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0 pointsquant1815y ago0 comments

Forgive me but this article seems to generate more confusion than it clears up. Statements like Cantonese and Mandarin speakers both use one of the writing systems mentioned above, and on paper, the languages can look quite similar are quite inept. Except a few subject matters (that do NOT get sent through five-cent-per-word web services --- like advertising slogans and written instructions for verbal Miranda warning-equivalents), clients NEVER need translations into Written Cantonese. They need translations into Standard Written Chinese.

Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Mainland all write in Standard Written Chinese. Hong Kongers do not expect to see Cantonese in materials translated from a foreign original, and largely do not want to. HK/TW/CN have a few vocabulary differences (e.g. "taxi" is HK's "dishi", TW's "jichengche", and CN's "chuzuche"). Orthogonal to the vocabulary differences, HK and TW use Traditional characters, SG and ZH use Simplified. But I can write "chuzuche" in Traditional, or "jichengche" in Simplified. They still mean the same thing and are still understandable to all.

While we hope to offer translations into Traditional Chinese by Cantonese speakers in the future, currently our translations are not ideal if you hope to sell your product in Hong Kong.

Traditional to Simplified mapping is perfectly surjective. That is to say, it can be done by computer with 100% accuracy. Having a Traditional Chinese and a Simplified Chinese version of a document does NOT require two separate translations from the source document, as you seem to be implying.

Let me draw an analogy, Britain says "boot" and "bonnet" and "bobby" where America says "trunk" and "hood" and "cop". That does not mean everyone needs to get separate British English and American English translations, nor separate Taiwan Chinese and Singapore Chinese translations. In one extreme, if I were a high volume group-buying website looking to expand globally, yes of course I want the whole interface and the terms and conditions done up separately for each English and for each Chinese. In the other extreme, if I ran a boutique hotel and just wanted to give my Chinese customers directions from the airport to my doorstep, I have no need for separate translations.

In between is a giant grey area where full-service Language Service Providers generally try to provide some guidance to their clients. As a low-cost LSP maybe you are not aiming at the kind of client who needs this kind of guidance --- in which case you shouldn't be purporting to offer it. You should define yourself clearly.

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ch1rish15y ago

You make some good points, but I think the rule of thumb the article brings up still holds true: "choose translators located in the region you are marketing your product in." Yes, Traditional to Simplified mapping can be done easily by computer(the article actually provides a link to a site that does this for free), and yes, despite regional vocabulary differences for words like taxi, all words can be written in Traditional or Simplified and be largely understood by all of those in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland. The article could have done a better job explaining this, and sometimes simply understanding is good enough.

That said, the article really has non Chinese speakers marketing their product in China in mind, and just as if I were marketing my product in the U.K. I would want British spellings, I would want local words to be used if I were marketing my product to a specific Chinese locale. And, in my opinion, the difference in vocabularies between HK/TW/CN are arguably greater than the English vocabulary differences between UK and the US. Simply put, if I were marketing my product to Hong Kong, I would not want to pay even $.05/word for a translation of a product description if I knew it was done by a Mandarin speaker from Beijing who was not versed in the regional differences, and had only converted the text from Simplified to Traditional. I think this holds true for both small boutique hotels, and "high volume group-buying websites."

robert_mygengo15y ago

The table in the article was designed to be clearer and simpler than the above explanation for most users, and also not to represent that Simplified Chinese is suitable for all customers, which would be a misrepresentation.

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ch1rish15y ago

robert_mygengo15y ago

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