Jianjun’s Blog

Some people told me if you search certain keywords using Google toolbar, Google will show up some funny results. I just tried a few, nothing happened. But my last try ‘Microsoft’ did give me the following:

This is an ad for Microsoft Forefront on the top of the result page. The funny thing is it attracted my attention not because it was in that salient position, but because it looked like a hoax! (Of course, I was expecting something funny to appear.)

Both the language used and the formatting of the tag line looked unprofessional. What is 官网? Is it something from the Mars or Microsoft-invented rubbish? To me, if there does exist such a 官网 (literally, a web site for officials), it must be another privileged (virtue) venue for those corrupt public officials. But the stupid thing hasn’t started yet.

Clicking on that link took me to an orange-colored flash web site with a PC-game-style music playing in the background. The line at the bottom says this:

‘Building this web site won’t hurt assassins, aliens or secret agents.’

What a stupid idea to put such a line here! This is totally irrelevant.

Then a few seconds later, a guy in shirt and tie appeared , constantly shivering, waiting for you to choose an opponent to fight with…

I chose an assassin and this guy conquered him by tickling him to death!

Localization is not supposed to be like this, especially when two cultures are inherently different. What in one culture produces eye-popping or jaw-dropping effects may in another culture make people feel disgusted. Besides this, irresponsible localization not only wastes a lot of efforts and money, but also turns a promotional campaign into a total failure, thus resulting in more revenue loss.

Further resources:

The ad’s English version is much better: Succinct and to the point.

English version displays this line at the bottom of the page:

The Chinese translation changed it to ‘Building this web site won’t hurt assassins, aliens or secret agents.’ If the original meaning were accurately conveyed, Chinese readers may understand it better.

To compare:

English site
Chinese site

Today, there seems to be a trend, especially on the web, that more and more translators are adopting a ‘time-saving’ but improper layout style for documents involving Chinese and English. I believe it’s necessary to write a note about this and clarify what ‘correct’ layout style is.

During translation from English to Chinese, it’s sometimes inevitable that certain English words are used along with the Chinese translation. This is not something new. Even before the Internet era, in the 1950s or even earlier, printed materials in China already adopted a style for it and the same style lasts until today in the print media. For translators using digital word processors, the style guide is as follows:

1. There is no space between two Chinese characters（中文字间无空格）;
2. There is a space between a Chinese character and an English word（中文字和 English 单词间空一格）;
3. There is a space between a Chinese character and a number（中文字和 18 数字间空一格） ;
4. Use Chinese parentheses if there is Chinese character inside（中文和 Enlgish）;
5. Use Western parentheses if there is only English/number inside (English and 12 numbers);
6. There is no space between a Chinese punctuation mark and Chinese character/English/numbers - a Chinese punctuation mark itself takes up two spaces（“No Space”，“没有空格”）。

This is a general style used by Microsoft, DELL and a number of other international companies in their localization. By adding a space between English, number and Chinese characters, the document is clearer to read and won’t cause discomfort to Chinese readers who are used to this format in the print media.

To illustrate, I wrote a sentence involving all these cases. Let’s place the proper style (1) and the improper style (2) side by side to see the differences:

1. 2008 年将在北京召开奥运会。北京（中国的首都）旧称“北平”(Peking) 是中国三大直辖市之一。
2. 2008年将在北京召开奥运会。北京(中国的首都)旧称“北平”(Peking)是中国三大直辖市之一。

By eliminating these spaces, the sentence looks too casual and informal and not as neat as the first one.

Most clients, who are not Chinese or can’t read Chinese, have no option but to depend on the Chinese translator to use whichever style they deem most correct. Instead of saving all those keystrokes, the translator has a responsibility to tell the client which style is correct and use the right style.

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.