“la parole exportée”

Yes, I and a few million French-speaking users, have been approached for one of the largest ever call for FREE bids, as they opened their Facebook Home Page this morning, and found this:

Unless you have a very basic knowledge in French, you’re bound to find at least 13 mistakes and typos in this short text, the rest is not even translated.

Some are already claiming victory, the group who had a petition going on for the translation of Facebook into French, is here.

Another group has been formed to advocate against the translation, find them here.

Let me open for you my bag of very mixed feelings regarding this move.

One general conclusion: the panel that came up this morning shows that someone needs to seriously take charge of translations within Facebook, someone who has a little more experience than just hitting the ‘Translate’ button on Google or wherever.

I’m sure they are not entrusting their software development, marketing, etc. to people who vaguely know how to do it. Or am I wrong? They must be hiring professionals. I am sure that Microsoft and others haven’t been pouring money into Facebook, unless they are serious about what they are doing. Maybe this is a misguided assumption on my part, but I don’t really believe so.

On the one hand, I understand the woes of those who don’t know English very well. France is a country where, unfortunately, the amount of time dedicated to teaching foreign languages is not proportional to the outcome. You can spend 7 full years in secondary education, and not be able to say more than “Hello, my name is…”. I am not exaggerating. I wrote about a couple of anecdotes in my personal blog. So since I joined Facebook in November, I have heard many complaints, and as a French speaker, and a native, I cannot just dismiss them as lazy. These people are unhappy, irritated, angry, frustrated at having to use a tool in English, to talk to their pals.

Just because I can understand and use English, and I’m not frustrated about that, doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the concerns of fellow citizens.

But that’s the emotional side of it. What about the serious, business side?

Let’s say that Facebook wants to promote the tool further, to make it more attractive to more people worldwide, to attract more funds. In his interview on ‘60 Minutes’ the other day, Mark Zuckerberg in person confirmed that they are looking to attract more advertizing funds. So let’s say they decide to localize Facebook, how are they going about it?

Has Microsoft entrusted the translation of Windows to kitchen-table translators? I don’t think so. And Microsoft are now where they are because they committed the necessary funds to the translation of their software in a full range of languages. You may like them or not, but you have to recognize that. I’m not talking about their Knowledge Base, most of which is translated automatically, but they were elegant enough to include a disclaimer that says, more or less: We are aware that this is rubbish (I’ll include the specific link once I’ve retrieved it), and you won’t be able to fix your printer if you follow these impossible-to-understand instructions, but the translation was done automatically, that’s why (my paraphrase, of course).

Further, although I recognize the frustration of non-English-speakers, there is a very marked trend for a localized French version, that will separate us from the rest, period. Don’t let those foreigners bother us with their impossible languages. Let’s stay “entre nous”. Let’s poke in French and continue to have fun (you should see the language and the style of some of the groups) among ourselves, it’s so much FUN!

Plus: Are people like me, professionals and white-collars who are members of Facebook not just for the fun of it, but also to make serious contacts, going to be forced to use a localized version of Facebook? If it is of the level that was offered this morning, I prefer to migrate to a US- or UK-based network, or even to another social network altogether, rather than being stuck with a tool that doesn’t suit me, and let’s be bold, ridicules me, my language and my professional abilities.

Don’t forget that a fair share of the expansion of Facebook in 2007 is also due to the influx of business users.

So it is not, as some responded to my comment here, a question of amateurs taking my seat as a professional and stealing my income. Amateurs are simply grasping the wrong end of the stick. They are going to be proud, and feel empowered. Good for them. They will derive absolutely no advantage of putting their brain cells into this. At the very least, they should require to be given some individual credit for their effort, translation is work, and as such should be rewarded. There is also the fact that, as with any other translation, someone has to take responsibility for the result, good or bad. By accepting to do a translation, you assume that responsibility.

As for me? This morning, I read the announcement, gloated, and hit the ‘Close’ button. I hope it won’t pop up at me ever again.

PS I’ve used the graphic from this article here. This morning I closed the window too fast and didn’t take a screen shot.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Translation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.