This is a guest post written by a Gengo partner.

Penetration of your business into different countries around the world requires a lot of determination and the right tools to make the adaptation into foreign markets easier. One such tool is a multilingual website—a website with multiple language mutations, located on one “home” domain. But how do you achieve a multilingual website, and how do you add translations easily?

Translation options in WordPress

First of all, you should get a multilingual ready WordPress theme and then use translation tools to convert your standard WordPress website into a multilingual one. In order to start adding translations, you will need some other third party or translation plugin from the developer of the WordPress theme. The advantage of a plugin made directly by the developer is the guarantee of full compatibility and regular updates.

Some translation plugins for multilingual ready themes enable the addition of translated content without messing with .PO files. .PO files are files where text, strings and translations of a particular language are stored. These files are used by translators (and can be edited manually), as well as by various translation programs. Usually you have to use FTP access and upload them with the exact name into the exact folder.

A more user-friendly solution

The benefit of an already multilingual plugin is that you don’t need to make translations on your own, manually. This plugin expands back- and front-end interface by another 26 commonly used languages. This eliminates the need to manually handle .PO files or translating outside wp-admin. Furthermore, some of the strings can be translated directly via WordPress administration, saving you money and time.

 

Machine translation vs. Human translation

If you quickly need to translate just a few words within the content, feel free to use one of the verified machine translation tools (e.g. Google Translator). But if you need high quality professional translation or specialist translations into less common languages, human translation is certainly the better choice. With translations by humans, you can rely on the quality and accuracy of translations. Unlike machine translation, “live” translators have a sense for the flavor of the original text as well as the context. Only content translated by humans can retain its creative idea or the funny point. Another advantage is that translations made by humans are generally more polite and more approachable than those translated by machines.

Machine translations are definitely a poor choice for translations into various local languages, as well as languages that are harder to translate such as Chinese or Japanese. Inaccurate translations can cause very serious misunderstandings that can endanger your whole business plans in the particular country. Therefore, having correctly translated content is key for multilingual websites. A disadvantage of human translations is the longer translation process (in comparison to the machine translation) and a bit higher price too.

Find the right translator

Nowadays hardly any company has its own in-house translators. The most profitable solution how to get translations is outsourcing. When choosing a translation supplier, you need to focus primarily on the quality of translations and the business background. Gengo has a massive network of more than 21,000+ qualified translators around the world, providing you with the content translation anytime you need it and into pretty much any language.

Order translation services in the most convenient way

Simplicity and the speed are the most important factors for any customer when adding translations to a website. There are several options for getting translations for your multilingual WordPress theme. The first option is to order translation via the AIT-Themes order form and subsequently import the translations into the relevant language mutation of your multilingual WordPress theme.

Another option is to integrate human translation directly into your platform via the Gengo Translation API—an ideal solution if you need a continuous translation process for yourself or your customers.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re launching a small family business, startup or a large international enterprise. A multilingual WordPress website and high quality translations by Gengo will assist you in your expansion into foreign markets.

Think AIT Themes + Gengo is a good fit for your business? Contact us to learn more.

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