More and more website owners are now trying to reach people who speak other languages. Russian is now among languages most often translated into. It's no wonder. For any e-business reaching this audience means new clients and business partners, higher profit, as well as more recognition and publicity.
But before you achieve all this, you should make considerable effort and investment. To begin with, your website, advertisements, and other texts should be written for your would-be audience and translated.
What if you don't have much money right now? Translation is a pretty expensive service. Prices start somewhere from 12 cents per word, so translation of a middle-sized website can cost you up to a thousand dollars. Even if you manage to find some really cheap freelance translator from Russia, a site in Russian will cost you several hundred dollars anyway. Can you do something with less money? Of course.
You can:
- Apply machine translation (MT)
It's usually the first that comes to a Webmaster's mind. Free (or dirt-cheap) and very quick, MT is a great help where the goal is to merely understand what some text is about. But remember - a computer program, however complex, is not a human brain… Don't expect too much.
Most machine translations from Russian into English are better than from English into Russian. It might seem strange, but it's really so. It happens because of the huge difference between English and Russian grammars. To have a general idea of what your translated Web page will look like, take any page in Russian, machine-translate it into English and try to read, keeping in mind that MT into Russian will be worse.
Online website translators are very easy-to-use. The results can vary. In my opinion, PROMT (http://www.online-translator.com/translator.asp?lang=en) produces the most understandable machine translation into Russian. Maybe, it's because Russians originally made it for their own market.
If you use MT a lot, consider buying special software.
Pictures can be also very helpful if a site will be machine-translated. If your website is for selling goods, you'd better let the merchandise advertise themselves. Most Russians understand common icons and pictograms pretty well. Make the site navigation as simple as possible and less dependent on words -- it can be crucial for your customers who visit pages of your website, machine-translated into Russian.
- Look for a Volunteer This probably is the most suitable way for organizations, especially for non-profit ones. There can be people who know Russian in the staff, among their friends, or in their families. Why not ask, say, a Russian-speaking student to translate website of the university he is studying at?
- Pay for Translation with your Product or Services Why not look for somebody in your target audience who can translate your website? Products you produce and services you provide do cost money. Both parties will receive what they want - and everybody will be happy.
- Offer Translators Free Advertising -- a Link or a Banner
Advertising on your site – that's what you can offer instead of money. Translation agencies (mine included) and freelancers sometimes offer such an exchange -- translation of a webpage for a permanent banner or a link to the translator's website.
Look for such offers in the Web or suggest it yourself. Translators can consider it a good idea. An ad -- especially on a popular web page -- could be the very thing they need.
What you had better NOT do:
- Don't hire a freelancer and cheat him or her when it comes to paying for the work. (No, I don't believe you'll ever think of such a dirty trick. But such things do happen sometimes)
First, it's immoral and against the law. Second, translators don't like to be cheated and can hit back. It's true that Russians don't like to sue even most unscrupulous clients. But such a "client" will very soon appear in numerous blacklists and forum messages (in English as well) all over the Internet, where this info will stay for good. So, if somebody googles the name of this trickster or his company, here it is – a dirty little secret. Not a nice reputation for a businessman…
- Don't make your website out of free test translations from different translation agencies. First, it's unfair. Second, such a website most likely will be quilt-looking. High-quality translation is possible only when a translator sees a website as a whole, knows what every piece of text is for, how these pieces connect, even what pictures there will be.
Alexandra Gamanenko is a senior translator and editor of the Literary Translation Department, which is a part of a Web design studio. It offers localization and translation of websites into Russian and Ukrainian, as well as lots of other useful services.
Learn more -- visit the website http://www.clever-crayon.com
Source: www.articledashboard.com
