Today’s post was written by Gareth. As NETELLER’s Localisation and Communications Specialist, Gareth manages our translations and multilingual content.

Did you know that our eWallet and website are available in multiple languages? One of my tasks at NETELLER is to manage this text. It’s an interesting job with an international flavour. I get to learn more about different languages and cultures, plus speak to people from around the world on a weekly basis.

However, translation can be challenging at times. It’s more of an art than a science. When successful, a good translation will capture all the meaning of the original text. At best, the words will include enough local context and resonance to make a good impression on the reader. If not so successful, the meaning will still come across, but it won’t look pretty.

Say what?

Sometimes funny mistranslations come across my desk. We may have even published a few by mistake. Fortunately, I feel like we’re in good company. The web is littered with famous mistranslation bungles. One classic is the Japanese video game intro for Zero Wing, a.k.a. All your base are belong to us.

Another is Pepsi’s 1970’s slogan “Come alive, you’re in the Pepsi Generation,” which in Taiwan was translated as 百事使你的祖宗重新活了過來: “Pepsi makes your ancestors rise from the dead.” Whoops!

Machine translation

See the flag icons on the top right of this page under the heading Google-Translator? Our blog has taken a new direction when it comes to translation. We now use machine translation (MT). With this approach we can publish articles instantly, rather than waiting a week or more for text from a professional translation company, which uses real people to create the text.

With MT, a computer program renders the text in other languages, without human checking. It’s fast, but the quality is not always great. That’s why sometimes the translated text you see here may look strange, funny or even incomprehensible.

Your thoughts

I would love to get your feedback on a few questions:

• Have you been using the MT links we offer?
• How good or bad is the translation quality?
• Do you think having MT is better than nothing?
• Do you try to figure out the English first?
• Do you turn to another (better) MT provider that’s popular in your own country?

I hope this has given you some better insight into the way we look at translations and I look forward to reading and responding to all of your comments.