Translation Assistance, S'il Vous Plaît? in Special Discussion Boards in Community

Last Post Nov 3, 2009 2:41 PM by: helios825

Replies: 4

Translation Assistance, S'il Vous Plaît?

Nov 2, 2009 11:46 AM

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Hi, all.

Just wondering if any multilingual folks in the audience (especially anyone on the European ePN team who's within earshot) can help me with a little translation. I wouldn't want to bother anyone with an entire webpage for translation, or even a block of text; but below are some eBay-centric phrases and taglines that perhaps others here might also benefit from using in their custom creatives or ad copy. If you have a moment and were lucky enough to be raised in a bi/tri-lingual household (or are fluent through other means), please feel free to tackle any combination of the below phrases and languages that you're comfortable with - thanks!

(Also, if anyone can recommend an affordable online translation service that can handle all countries/languages supported by ePN, and work via small, on-demand increments, that would be sweet. Thanks.)

-h

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1) Search eBay (as in: a button/link to click)
2) Most Popular on eBay
3) Most Watched on eBay (regarding eBay's unique meaning for an item being 'watched')
4) Show Me (as in: 'show me search results'....)
5) Right Now on eBay
6) This item is live on eBay right now. Click the photo to see more item information on eBay.
7) What are you looking for? (as in: asking the shopper a question)
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a) Français
b) Español
c) Deutsch
d) Italiano
e) Nederlands
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[Some Handy Aggregated Reference Info for ePN Affiliates and eBay Developers]

Re: Translation Assistance, S'il Vous Plaît?

Nov 2, 2009 7:24 PM

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Doesn't "Learn English" cover all of this?

j/k

I assume you know about translate.google.com and don't like it? Cross check it with babelfish.yahoo.com. It's improved a great deal over the years, so take the blog articles from 2001 with a grain of salt.

For the eBay common phrases that eBay uses on their site, you can lift the phrases from the eBay sites where they post that language. The idiomatic and contextual usage should be accurate, perhaps more than asking a translator unfamiliar with eBay to do the translation. In France svp is common shorthand for s'il vous plaît for instance. BIN would have a completely different meanings if taken as bin rather than an acronym.

eLance,rent-a-coder and some of the other child-labor-for-a-dollar sites will probably have a few people line up to help you for a very few bucks.

Re: Translation Assistance, S'il Vous Plaît?

Nov 2, 2009 8:19 PM

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Didn't know about Babel Fish (as an alternative to Google) - thanks. Although now that I look closer at my ancient "Translation" bookmarks folder, nestled within the even-older 'Search' folder, I do see its predecessor, babelfish.altavista.com. (Anyone else remember the days when Altavista sat on the Digital.com domain?) Good idea about the eLance type sites for this need.

I've been fiddling with some of these today, mostly using Google Translate, then doing frequent bi-directional translation and also playing with words. A good trick I figured out to hone in on proper language, along the lines of your other suggestion, is to find a Help page on eBay that talks about the topic of interest, then usually just changing the domain to the foreign eBay site reveals tons of good fodder:

US: Link
DE: Link

Here's what I've come to use for "Show Me!" or "Show Items!":

a) Français: Montre-Moi!
b) Español: ¡A ver!
c) Deutsch: Angebote anzeigen!
d) Italiano: Vedi Gli Oggetti!
e) Nederlands: Bekijk Objecten!

-h

[Some Handy Aggregated Reference Info for ePN Affiliates and eBay Developers]

Re: Translation Assistance, S'il Vous Plaît?

Nov 3, 2009 5:36 AM

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Hi Helios,

I've had good success with odesk.com where I have found native French and German translators who have done a good job for very reasonable prices. I paid about $100 to have 3 or 4 pages translated properly.

(This sounds like a spammy endorsement but it really isn't - I have no connection with odesk other than as a customer!)

If you contact me directly I can give you the names of the people I used.

Re: Translation Assistance, S'il Vous Plaît?

Nov 3, 2009 2:41 PM

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Hey, thanks, Timfel. Honest endorsements are always appreciated! Will keep that one in mind and will reach out to you if/when I decide to move forward.

-h

[Some Handy Aggregated Reference Info for ePN Affiliates and eBay Developers]

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