Re:Ask HN: Are there cheap ways to make websites multi-lingual?
by zapperdapper on Tuesday October 31, 2017 @07:52AM
(#15592519)
Ah, you've just run into the whole i18n thing. It's a pain.
You say "cheap" - depends what you mean - if you mean "free" then I think you'll have to rely on volunteers.
As you highlighted there are actually two issues here: 1) Getting the pages translated 2) Translating updates to pages and new content.
Managing the translated content so that you don't need to re-translate things that have already been translated is quite tricky. There are tools out there that are basically a database of translated strings, so that if any strings change you only need to translate new strings.
One possible route is to take a look at UpWork. If you combine cheap labour that can be found there, plus volunteers, with some kind of open source i18n management database (for managing translated strings) I think that's possibly as cheap as things will get.
Whether it will be worth the hassle or not is another thing...
You say "cheap" - depends what you mean - if you mean "free" then I think you'll have to rely on volunteers.
As you highlighted there are actually two issues here: 1) Getting the pages translated 2) Translating updates to pages and new content.
Managing the translated content so that you don't need to re-translate things that have already been translated is quite tricky. There are tools out there that are basically a database of translated strings, so that if any strings change you only need to translate new strings.
One possible route is to take a look at UpWork. If you combine cheap labour that can be found there, plus volunteers, with some kind of open source i18n management database (for managing translated strings) I think that's possibly as cheap as things will get.
Whether it will be worth the hassle or not is another thing...