Translation Translation Translation

Yesterday I had news from my contact in regard to a little translation project I’ve been working on. I’ve blogged about this before - so far I’ve done this web 2.0 startup’s Terms of Service and their Privacy Policy. BTW I’m going to reveal who it is once their UK site is up and running…

Yesterday the contact and I had a quick chat on Skype [all names have been changed]:

[27/12/2006 17:47:46] non-lenina says: hi. has the programmer set you up with everything you need?

[27/12/2006 17:47:55] lenina says: nope

[27/12/2006 17:48:09] lenina says: i thought he was still working on it

[27/12/2006 17:48:24] lenina says: you got any news?

[…]

[27/12/2006 17:49:07] lenina says: so, are the text files ready?

[27/12/2006 17:49:09] non-lenina says: no, the programmer is on holiday until the 30th. I can’t reach him right now, and I’m leaving as well. but as long as you 2 are in touch…

[27/12/2006 17:49:16] lenina says: hm.. what’s the plan then?

[27/12/2006 17:49:24] non-lenina says: yes, the text files and an interface is ready

[27/12/2006 17:49:31] non-lenina says: I thought he gave you the access. hmm

The problem is that the programmer (who’s an old friend of mine) went on holiday without filling me in on the latest with regard to translating the rest of the website (GE into BE). He was going to train me last week Friday I think, but it never came to it. Maybe the site isn’t ready. When I looked at the interface it still had what appears to be the old version.

Briefly, the problem with the old interface was as follows: The programmer had separated all the text from any code and then kind of pulled it together at the other end in an interface. I.e. the idea was to extract the basic text from the rest (html code etc.) and then create an interface with forms where I’d simply fill in all the translations into a form and then click submit, thus making them ‘live’.

Big problem: Nearly all sentences were chopped up! Impossible to translate half sentences that are listed totally out of context and instead in alphabetical order! I gave them extensive feedback about it a few weeks ago and I do hope that they’ve changed it! I mean, how am I supposed to translate these bits and bobs without any context or knowledge what sentence they belong to? Examples from the backend:

• ‘Zurück zur Künstler Seite von’ [back to the artist page of]
• ‘Bilder von’ [images/pictures of]
• ‘hochgeladen durch’ [uploaded by/using/with]
• ‘noch keine’ [not yet any]

It is certainly possible to translate these bits; however, how is the sentence going to come out the other end, after being put back together by a computer program? I don’t think it’s going to work and I do sincerely hope they give me access to the full sentences and the full text extracted as text file so I can see the context. If they don’t, I can translate and I’m going to send them an invoice for it; however, I’ll make it quite clear to them that I can’t guarantee for the quality of the end product if the sentences are assembled by software rather than wetware. Bloody programmers - they think everything is binary