This made me smile, but it highlights a point. It’s not just about internationalisation and translation. Localisation is important too.
Localisation, or should I say localization
It’s a screen shot from a list of features on the Woo Themes web site. Available in American and UK English.
Those translation articles are on their way …
Over the past year, the number of multi-linguals web sites has increased, machine translation tools have been integrated into web browsers and multi-language support in common web publishing platforms has improved.
When you create a multi-lingual web site it’s not just the content that you need to translate.
Throughout April I’ll be publishing a series of articles looking at the approaches to and implications of creating a multilingual web site.
Sencha is one of my favourite teas and I recently bought this particular variety of tea.
I don’t read Japanese but I’m willing to take a guess that this is a pretty direct translation from Japanese to English. I think this is a smart choice of using very little Latin script on the export version of their tea.
In this instance, for me, the fact that I don’t read Japanese adds something to the product. Not understanding the language actually lends authenticity to the product.
It’s a bit like opera. I don’t want to understand what the cast are singing about, I’m content just to listen to the beautiful sounds they are making. I can make out the story from the context and visual cues.
Had the manufacturer chosen to remove all of the Japanese writing from their products for sale in Europe and only use Latin scripts then I think their tea brand would appear less valuable.
I discovered these pictograms cards on Flickr the other day and their creator Michael Rowley has been kind enough to let me use the images for this post.
When I first saw them, I was struck at how they opened up written Japanese to someone like me who has only dabbled in spoken Japanese in the past and can say a few words. If your mother tongue is written in a latin script you usually have to make a choice about how much of an Asian language you want to learn. Are you happy just to learn speaking and comprehension or do you want to go the whole way and learn to read and write.
Their excellent design unlock some of the building blocks of the Japanese language making it easy to take a first step in learning to read Japanese.
As a European, the further east you travel, the less likely you are to be able to communicate and find your way around. While in Europe you’ll still be able to read most of the languages and figure out place names and read numbers etc.
Once you step into the Middle East that changes and continues to change until you exit Japan heading East for the USA.
What is so great about the cards is the way that Michael has used an image to bridge the gap between the word in both languages.
If you fancy trying your hand at some Japanese you can find out more from Michael’s site at www.vizcabualry.com
I came across this Coke can the other day and noticed that they were combining 3 country endings (TLDs) of the company’s website onto one line.
.be for Belgium, .lu for Luxembourg and .nl for the Netherlands.
I’m not sure why they’ve opted for the layout that they have used, lumping Belgium and Luxembourg together like that in a rather odd way. I guess if they’d done it alphabetically, they would have put the Netherlands, the largest of the 3 markets, at the bottom and that might have been deemed unacceptable.
Incidentally, the .be site offered French and Dutch as language options, the .nl was, not surprisingly in Dutch and the Luxembourg site was in French, but offered a “change language” button which takes visitors to the Belgian site.
The .lu site had no Luxembourgish (not surprising really), but no German either which I had expected.
Ah the complexities of doing business in the Benelux region.
I took a picture of this plaque while staying in the Estonian village of Käsmu. It’s in Estonian and English and the circular design lends itself perfectly to this bi-lingual sign. The symbol in the middle feels vaguely Celtic and it screams heritage trail, but in a good way.
I found it on the door of a chapel which was being used to house a photo exhibition of all the people in the village.
Käsmu was originally populated mostly by sea captains and has some wonderful wooden houses, but during the Soviet era the sea was fenced off and the seafaring industry went into decline. It’s now been revitalised as a tourist village and a haven for writers and artists.
I can’t help feeling it would have looked a bit better like this though… oops
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