How to Make Your Website Accessible to the International Audience

23 Comments

1. Brankica says:

   December 18, 2010 at 2:17 am

   I have never thought about putting this on my blog and I see I maybe should do it.
   You can reach bigger audience which is what we always want. Seems like an easy thing to do.
   When it comes to the quality, I think less used languages are not perfectly translated (I speak several of those) but I think it is good enough to get the point of the post which is what you want.
   Great post
   Brankica recently posted..Site Build It! review – How to build business with the right tools

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   Ben Wan Reply:
   December 18th, 2010 at 8:40 am

   Welcome back Brankica,

   Adding Google Translate Tool to your website is so simple to do, there is no reason why not to do it.

   What other languages do you speak?

   Ben Wan
   Ben Wan recently posted..Don’t Go Broke Trying to Build an Online Business

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   Brankica Reply:
   December 18th, 2010 at 8:46 am

   Well my native language is Serbian, I speak English, Italian, Croatian, some Arabic
   Brankica recently posted..Site Build It! review – How to build business with the right tools

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   Ben Wan Reply:
   December 20th, 2010 at 11:53 pm

   Hi Brankica,

   Cool, meet Olivia below, she speaks Serbian too, it’s great to be able to judge for oneself the quality of the translation.

   Ben Wan
   Ben Wan recently posted..How to Make Your Website Accessible to the International Audience

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2. Fernando says:

   December 18, 2010 at 6:30 am

   I think the translator is getting better and better as time goes by. Seriously.
   I mean, in the past, sometimes the material wasn’t even readable, now has a perfect translation.
   It helped a lot that people can actually edit for a more readable material.
   Hope to see you around
   Fernando recently posted..Hey Blogosphere- I Am Here!

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   Ben Wan Reply:
   December 18th, 2010 at 8:49 am

   Hi Fernando,

   Welcome to my blog and thanks for leaving a comment. Yes, you are right the automatic translators are getting better.

   Yes, hope to see you around again.

   Ben Wan.
   Ben Wan recently posted..How to Change the size of Gravatar Photo

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   Fernando Reply:
   December 19th, 2010 at 12:56 pm

   No problem, Ben
   Fernando recently posted..Hey Blogosphere- I Am Here!

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3. Julia Hayes says:

   December 18, 2010 at 7:31 pm

   Hi Ben, Brankica and Fernando,

   Maybe it doesn’t matter about being perfect. How many of us speak with correct grammar anyway?
   And as we learn to speak ‘SMS’ and ‘Tweet’ language the official structure deteriorates. But it’s all about communication.

   If someone says ‘Shall I off the light?”, we understand.
   it’s enough – it works.

   However it is reassuring and nurturing to read beautiful prose in the correct structure when we sit with our books. Different tools for different situations.

   Just to have the opportunity to reach other people in other languages is awesome. I want to ask Chinese friends to send me emails in pinyin and then i can test the Google Translate button on email.
   Julia Hayes recently posted..Soul Drawings – a portrait of your inner self

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   Ben Wan Reply:
   December 21st, 2010 at 12:03 am

   Hi Julia,

   Very strange time we live in, we can write our message in our own language and let the computer do the translation for you and still communicate.

   Ben Wan
   Ben Wan recently posted..How to Make Your Website Accessible to the International Audience

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4. Paul Garden says:

   December 19, 2010 at 9:37 pm

   Ben, thanks for showing how to put Google Translate on a blog, it will really attract readers who have accidentally dropped by and can now read the content.

   Google is improving on the translation aspect but structure wise, let’s say it is readable but not something you will hand in as an assignment.
   Paul Garden recently posted..How to create a Bird Sanctuary in your Garden

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   Ben Wan Reply:
   December 20th, 2010 at 11:42 pm

   Hi Paul,

   Thanks for visiting my website and leaving a comment.

   Paul, please considered having a gravatar, this is helpful to put a face to your name and not to be taken for a comment spammer. You may use a cartoon character if you don’t want to show your real face.

   Ben Wan.
   Ben Wan recently posted..Don’t Go Broke Trying to Build an Online Business

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5. Elise says:

   December 20, 2010 at 8:32 am

   I’ve definitely thought of putting something like this on my site, so this was a great read. I speak English and French too! (Quebec French, not Parisian French haha). I do use some slang here and there in my writing, so I would be a little worried about that not being translated very well. But I do think it’s important to appeal to global audience, so I find this very helpful.
   Elise recently posted..An Ode To Consumerism… Plus Free Giftz!

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   Ben Wan Reply:
   December 20th, 2010 at 11:47 pm

   Salut Elise,

   Re-Bienvenu, donc tu es Canadiene de la région de Quebec? Est-ce que tu lis les blogs en français? Si tu connais des sites francophone interressant, partage m’en leur addresses.

   [To those who don't read French, use the Translate tool above]

   Ben Wan
   Ben Wan recently posted..Don’t Go Broke Trying to Build an Online Business

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6. Olivia Antonic says:

   December 20, 2010 at 7:28 pm

   Hi Ben, Thank you very much for installing the Google Translate on my website. You made it look so easy and as you probably gathered handling all those codes isn’t something that I comprehend too well, so I really appreciate you doing that for me.

   I was brought up with 2 languages – Serbian & Hungarian but I can also communicate in German and have many friends and clients in various parts of the world, so this is an awesome bit of technology – and it is soooo clever- I tested it. It translates with common sense – not just some robotic ‘brain’.

   Thanks again
   Olivia
   Olivia Antonic recently posted..MELBOURNE CUP FEVER…

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   Ben Wan Reply:
   December 23rd, 2010 at 1:56 pm

   Hi Olivia,

   It feels good to be able to tell your relatives and friends from your country of origin to check out your website and read it in their native language.

   Cool, anything that can get you more traffic is worth implementing.

   Ben Wan.
   Ben Wan recently posted..GetResponse Autoresponder Holiday Promotion Bonus

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7. Tristan says:

   December 21, 2010 at 7:08 am

   Ben, I just tried translating your site into Ukrainian (definitely not a common language) and the translation was actually pretty dang good. It was much better than I thought it would be. Perfect? No. Good enough to understand what you were talking about in the post? Yes.

   I’ve gotten a couple trackbacks from some Italian sites, and I’ve used Google Translate for that.

   Great post, Ben! Thanks for sharing this info with us.
   Tristan recently posted..How to Create the Perfect Blog Footer

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   Ben Wan Reply:
   December 23rd, 2010 at 2:00 pm

   Hi Tristan,

   It seems everybody is testifying that Google Translate Tool does a very good translation job. I can’t see Google translate on your site, where is it?

   Ben Wan
   Ben Wan recently posted..GetResponse Autoresponder Holiday Promotion Bonus

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8. Shazar Robinson says:

   December 22, 2010 at 10:33 pm

   Its really great to hear from those of you who don’t speak English as your native language say this tool works pretty well. Very good. And I must thank Ben.. as its a really useful tweak for my site.. in fact he just talked me through putting it up – in 4 minutes.. Ben .. don’t know what I would do without you sometimes. Lazy me .. I have trouble reading.. must be a very bad student.. but I have to say you are a very patient teacher!
   Shazar Robinson recently posted..India – the heart land…

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   Ben Wan Reply:
   December 23rd, 2010 at 2:04 pm

   Hi Shazar,

   It’s just incredible how a simple script like this can open your website to the world.

   Helping people get their website more exposure is what I love to do.

   Ben Wan
   Ben Wan recently posted..GetResponse Autoresponder Holiday Promotion Bonus

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9. Vernessa Taylor says:

   December 30, 2010 at 5:01 am

   Hi Ben! Great topic. It’s not often we see blogs with translation available for their international visitors. I do use it (the Google Translation tool especially because I didn’t want to use a plugin). But it was not a brainstorm on my part – it was seeing some international visitors in my stats coming from search engines in other countries. It dawned on me then that unless they had a good grasp of English, having found my article might not do them a bit of good! That’s when I added translation ability.

   Thank you so much for pointing up this topic, Ben. Translation helps foster bringing us all closer together without artificial barriers.
   Vernessa Taylor recently posted..Dance A Jig- Build Your Own Unscientific Blogging Scorecard

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   Ben Wan from Wordpress Technical Support Reply:
   December 31st, 2010 at 9:10 am

   Hi Varnessa,

   Nice to see you here. You’re right the Google Translate Tool script is so short and “lightweight” that I prefer to use it to a plugin. It only makes sense to do anything to make your visitors have a better experience with your website.

   Ben Wan
   P.S. Your blog is awesome.
   Ben Wan@Wordpress Technical Support recently posted..How to Get Highly Targeted Traffic through Social Bookmarking

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   Vernessa Taylor from Local Business Coach Reply:
   December 31st, 2010 at 5:45 pm

   Hi Ben,

   Thank you for the compliment and taking time to drop by. I will agree with others that Google Translation tool does a reasonable job. Though I only speak English, I wrote a guest article for a German blog a few months ago. I wanted to say some passages in the readers’ native tongue, so translated them with Google. When I asked the blog owner how well they were translated, he said the passages were pretty good. He only had to fine tune a bit to make them a little less formal.

   Even today, a French-speaking fellow added me as a source on Amplify. All his Amplified material is in French (so I was very flattered). When I used the automatic Google translation tool that pops up in the browser, his material was made very clear to me in English.

   Ah yes, the wonders of the computer, Ben!
   Happy New Year in Perth!
   Vernessa Taylor @ Local Business Coach recently posted..Dance A Jig- Build Your Own Unscientific Blogging Scorecard

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10. Richard Beckett from Web Design Leeds says:

    January 12, 2011 at 8:47 pm

    Translation software seems to have come on in leaps and bounds recently.

    I remember that it used to be a fun game to translate song lyrics into another language and back again, and the english would return so broken that it would be hard to recognise the song.

    I tried this post in French, and (as far as my French goes, anyway) it did seem pretty accurate.
    Richard Beckett @ Web Design Leeds recently posted..How Much Does a Website Cost

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