Google Translate has been around for a long time now and over the years has improved immensely.
For the internet surfer/ buyer this is extremely useful. You can now check out any website for information and/ or to buy something from foreign sites, even if you don’t understand the languages. Google Translate makes it possible … most of the times! Last year I came across an interesting Dutch article, and although I understand quite a bit of Dutch, it wasn’t enough to read the whole article. So I put it into google translate ……… and understood even less!
But most of the times, it translates the text good enough to understand the gist of it – an absolute godsend.
So, is it now good enough for sellers to use on their sites? No.
If you don’t intend to sell to people from other countries, then just stick to your English text. If they are really interested in your products or services they will use google translate (if they need to) and if they become your customers you can still think about translations then.
If you’re putting your feelers out to exporting abroad, then have maybe a short overview in another language. For example, if you are about to start selling your products to Germany, add another page (half a page will probably do) to your website with an overview in German of what you sell/ do. To have half a page translated into German is nowhere near as expensive than having your whole site translated but looks a lot more polite than expecting prospective German clients to read everything in English.
But whatever you do, do not translate your whole website with google translate. It is guaranteed to be with major flaws.
I leave you with a funny video about google translate. It is meant to be funny, so enjoy it, but don’t let your website be the butt of jokes!
Love that video … hilarious! Perhaps the original English should have been written in Globish… 😉
Ha ha 🙂
LOL! Unglaublich lustig. Gute Idee, um Comedy-Videos ohne großen Aufwand zu drehen.
Aber bestimmt auch anstrengend, mit Absicht falsch zu sprechen …
Allerdings!
Sprachen lernen ist komisch: es ist schwierig, eine Fremdsprache richtig zu beherrschen. Und wenn man sie richtig beherrscht, dann ist es wiederum schwierig, sie falsch zu sprechen! 😀
Love the video translations
So do I. I’ve been meaning to use it in a blog post for ages!
HAHAHA but as you say the gist is often all you need 😉
Absolutely – as long as you’re not selling ………