China is known not only for its ancient and distinctive culture but also for its impressive economic growth. It's no wonder that many foreign companies are trying to enter this country's market. However, these efforts inevitably face barriers: differences in culture and mentality. Sometimes, it seems like the gap between Western countries and China is insurmountable. Those just starting out on this challenging path might not even be aware that the Chinese language has numerous dialects and two writing systems. Let's take a look at a map illustrating the geography of these dialects:
Source: Stratfor
Chinese Dialects:
Chinese dialects differ so much in pronunciation, vocabulary, and even grammar that many linguists consider them to be separate languages. Someone from the north will be completely incomprehensible to someone from the south, and vice versa. For instance, some words might be pronounced with different tones in different dialects, completely changing the meaning.
However, don't let this diversity discourage you. Firstly, there's one official language in China: Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect. It's the language of business, media, and education. This is mostly what people are referring to when talking about the Chinese language. Secondly, when it comes to written language, it’s a little simpler: there are only two versions of the writing system — traditional and simplified. So, two people speaking completely different dialects can both understand the same written text. The traditional characters have been in use since the 3rd century BCE, and have hardly changed at all over time. The simplified writing system appeared in the mid-20th century when the Communist Party carried out reforms to increase the population's literacy.
Which version should you choose for localizing your product? Firstly, decide which region you're targeting. Traditional characters are common in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, while simplified characters are preferred in mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia. If you want to cover as much territory as possible, it's better to localize into both versions.
So, you’ve decided on the geography. What's next? It's time to find translators who are proficient in the writing system you require. At this stage, you might be tempted to save money and just let Google Translate or GPT do the job. It's quick and cheap, sure — but can you be sure about the quality? You think that, with all that state-of-the-art technology, you certainly can? Don't be so hasty to assume so. After all, human translators are still in demand for a reason.
Firstly, many texts (marketing and artistic/creative) are based on emotional messages or imagery. Only humans can fully understand them (and therefore convey them in another language). Secondly, Eastern languages (including Chinese) have a certain logic which is radically different from European languages. Even the punctuation in Chinese is distinctive, often causing confusion for those accustomed to European standards. To truly understand Chinese, it must be studied in conjunction with the culture for many years. That's why there are few good translators for this language, and they are highly valued.
Unlike human translators, machine translation programs have a number of drawbacks that often make them unsuitable for high-quality localization of large volumes of text. First of all, they struggle with finding the correct translation equivalent for polysemantic words (of which there are many in any language) or grammatically ambiguous phrases. Machine translation systems have no knowledge of the world around them (unlike humans), so they typically choose the most commonly used option, often generating absurd and incomprehensible sentences.
Additionally, they can't follow a crucial rule for proper translation: consistent terminology throughout the text. Let's look at a few examples of how Google Translate handled the translation of excerpts from a Chinese role-playing game. Try to guess the real meaning behind it.
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Original |
Google translation |
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弱不禁风的渣滓，竟然让你们走到了这里。只要有我在，你们休想踏上桥梁一步 |
The weak scum made you get here. As long as I'm here, you can never step onto the bridge. |
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荣耀大于生命。荣光庇身，灵魂不灭，百战不败 |
Glory is greater than life. Glorious body, immortal soul, undefeated in a hundred battles |
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”短小带来隐蔽，隐秘诞生杀戮“——《教会刺杀团》 |
"Shortness brings concealment, secrecy gives birth to killing" - "Church Assassination Group" |
Here are a few examples from marketing texts:
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Original |
Google translation |
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我们的微信视频号每天都会进行免费直播，内容涉及口语、发音、外刊讲解等各个方面。 |
Our WeChat video account will conduct free live broadcasts every day, covering various aspects such as spoken English, pronunciation, and foreign journal explanations. |
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腊肉外表色泽金黄，内部红白分明，煮熟之后，肥肉晶莹剔透，瘦肉金黄诱人，咬上一口，唇齿生香，令人欲罢不能。 |
The bacon is golden in color on the outside and red and white on the inside. After cooking, the fat meat is crystal clear and the lean meat is golden and attractive. Take a bite and your lips and teeth will be fragrant, making you want to stop. |
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节能环保，从我做起，让我们的地球更加美好！ |
Energy conservation and environmental protection, starting from me, make our earth better! |
So did you get it all right? Good! 😊 You might think that the original Chinese texts (or some parts of them, at least) contain some kind of nonsense: there's a poor choice of words (due to the polysemantic nature of the characters), and the semantic connections are poorly constructed — to the point that the meaning of what is written can remain a mystery. But in reality, it's the translation that is incomprehensible; to a Chinese speaker, everything would be perfectly clear. As you can see, machine translation performs pretty poorly when working with a pair of languages that have very different logics — like English and Chinese, for instance.
Text that requires effort to understand is irritating and ultimately pushes people away. Potential buyers will pass by without ever getting acquainted with your product. The quality of the text is not something to economize on. If your budget is limited, you can read about alternative ways to save on translation in this article.
So where can you find translators and how can you tell if they are good professionals? It's best to turn to a company that specializes in localization services. If you're not sure whether you need traditional or simplified Chinese, they can help you make that choice as well. In the end, you'll receive a high-quality translation that takes into account all the linguistic nuances and cultural particularities.
Logrus IT has been working in the field of translation and localization since 1993. Over its 30 years of existence, the company has accumulated a wealth of experience translating into many languages. Among these languages, Chinese holds an honorable place, as Logrus IT continuously collaborates with a number of Chinese companies and engages native speakers for Chinese translations. In addition, Logrus IT has its own production office in China, in the city of Chengdu.
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