Re: Pricing Translation Costs

[Dick Gaskill <dickg -at- AG3D -dot- COM>]

I forgot to mention I have a list of  localization vendors as well.  As
you may have guessed from the number of responses you received, many,
many companies today sell their products worldwide and localization is a
must.  Governments of some countries (France is one) won't even consider
buying products unless they are completely localized.

However, (and I'm sure this will surprise you)  many offshore end-users
also want the original ENGLISH version of the documentation.  Why?
According to several of our in-country sales offices, many end users
have received incorrectly "translated" documents in the past and have
had serious problems because of it.  Consequently, they don't entirely
trust the translated version of the documents and can read at least some
of the English anyway.   As you probably know, in many countries today,
many people speak at least some English as well as their native
language.  English classes are  *required* in some European countries.

-dg

        ----------
        From:  Christine Lienhart [SMTP:clienhart -at- PREVUENET -dot- COM]
        Sent:  Thursday, March 19, 1998 1:58 PM
        To:  TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
        Subject:  Re: Pricing Translation Costs

        I want to thank everyone (and there were 20 of you!) who
responded with
        information about estimating translation costs.  I gave you very
little
        information, and yet you all came through with some very
thorough advice
        and many angles from which to approach the project.  Posing a
question
        to this list is like pushing a button and the information comes
spewing
        out like a winning slot machine!  I have learned more about
translation
        issues in the last eight hours than I'm sure I could ever gather
from my
        blind web searches or Tulsa Yellow Pages.

        And special thanks to B. Harrison who was very helpful in
providing info
        about the local translation companies.

        Christine Lienhart
        Prevue Networks
        Tulsa, OK