I wish I could address this to Mr. Michel Fortin himself.

I remember a while back, I got an email about a program that translates the text on your website into a variety of languages. I tried Italian and Spanish
on the e-commerce site I had up at the time. The results were horrendous.

The headlines and body text did not seem to convey the same message to the point of not making any sense.

Now Michel, Considering what part of Canada you come from, I'm wondering what is your primary language.

It seems when you have to translate anything you've written into French, you probably have to write your copy all over again because a lot of times there is no direct translation.

In fact, you might have to use different expressions altogether.

I guess you just have to have an intimate knowledge of the language to understand which expressions have the most impact. Like someone who started learning Spanish at an early age and watches Spanish language television regularly, espcially the telenovelas (Spanish for soap operas).

On top of that, you have to have the copywriting skills.

Not an easy thing when you attempt to conquer a non-English speaking market.

I re-write business materials for a European client.

My client speaks very good English (and has spoken English for years), but he has a problem with the "tone" of his writing.

In one letter, it'll go from very formal (stuffy) to very informal ... and back again.

And, to a native English speaker (his market), it comes across as very strange.

So, I have to go through it, decide on a "tone" and then bring everything back to that tone so it reads like one person talking to another.

(plus fix the grammar and tighten up the sentences)

Translation software is obviously getting better (I can speak enough French to get an impression of how well it works), but I think they're going to have a real problem creating software that can take the level of formality of an English letter and translate that across to Spanish or German etc.

Steve