Don't Lose Your Foreign Visitors by Insulting Them!

For some internet marketers it's become a cutting edge strategy to offer multi lingual navigation and promo material on their sites in the hope of expanding their client base. While it is true that international users whose mother tongue is anything but English are beginning to hit the web in hefty numbers, catering to them in their own linguistic format is an art in itself which doesn't lend itself to the cheap and easy "no brainer" pseudo solutions currently being hawked on the net. If you offer them one of those, chances are you'll fend them off forever. Count it as a well-meaning blunder as much as you will, fact is these clients-to-be can be quite relentless if you convey the impression that you couldn't care less about offering first class services. Don't forget that very many people actually love their mother tongue and don't enjoy seeing it massacred.

Linguistics and translation are sciences in their own right demanding due respect or - at the very least - professional handling. One thing the non-expert should get rid off - the sooner the better! - is the fond myth that familiarity with your mother tongue implies that you know all about language and its social ramifications. And it's not about lack of command of a foreign tongue either - more often than not, it's the basic concepts which are flawed, such as the belief that a word-by-word translation, though admittedly not very elegant, will at least give you a "general idea" of the source text's content. While this may actually be true to some extent within the very limited context of highly specialized technical fields (academic papers on chemistry rich in formulae and procedural descriptions being a case in point), the old law school adage "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" rules even here. Needless to say, relying on imperfect automatization can make matters even worse.

Translation bots tend to reflect this faulty reasoning, and their backing by popular opinion - uneducated in these matters as it usually is - is no great help either.

Here's just one example of what can happen if you opt for less-than-professional (read: usually free) "translation services". Let's take a real life German site rich in textual content and have a look at what the most popular translator bot makes of it.

<UGLYQUOTE>
"Welcomely tsigaan soft systems tsigaan news Software and computer services, also very good, give it meanwhile like the proverbial sand at the sea. Thousands of companies and Hirnen compile world-wide daily the most refined solutions, and although within this area - like everywhere in the life - all gold is long not, which probably shines there, then the standards and the requirements of the users in the last years nevertheless ever more rose."
</UGLYQUOTE>

Seriously - would you really want to see your site represented in this manner? Welcomely, indeed!