spurs businesses and other organizations to expand their reach through said websites – namely, by adapting or localizing their content into as many languages as required. What great news for professional translators! We will come back to the localization process a bit later.
For now, let’s focus on the potential target languages. As you can guess, it really depends on the purpose of the website and the entity behind it. For instance, businesses that have a very specific target market – say, Indian consumers – can narrow down their translation needs to a couple of languages: Hindi, Bengali… Other businesses or organizations that do not have such a clearly defined target audience, or, on the contrary, that aim to convey their message to as many people as possible, may find out about the most widely spoken languages in the world aside from English – Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, to name a few – and select the most relevant ones accordingly.
Speaking of the Spanish language, this brings us to the following key point: linguistic differences in the same language spoken in several countries. Just as English differs in terms of spelling, pronunciation and vocabulary – British English, American English, Australian English, and so on – Spanish is also a great example to illustrate such differences within Latin America: Mexican Spanish, Costa Rican Spanish, Columbian Spanish… And this goes for many other languages as well: Belgian French, Canadian French, Brazilian Portuguese, the list could go on! How exciting it is that a given language can harbor so many regional specificities and offer a wide range of translation opportunities! However, delivering quality work as a professional translator doesn’t only account for translating from the source language to the target language.
Localization is just as crucial, if not more crucial than content translation. A few examples of localization include using proper formatting for elements like dates, phone numbers and addresses, converting to local units of measurement and currencies, and changing content to suit cultural preferences. This last aspect is utterly important – quite a few businesses have failed to properly export their products and services to target countries precisely because they hadn’t taken into consideration the many cultural differences of said locations. Professional translators thus play a pivotal role in the proper and effective adaptation of any website content intended for a foreign audience.
Last but not least, delivering quality work means staying true to the website’s image and philosophy, although it might sometimes clash with localization needs – say, a friendly English website slogan that would appear as too intrusive for the Japanese audience. All in all, it is a matter of great knowledge of both source and target languages and their related cultures, and of a scoop of creativity. What a stimulating challenge!
Tips for Translators
Now, let’s talk practical. Unlike translation of documents of any kind – which generally have a clear beginning and end, and a structured body – website translation can be overwhelming at first, especially if the website is made up of a dozen of web pages and displays endless information. But worry not. Depending on the aim and means of the entity managing the website, you may either work together with fellow translators to carry out such a big project, or you may be asked by the project sponsor to partially translate the website: for instance, the ‘Homepage’ and ‘About Us’ sections only.
Once your translation project is clearly defined, where to start from? Before you even jump into your translation task, and especially if you are relatively new to website translation, you should definitely look for existing professional websites of a similar type, and whose primary language – as in, the native language – is your target language. Browse through every web page to get familiar with the tonal and visual aspects. Of course, each website has its own peculiarities, so you shouldn’t limit yourself to just one or two. The more websites you explore, the clearer understanding you will have and the smoother your translation process will be.
Remember your favorite local Italian restaurant mentioned above? Let’s say it has gained popularity among Japanese tourists and the owner wants to have the website translated for their convenience. The first thing you should do is look for official websites of renowned Italian restaurants based in Japan. Whether you are a native or have mastered the target language, there’s always room to learn from a given topic: jargon, newly coined words or expressions, catchphrases…
The following points have already been put forward in the aspects of website translation, but here is a kind reminder to be extra cautious with linguistic and cultural differences pertaining to a given target language and location. A website’s message could completely miss the point if the target audience doesn’t feel familiar with the tone and vocabulary used. Nonetheless, the localized content runs the risk of straying too far from the original message and the website’s philosophy can lose its essence. You will have to juggle between the needs and expectations of both the project sponsor and the target market.
Another important thing to keep in mind when translating website content is the available space. Some languages are more concise than others: a given sentence that holds in a single line in Mandarin could easily end up needing three lines in French. Depending on your source and target languages, you may have to reformulate some parts, avoid superfluous phrasing so that the target content fits in, or conversely, you may need to elaborate your phrasing to even it out with the source content. If you find that space and layout are an issue, it is best that you discuss it with the project sponsor to find alternatives. If you translate any left-to-right language into, say, Arabic – or the other way around – the web pages’ layout will have to be completely redesigned. In this case, you may be assigned to do so if you have the required skills, or work together with an appointed web designer.
In a few words
Website translation, in its wide variety of content and potential language pairs, offers so much room for professional development. It might not be every professional translator’s cup of tea, but this applies to any kind of translation! It could be the opportunity for you to build a long-term relationship with website owners and actively help their activity grow. Or you could work on a plethora of temporary projects and expand your knowledge along with your professional network. Either way, you will always gain valuable experience. So, would you consider giving website translation a try?
Leeman Mailys
La Traduction de A à Z 