Website Localisation

QuickSilver Translate helps companies create or adapt their web identity to different linguistic areas.

In an increasingly globalised and borderless world, communicating your global message to local markets is more important than ever. The quality of your translated content — whether in your webpage, corporate materials or legal contracts — speaks volumes for your own commitment to quality and respect for local cultures.

This understanding is one of the things which distinguishes a ‘great’ translator from a merely ‘good’ one. It is not enough to produce an accurate and appropriately worded translation; the translator must know who the end-user is.

Here are some of the many questions that a language service provider must ask (and answer correctly!): why is English less acceptable in France than in Holland? Are Traditional and Simplified Chinese separate languages, and when do you use them? (No, they are really just different versions of the script; Simplified being used in the PRC and Traditional in Taiwan.) What languages should be used in multi-ethnic India and Indonesia? Are standard European Spanish, French and Portuguese appropriate in America? Are Hebrew and Hindi written from right to left? (Yes for Hebrew, no for Hindi.) Are the rules of punctuation and hyphenation the same in all languages? (Emphatically, no!) What is the cultural significance of different colours in different language areas? The symbolism of numbers, flowers, animals?

Website localisation is the process of translating a product into different languages, or adapting a language for a specific country or region. From differences in spelling to words which mean different things in different countries (a very common phenomenon across Latin America, for example), QuickSilver will help you identify and respond to localisation challenges.

One of the key difficulties to overcome with website localisation is that Content Management Systems (CMS) are rarely designed with multi-linguistic solutions in mind. Thus, although it may seem easy to copy and paste text into and out of the ‘back end’ of a CMS site, most CMS interfaces are broadly incompatible with the leading edge Computer Assisted Software (CAT) software that QuickSilver uses.

By combining such software with industry-specific expertise, QuickSilver Translate is able to offer a stream-lined, integrated approach, adding value at every step of a translation. When it comes to website localisation, our wide familiarity with CMS enables us to offer extremely competitive pricing opportunities.