Courtney Jordan said <Just knowing French is not enough to actually localize to the particular French culture that is your target market... Even some of the words differ, for example, blueberry is "bluet" in quebecois but "myrtille" in French>.
It's an interesting example. I had a discussion with couple of native French speakers this summer over the correct word for "blueberry" and it turned out that neither of them knew it. Perhaps you have solved the mystery for me. But you are very right about having to get someone from your exact target audience. Some years ago I was designing an ATM interaction for a large bank. Someone translated the phrase "insert your card into the slot" into Spanish and in one country (at least) it turned out to be a very insulting slang phrase. I'll leave it to your imagination. Another time we created an interactive product in Japanese and used a Japanese scholar from a local university to translate the text. When we took it to Japan, I asked a local physician to review the screens and she immediately said "this was written by a non-native speaker." The words were correct but something was not quite right. We edited it and received compliments on the quality of the language. So I think your point of using French speakers of the target dialect and recruiting experts for specialized language expertise is on target. It makes a real difference and shows respect for your audience. Best, Charlie ============================ Charles B. Kreitzberg, Ph.D. CEO, Cognetics Corporation ============================ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
