Let’s assume you have an English-language, web-based business, including downloadable documents. To expand, you have to reach out to non-English-speaking customers. You must translate and transform your content for non-English speakers. When you get into the details, you realize this is complicated: Numbers may need different formatting, print and web layouts will likely need to be adjusted, cultural differences can be a mine field, specialized technical terms require deep expertise, and myriad other issues. You quickly realize that localization is a lot of work, and you may have to repeat it for each target language or culture.

Where do you start? You must choose between automated and human translation-or some combination of the two. Automated translation is fast but generally low quality. Using Google Translate, I round-tripped a former General Electric tag line: “We bring good things to life.” I translated that from English to French, and back to English to see what, if anything, changed. The round-tripped English was, “The good things in life.” Clearly, something was lost in translation. More.

See: EContent

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