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Multiple language website
I have been reading a few threads about how to set up a website in Textpattern with multiple languages. I also read about the MLP Pack and it seems the way to go. The problem I’ve got that my client wants – apart from English – a French and a Chinese version and would like to update the articles individually. So no “automatic” translation through MLP. Is my only way of attacking this in duplicating all articles for each language version? Or is there any other way?
Thanks a lot
ottiu
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Re: Multiple language website
otti wrote:
my client wants… a French and a Chinese version and would like to update the articles individually.
I’m not a heavy MLP user but I believe that is how it approaches things. There’s no automatic translation per se, it simply helps you manage multiple copies (what MLP calls Renditions) of each article per language.
I think the workflow is:
- you write the English
- tell MLP you want to make those articles available in your other languages (it adds them to its matrix)
- the English content is cloned and you pass those to your French and Chinese translating teams (use TXP’s user management for this so they can edit/overwrite their own copies in draft mode)
- When the copy is ready, you make its status live then MLP and its tags take care of the URL rewriting drudgery, rendering pages and allowing visitors to choose the language (among many, many other things!)
That’s probably a bit simplified but I think that’s the general gist of how the process hangs together. Someone will undoubtedly correct me if I’m wrong.
Last edited by Bloke (2008-10-13 12:25:24)
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Re: Multiple language website
Hi Bloke,
Thanks for that information. I was not aware that MLP does not translate automatically. As I mentioned before I’m just at the quoting stage for this website.
I will have a deeper look now and hope I will get it to work.
Thanks for your help.
otti
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Re: Multiple language website
@Bloke: Well done, sir. “Simplified” is right, and I’ll add clear and concise.
@otti: As far as I know, there isn’t anything out there, cms or otherwise, that automatically translates full articles between languages, and for good reason. Look at how terrible a job Babel Fish does with just simple phrases. Imagine trying to auto-translate an article on the topic of processing uranium, or the structure of mouse DNA; further, making the translation between two languages like Arabic and Chinese, or even English and French. Without it being done manually by human translators, it’s nearly (arguably is) impossible. The semantic differences between languages alone are a significant barrier. That eventually might be overcome, but another challenge is domain-specific vocabularies, or such hurdles as expressions, humor, and other stylistic aspects of communication.
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Re: Multiple language website
@Otti
Destry is spot on, of course, about automatic translations. They produce results that are laughable and will completely torpedo the message that the site is trying to send. If you are putting together a quote for a multi-lingual site, you may well wish to include professional translation costs. I can give you a rough feeling for that. I used this company to translate a 600 page technical manual I wrote in English into Italian. The cost was USD 0.18 per unique word and, I think, USD 0.12 per repeated word. That would hold good for an English to French translation but I suspect that the cost per word may be marginally higher for Mandarin or Cantonese. I approached about 10 US based companies originally and settled for this one because their price was good and they were Computer and Internet savvy. Though based in rural North Carolina (keeps the overheads down), the gent who runs the company is a Luxembourger who studied Linguistics in Germany. My work was carried out by an Italian academic in Rome and quality checked by another in Sienna whom they have on their ‘books’. The company is capable of writing translations directly into a Textpattern site, if that is helpful. They are very happy to give a no strings attached quote for their work. You can download a very good document about planning for and managing translations from their site.
The plug-in lam_article_info provides a live word count in TXP articles.
Last edited by joebaich (2008-10-15 01:30:44)
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Re: Multiple language website
Thanks guys for all the info. I used automatic translators before and know about the “quality” of the translations. It’s good to know that MLP is apparently building a solid base for translations and I don;t have to go through duplicating pages manually. I like to have it controlled.
Joebach, this is very handy information about the translation company. My client indicated that they would like to translate themselves. The are in the Seychelles and have access to translators internally.
I know have to figure out how get the Chinese version sorted (which fonts to use for the CSS etc).
Thanks again to all
otti
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Re: Multiple language website
Hey Otti,
They … have access to translators internally.
and the band played ‘Waltzing Matilda’ :-)
I would pass them a copy of the Apex guide to planning and managing translations anyway. The sad thing is that the web designer looks bad if the client’s ‘translators’ don’t do a good job.
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