Jianjun's Blog

I conceptualized this idea after I’d seen many translators from China faced so many difficulties getting started in the business. The mentoring program （翻译新人帮带计划）was aimed at the Chinese translators who had several years of translating experience within China, and would like to expand their business into the international market. My original idea was to introduce them the differences between the domestic and overseas market, including quality requirements, payment practices, marketing issues, etc.

Maybe I didn’t explain myself clear enough, however, things turned sideways and they seemed to be more interested in how to make quick money and hoped I could recommend clients to them right away! One guy went so far as to copy some of my web site text and my keywords and set up an ‘international translation company’ site promising to offer translation services for over ten languages.

Yes. I have been preaching that translators should have their own web sites. And I have been helping translators to set up their own shared servers (Most servers in China are Windows-based; CPanel is something new to them). But I have never told them to exaggerate who they are and what they can offer. They probably don’t know being honest is one of the professional virtues of a translator.

The legend has it that the twelve Chinese Zodiac animals once had a quarrel about who should be the first one to start the cycle of 12 years.In the end, they decided to hold a competition, the winner of which would be the one to lead the cycle. Ox was actually the first animal running ahead. However, how could it know that the cunning rat had jumped onto its back and hid there, waiting for opportunities. When ox was just about to reach the finishing line, rat jumped over its head and won the race. Ox therefore was only able to take the second place.

Other animals came one by one. Pig came the last, because it’s too lazy!

This video is fun. I found it on Viddler. Enjoy!

I18n stands for internationalization, similar terms are globalization (g11n) and localization (l10n). Web localization is a major part of i18n. According to Web Globalization News from Byte Level Research, during 2007-2008:

… the average number of languages supported by the 225 Web sites reviewed is 20. Companies that were translating into French, German, and Japanese a few years ago are now focusing on Turkish, Slovenian, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

And what about Chinese? It was found on nearly 8 out of every 10 sites we studied, moving up to 6th place overall.

Just 4 or 5 years ago, web i18n was simply another story. Use Archive.org to view the same sites in 2003 or 2004, you will find big difference. International businesses of today have become increasingly aware of the importance of employing multi-language web site(s) to obtain customized and dynamic branding advantage in the target market.

However, in this respect, China’s businesses are lagging behind. Among the 225 web sites reviewed by Byte Level, Lenovo is the only Chinese company that made it into the top 20. Other Chinese names among the reviewed sites include Huawei and Haier. Ironically, none of the so-called web 2.0 sites, which are supposed to be in the vanguard of the new Internet trends and technology have been included for a review! While Google was listed as number one globalized site, Baidu – it’s Chinese counterpart – doesn’t have any i18n at all!

This reminds me of the old Chinese businesses that were once influential in China until the last days of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), but mostly went bankrupt when foreign companies came in. Those businesses died away for many reasons, one of which was because they didn’t have a road map to grow bigger, to aim at the world market. What they wanted was only to win in China, to edge out the local competitors. Once this was achieved, they never thought of becoming bigger. In the end, they shrank to nothing, even not being able to protect their eggs.

But, well…, that was 100 hundred years ago. Isn’t it interesting (or strange?) if we see the same things happening again to China’s businesses of today? Without effective i18n, they would lose out first from the web front.

Browsing through largest Chinese web sites, you’ll see most of them only have one language. Of those that do have English pages, few meet even the basic translation standards, let alone localization requirements. A few days ago, a Danwei.org article pointed out bloopers appeared in a Xinhua News report, where ‘Paifang’ or ‘Pailou’ (to learn more about Paifang, read this article) was rendered as ‘torii’ (the gateway of a Japanese shinto shrine), while ‘earth-moving equipment’ or ‘digger’ was translated into ‘rooter’.

Such mistakes could have been avoided by employing a native English speaker as the editor. However, it seems that Xinhua News web site, just as those millions of Chinese businesses big and small, doesn’t think it’s worthwhile to pay for such a service. In China, most Chinese to foreign language translations are carried out by Chinese translators.

There’s been a myth in China that anyone who learned some years of foreign language can translate into that language. As a result, shocking English translations on this page (Read the titles with English translations, below the main text. This is an academic paper database.) do appear on web sites. And it’s not difficult to imagine what would happen if such things appeared on a business web site or in a user’s manual (something like the Nigger-Brown incident).

Last November, I had a discussion with a local translation company about holding translation/localization-related seminars or workshops. Through participating in such activities, local business managers would in turn realize the importance of quality translation and i18n. It is only through such education can we expect Chinese companies change their attitude.

I18n is not a privilege reserved for big, international companies. Any business that aspires to go global and wishes to make the international market their business arena should use it to their advantage. Chinese businesses should not confine themselves to the Chinese market. It’s high time they stepped up efforts for i18n and better international business presence.