Translating Blog to Chinese (and Other Languages)

Several weeks ago, we made some changes to our website. Among the changes was a new feature that allows readers to translate our blog to other languages. This feature is made possible by a WordPress plugin called Global Translator. Translation is done via Google Translation Services and frankly speaking, the translation is awful! But it is still useful for readers that understand little or no English. After you translate the blog, you can always hover over each line of translation for the original English text.

The Global Translator plugin offers translation to several languages, including both traditional and simplified Chinese characters. The weird thing though is that the translation buttons show two China flags. One is for traditional and the other one for simplified Chinese characters. Readers who didn’t realize this might have thought that both buttons were for simplified Chinese characters, as was the case with Susan’s mother.

We’re not trying to be political or say anything that would cause our blog to be blocked, but China does not use traditional Chinese characters. Matter of fact, China is the only Chinese-speaking country that uses simplified Chinese characters. Therefore, it is not correct to use China’s flag for the traditional Chinese translation button. We’ve gone ahead and tweaked the plugin so that the traditional Chinese translation button uses a different flag. We won’t mention which country that belongs to…

Anyway, here’s a snapshot of the gibberish traditional Chinese translation.