Re: Humor 'n' more

[Max Wyss <prodok -at- PRODOK -dot- CH>]

Bill,

I think, you just pointed to the crucial spot. Your client has no high
opinion of the non-original-language users. Your client is just too cheap
to provide the non-original-language users with an adequate documentation.
Well, your client may even be too cheap to provide adequate documentation
at all <g>.

I may be wrong, but there is no real difference between a so-so-la-la
translation and a good translation. At least not compared to the total cost
of the documentation or even the development cost of the product.

Translation vs. rewriting ... even without humor, a good translation
results to documents where one does not notice that it is a translation. A
good translation looks and feels as if the document has been originally
written in the target language. So, it will be rewriting anyway. Otherwise,
you could use Altavista's machine translation system for (almost) free and
sell that. Now THIS is just translation.

On the other hand, I do agree that humor should be used sparingly in
technical documentation. And, as we have seen in other posts in the humor
thread, there are lots of over-sensitive people around who feel offended at
minuscule details. On the other hand, those people are not offended at all
if they are called names ... well, that's cultural differences. (Maybe I
should title my next user documentation for the US market "For the Dummies"
<g>.)

Just some more 2 cents.


Max Wyss
PRODOK Engineering AG
Technical documentation and translations, Electronic Publishing
CH-8906 Bonstetten, Switzerland

Fax:  +41 1 700 20 37
e-mail:  mailto:prodok -at- prodok -dot- ch    or    100012 -dot- 44 -at- compuserve -dot- com


Bridging the Knowledge Gap ...

... with Acrobat Forms ... now for belt drive designers at

       http://www.prodok.ch/prodok/riemen.html




_____________





>Max,
>
>Perhaps this is where translation and localization differ. If we were just
>taking a document and translating from English to one or two target
>languages, dealing with humor would not be as huge an issue, given competent
>translators/writers. But we don't just translate into one or two target
>languages. Our clients want quality translation at the least expensive cost.
>And they want it in 30 languages, all to market simultaneously. So
>no--avoiding humor in our documentation is not dumb; it's a cost-effective
>way to get the task accomplished in a way that meets our clients needs,
>within the schedule constraints our clients provides, and at the quality
>level our client requires. Even with a single target language, as you note,
>humor requires rewriting--not just translation.
>
>In many of the cultures for which we localize, humor is not appropriate in
>technical documentation--period.  You could put the humor in, but the
>user--in many instances--would be turned off, feel insulted, consider the
>documentation a waste of their time, etc. What's funny in a culture is one
>issue; when humor is acceptable is another. The example of the Italian
>version of *Macintosh for Dummies* was an example of that. If our client
>wants a product that works for a world market and can be translated from one
>source with minimal customization, it's best not to include humor. If they
>are willing to have a publication rewritten for use in another language,
>that's a very different--and much more expensive--proposition.
>
>Bill Burns
>ILE Communications/Eccentric Technology Consultant
>billdb -at- ile -dot- com