Re: translating documents

[Alan -dot- Miller -at- prometric -dot- com]

Hello Susie:

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Translations.

I think you'll find that most professional translation services will do an
adequate job of translating your documents, even highly technical ones.
You'll just have to provide a bit more guidance and work more closely with
the translators. Most professional translators use technical translation
dictionaries that give the target language standard equivalent for most
technical and scientific terms and phrases. Some that are unique to your
industry or business may not appear in the dictionary and you'll have to
work with the translator to find a workable translation. (Helpful Hint: if
the translator does not use a translation management system, you'll have to
make sure the translator keeps track of these "standard" terms in some type
of glossary.)

If you decide to do the translations in-house (been there, done that,
burned the T-shirt), make sure the translator is a native speaker of the
target language. (The professional services almost always use native
speakers.)

Whichever approach you use, make sure you have the translated docs reviewed
by a native speaker who is a least passingly familiar with the subject.

I'm sure Geoff Hart will have a thorough, well-considered answer for you
before you're done reading this. <g>

Regards,
Al Miller
Chief Documentation Curmudgeon
Prometric, Inc.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a
perspective, not the truth.
          --Marcus Aurelius



Hello,

Our company has decided to start translating our Programmer's guides to
Japanese. They are not written using Standard English, and it's a case
where
part of the document will remain untouched (code examples, with the
exception of comments, will remain as they are).  The  manager in charge is
going to send the documents to a generic translation company, but I know
that companies exist which specialize in translating technical content (for
example, using developers who are familiar with the content and context of
the docs to be translated).  But I've been told something like that would
cost 3-4 times more than the generic translation company.  I was also
wondering if perhaps an alternate route would be to hire  someone (possibly
a technical writer who speaks Japanese) to do the translations in-house, on
a contract basis?  I'm worried about what will be lost/changed through the
translation if the person translating the documents does not have a rough
understanding of the content (like my mother's German -- I cringe at the
thought of what would happen if I asked her to translate them).

 I'm going through the document right now highlighting what should NOT be
translated, but I'm running into difficulties with technology-specific
concepts like cache manager, cipher suites, classes, etc.  Do I assume
there's an acceptable Japanese translation for everything?  Industry terms
such as SSL, HTML, TLS, etc. -- do they remain as they are, they're not
translated?

Does anyone have any experience with this type of situation?  If so, your
input would be greatly appreciated.

regards,
Susie P

PS -- thank-you all for your input on where documentation fits into your
development process, it was very useful (well, most of it, *grin*).



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