Parsing interface texts on Bucking - how I did them audit
When I was turned 180 degrees at the airport before flying to Greece, I started calling the ticket and hotel services. AWAD, in fact, put it on me as a client - “look at the site”, “enter your personal account” and so on. On the other hand, Bucking listened attentively, scored the hotel live and clearly transferred my booking while I went to the aeroexpress. Although in the rules of the hotel, if something goes wrong - the guest goes to hell. So I appreciated the difference in service.
But I'm not talking about that. The fact is that Bucking offered me a contract to check the adequacy of the translation of their website into Russian. Immediately show you what started:
')
But what continued:
And now I will tell and show you what and how with the texts of the interfaces.
The head of the Russian translation team, Polina Rybakova, contacted me and asked if I would like to scratch their site for 5 days as an expert invited to the office. 5 days I did not have, and I, without thinking twice, refused. Although, of course, I really wanted to work with these comrades, because there is something to learn. A week later, Polina got in touch again and said that it was possible and in short, the main thing was the result.
Then a senior in the Shi team called me from Shanghai and asked why I didn’t have a CV and a LinkedIn profile. All applicants have, but I do not. The phrase about “it was somehow unnecessary to me, and then, I didn’t refuse to you,” it seemed that she had torn her template. As a result, we spent about twenty minutes talking about the particularities of localizations and simple language. She requested various links to my publications, thought and signed a contract.
In the end, it was necessary to view all the translations of the site and say:
But enough of the lyrics. Go.
Right on the main one there was a rush:
The root of the question is in marketing. In English, there is a beautiful word for any placement options. It is necessary because Bucking has not only hotels, but also all sorts of houses, and in general a lot of things. Including - rafts with apartments for rent. So, they categorically did not want to write "hotels" in this place, because the client must understand that everything can be booked.
This is a classic wrestling marketing and interface. The phrase represents the entire site. And it was written in such a way that nothing would be postponed in the head. Plus on the site it is located deep under the search form, where all the options are listed. Both of these arguments made me give advice to write all the same "to search for hotels." The principle is this: understandable, but incomplete information is better than completely incomprehensible and complete.
Now let's look at the large interface element of the main page - the search form. In the search - the power and might ofMordor Booking.
Here are two important issues:
Then it turned out another magical thing. It turns out that variables (for example, city names) are stored without gender. When they are substituted for buttons and other elements, one has to dodge, which gives rise to such monstrous constructions:
Here, by the way, another problem - two superlatives
Well, or here:
Just change? Not really. First, as with all normal customer-oriented companies, no attempt to get in touch with the customer is left without warm breath from the central office. This is very correct, which proves, for example, the same Starbucks with a terrific school of training sellers and similar companies. A counterexample example is to let it go, and now the Russian branch of one auto concern rivets an advertisement about sex (which is banned when it comes to the European director about what is happening); we have guys on the ground zhahay SMS with dubious text on the client base and so on. In general, trash, waste and hell is possible.
It is clear that a company may receive less because of the inflexibility of such a policy, when a person is smart and understanding. But with 40 countries, it is easier to do everything from one place, and not with interest observe the self-expression of managers. Here it means that all translations of important things marketing wants to see without distortion. Which, by the way, is very sensible, again - in their place I would establish such a rule myself. It was supposed that I would check from the side whether everything was accurately translated. In practice, it turned out that I convinced them that it was possible and necessary to retreat a little from the mirror translation.
Secondly, there is still complexity. As you can see from the cases, the translation does not end with those who write the texts and those who transfer them to different languages. We also need a developer who will take into account language features. In our case, there are long buttons, long form fields, declensions, a kind of words, a format for writing dates (December, 10), and much more. But such a task has risen only in Russia. The translators said that only German is longer than Russian - but there it’s all simple. The Germans perceive the English words in writing and interfaces with complete ease. As a result, developers may someday have to learn to incline unfamiliar cities. And, most likely, using the language tools of Yandex. By the way, for comparison: the same Facebook is still unable to fall - in my account, “Lives in Moscow” flaunts. Or, MS also missed a bit with texts for buttons and forms (see review):
I will simply attach a few small pieces from the report to show what problems may be.
Here the euro jumped to 80 rubles and went down to 70. This advantage has become very important:
Here you need more specifics. And at the same time - to hell with all the variables ("we speak your language" - well, let's call it that!)
And further:
In the end, I suggested replacing the “account” with “your profile” or “your personal account” - the site is used by many people who are far from IT, so you need to make their lives easier, not frightening with unfamiliar words.
And here, let me introduce, perhaps, the most important interface problem:
The fact is that the address is written partially in the original language (where the non-recurring toponyms), and partly in Russian (where the toponyms are translated). I tried twice to show the address to the taxi driver in the country with the hotel. He muttered in Cyrillic and called the number with a piece of paper. One more time I copied German addresses in Google Maps to understand where a hotel is located - and smart Google got two very similar names on address translation to normal form. As a result, I almost stopped 70 kilometers east than I wanted.
Recommendation - two addresses; one in the local language and one in Russian.
Here is another interface problem. The site has lists of hotels that perform the role of "favorites" or bookmarks.
What is the "list" is completely incomprehensible. And this is the "favorites." If this is not possible, then you must add either possessive “save to my list”, or change the description of the process “add to list”, “save these options in the list” with descriptions of the result like “remember hotel”.
Different indicative trivia:
Booking produces cool city guidebooks, which are written in a language much less official than on the site. If in this phrase at least insert the word "residents", there will be what the English originator wanted to say.
Here is the problem that the same variable can be taken from different places:
But the classics:
Here, apparently, in the localization was something like% compare_caption%; on hover -% compare_description%. I suspect that the second tag for the inference was made a copy-paste from the first one, and we have two% compare_caption%. By the way, I think that in Russian it is better not to “compare”, but “add to comparison” - they will chase the AB tests to get evidence.
Go ahead:
Here it is very touching for the user to learn to click on checkboxes. If the prompt has to explain how the interface works, then the interface itself needs to be changed, not the text to it:
There are funny moments for 12 times in English:
Here is a piece of localization: in an enlightened Europe, they do not know about interregional roaming:
When the edits accumulated under a hundred, and some sort of systematics appeared, it was necessary to discuss all this with the rest of the translation team. And she, surprise, sits in Amsterdam. Well, we took and called: for the first time, I appreciated how WQS was better than ordinary instant messengers, it was really useful. In general, the office has a very thoughtful infrastructure, we must take it to the future. Here, see, for example, a typical floor hatch:
"Spine" with wires:
All employees have the same laptops, and on all desks (including those in negotiations) the same docking stations:
Brought a laptop to the workplace, stuck in the dock - got a picture on the big screen and a keyboard. With a crunch pulled out, I went to a negotiation room, I stuck in the dock ...
Good employment indication
Some Norwegian-German order, all the cabinets in the kitchen are neatly signed:
And there are our games:
But again to the point. They showed one team (Russian), and then all this had to be explained by another English-speaking, which became a separate quest. Sometimes it was easy, and sometimes you need to do translation to make it clearer. I simply threw the tower away from the simultaneous analysis of Russian and English: I understand why translators sometimes get “washed up” by the eyes. They discussed various things on the video for almost three hours. Here are some examples:
By the way, it turned out that they in Europe do not perceive the bracket as a smile. It is necessary to draw the eyes with a colon, otherwise it is just some piece of punctuation.
In the end, there were a few hundred of such places. Basically, of course, the problems are typical - declination, numerals (1851 hotels found). It happens that somewhere a translator once translated the name of a button, and after a couple of years, someone, seeing the same English word, decided not to pull it again and used the variable elsewhere. And in the new context, the meaning has become completely different. Somewhere there were just difficult places - with all the enormous wealth of the Russian language, English is a bit more flexible specifically in business terminology.
The most important thing in localization is not to translate literally, but to translate precisely. Remember, I was telling a theory about translating all the incoming information into an internal dialogue? Here the principle is the same: if there is an advantage, it must be conveyed so that the person understands the first time. Compare:
Here is the most interesting part. It is necessary to understand what is most important for the Russian person from booking. Actually, the mat and rhyme managed to formulate everything in two lines at once. But when disclosing this formula, something like the following happened:
1. We, in general, do not need saving as an abstract “savings”. We need to know one simple thing: that "Less than I paid, no one will ever pay for this room in this hotel." Or even this way: peace comes from the fact that any other lodger pays more or the same. And the specific guarantee is this: if the hotel at least once gives someone a price lower than on Bucking, he will fly out of the base. Simple psychology. To understand this, you need to put yourself in the user's place: it is unlikely that he compares hotel prices, he just wants to get a fair price where he stopped. And he can only compare with other guests.
2. Booking shakes money from the hotel for accommodation, and not from the client. When paying by card in the chain there is no counterparty who takes a couple of percent. The second for a European is a matter of course, and for the first they use the phrase “No booking fee”. I suggested something like: “Without a commission. No hidden fees. In general, happy is the company that can write this on the main one without asterisks. For example - the same AWAD takes money for an air ticket with a sickly commission “for transfer by card”. It may sound crazy somewhere in Germany, but the absence of hidden fees is a competitive advantage.
3. An important advantage of Bucking is the number of hotels in the database. The problem is that they show them with numbers, and this is not very logical to do. The fact is that to compare their numbers and the number of other sites with hotels is simply impossible. Also a simple feature of the cognitive apparatus. People generally do not know how to compare numbers greater than three digits, if they do not memorize them on purpose. It is necessary to explain that the hotels on this website right here most of all.
4. In fact, the point about “most hotels” is also abstract. It can and should be updated. Quite a specific important fact - that in the city where the user goes from Russia, there will not be a hotel twice cheaper across the road. All (or almost all) hotels are in the database, and people will get the best accommodation for their grandmothers.
5. Managing online booking is a clause without specifics, because it is written from the point of view of the site owner. It needs to be disclosed from the point of view of the client. For example - you can cancel the number without a call and get all the money back if the flight was delayed. Or extend the placement while you are on the train. At night, in the bathroom and under the roar of a perforator. Examples of usefulness from small everyday stories are always very cool and very memorable.
6. The same goes for quick booking. We are accustomed to, that the hotel immediately confirms the settlement, but in Europe the tradition of calm answers in a day. Therefore, the site write "instant confirmation." We also have a much better phrase - “it will take only 2 minutes”. She is good because Bucking had done a great job at one time to speed up all the processes for clients, and all together it would really take two minutes. Again, an example from the client’s point of view is “You can book a room 2 minutes before check-in.”
7. Another feature is bank cards. They are used in Europe as a means of authorization, so many hotels ask you for data, block the euro and give it back to get the ID. When you book without payment, these cards are still sometimes needed. And you can pay at the hotel while staying in cash. Everywhere on the site in the display-sortings goes the phrase "pay later." There is a problem with this - “later” may be “after 2 hours” and “at the end of the order placement”. I suggested “pay on the spot.” These three words explain the whole concept.
8. Can somewhere boast a little. With a guest from Bucking, the hotel is always worn as with a written bag, because no one needs a negative review or a call from the office for a joint. This, of course, cannot be written on behalf of the company, but indirectly, for example, by raising one of the reviews. By the way, while I was searching in social networks for various references to the incomprehensibility of something on the site, I found the wonderful phrase of the blogger Zyalt, well-known in narrow circles, about the fact that with their reservation you are the king. Right here in the frame and home.
9. And finally - “We speak your language, we have support in 41 languages ​​...”. I do not care. 41 languages ​​- well, cool, but not about me. Only one is important to me. I call - and the operator speaks Russian. Even if I was stuck on an island from which the ferry had just departed, whose captain, a bad person, lives for an approximate time of plus or minus ten minutes. I then tried to explain to the dude from the hotel, providing a transfer. He either did not understand English, or quickly missed what exactly happened, and zakosil a fool. I found the boat, but the sediment remained. So, the phrase should be about the fact that the Russian operator will answer you both in central Africa and at the North Pole. If they build at least one hotel there.
In practice, until I started picking the translation, all these moments were completely irreplaceable in the usual use of the site. Seriously, I did not even think that something was wrong with the translation.
The fact is that such “robotized” texts are, in fact, the standard de facto in RuNet. Look, here the primordially Russian Aeroexpress website meets us with uncharacteristic capital letters and strange punctuation in the first form:
But the registration form on the main Facebook is also the same translation problems and terms:
Here is the site of a regional theater, which accidentally came to hand, and whose English version is not even planned. Also hello from a robot in dates:
At the same time, evaluate JS-snowflakes in 2014-2015
And, by the way, the last is the secret of the sign "Rusia" at the door. This, it turns out, is the name of the legal entity, and not the cunning designation of the Russian representation. I suggested to write from above “Russian office”.
He showed the team a huge number of points where you can write better. I explained it first to all Russians (not quite politically correct - part of the team from Amsterdam nervously shuddered in places), then a little more polite and squeezed (Polina explained that you shouldn’t take a screenshot of the search for interests in the spirit of “Germany, mass executions”) - to an English group from a copywriter , developer and marketing representatives.
He digested the internal rules of the translation and offered to add a little (slashes, small letters in “you”, a minimum of abbreviations, and so on).
All of the above will be corrected slowly, thoughtfully and for a long time. Most likely - because of their system of releases and sprints, but I'm not sure. As for “there is no error, but it is possible better” - it will go to the AB tests, of which the site is constantly spinning nemeryanno.
Here is the main problem with the address:
True, this particular taxi driver would not have found anyway, because the hotel is not “Vassaga”, but “Baccarat”.
Here is the “pay later” fix:
Polina writes that they have recently corrected some of the problems with cases, but so far without a developer. For example, it was: Paris - is more popular among travelers from Russia for: Architecture, Cuisine , and it became: Paris is a popular destination for travelers from Russia who are interested in: architecture; the kitchen .
Yes, if you come across a glaring shoal, here's a feedback form:
Everything translates directly to the wonderful Polina Rybakova and the team of translators, they are really watched (but they roll out a release for a long time). I must say that there they really support a good language and constantly torture both developers, and English capital, and marketing. Most likely, you will often come across what I have already noted, but what has not yet been fixed. But six months later, yes, it will make sense.
Moral: love the Russian language. It allows cool to convey shades of meaning.
But I'm not talking about that. The fact is that Bucking offered me a contract to check the adequacy of the translation of their website into Russian. Immediately show you what started:
')
But what continued:
And now I will tell and show you what and how with the texts of the interfaces.
What was it
The head of the Russian translation team, Polina Rybakova, contacted me and asked if I would like to scratch their site for 5 days as an expert invited to the office. 5 days I did not have, and I, without thinking twice, refused. Although, of course, I really wanted to work with these comrades, because there is something to learn. A week later, Polina got in touch again and said that it was possible and in short, the main thing was the result.
Then a senior in the Shi team called me from Shanghai and asked why I didn’t have a CV and a LinkedIn profile. All applicants have, but I do not. The phrase about “it was somehow unnecessary to me, and then, I didn’t refuse to you,” it seemed that she had torn her template. As a result, we spent about twenty minutes talking about the particularities of localizations and simple language. She requested various links to my publications, thought and signed a contract.
In the end, it was necessary to view all the translations of the site and say:
- Where it is clear that initially everything is written in English.
- Where can I do better for Russians.
But enough of the lyrics. Go.
the main thing
Right on the main one there was a rush:
The root of the question is in marketing. In English, there is a beautiful word for any placement options. It is necessary because Bucking has not only hotels, but also all sorts of houses, and in general a lot of things. Including - rafts with apartments for rent. So, they categorically did not want to write "hotels" in this place, because the client must understand that everything can be booked.
This is a classic wrestling marketing and interface. The phrase represents the entire site. And it was written in such a way that nothing would be postponed in the head. Plus on the site it is located deep under the search form, where all the options are listed. Both of these arguments made me give advice to write all the same "to search for hotels." The principle is this: understandable, but incomplete information is better than completely incomprehensible and complete.
Now let's look at the large interface element of the main page - the search form. In the search - the power and might of
Here are two important issues:
- In the first block there is no clear distinction between price levels. In our country, unlike English, “budget” and “economy” mean about the same thing, and the difference between “deluxe” and “premium” is also given in the order in the list.
- In the "Type of accommodation" it is not clear who and what is different. For example, I vaguely guess that apartments are apartments for the day, but this is how the hotel differs from the bed and breakfast hotel could not be understood even from the third attempt. And I still do not understand. It would be cool to pick up more accurate words and make tooltips with an explanation of what it is.
Then it turned out another magical thing. It turns out that variables (for example, city names) are stored without gender. When they are substituted for buttons and other elements, one has to dodge, which gives rise to such monstrous constructions:
Here, by the way, another problem - two superlatives
Well, or here:
Just change? Not really. First, as with all normal customer-oriented companies, no attempt to get in touch with the customer is left without warm breath from the central office. This is very correct, which proves, for example, the same Starbucks with a terrific school of training sellers and similar companies. A counterexample example is to let it go, and now the Russian branch of one auto concern rivets an advertisement about sex (which is banned when it comes to the European director about what is happening); we have guys on the ground zhahay SMS with dubious text on the client base and so on. In general, trash, waste and hell is possible.
It is clear that a company may receive less because of the inflexibility of such a policy, when a person is smart and understanding. But with 40 countries, it is easier to do everything from one place, and not with interest observe the self-expression of managers. Here it means that all translations of important things marketing wants to see without distortion. Which, by the way, is very sensible, again - in their place I would establish such a rule myself. It was supposed that I would check from the side whether everything was accurately translated. In practice, it turned out that I convinced them that it was possible and necessary to retreat a little from the mirror translation.
Secondly, there is still complexity. As you can see from the cases, the translation does not end with those who write the texts and those who transfer them to different languages. We also need a developer who will take into account language features. In our case, there are long buttons, long form fields, declensions, a kind of words, a format for writing dates (December, 10), and much more. But such a task has risen only in Russia. The translators said that only German is longer than Russian - but there it’s all simple. The Germans perceive the English words in writing and interfaces with complete ease. As a result, developers may someday have to learn to incline unfamiliar cities. And, most likely, using the language tools of Yandex. By the way, for comparison: the same Facebook is still unable to fall - in my account, “Lives in Moscow” flaunts. Or, MS also missed a bit with texts for buttons and forms (see review):
Let's go further
I will simply attach a few small pieces from the report to show what problems may be.
Here the euro jumped to 80 rubles and went down to 70. This advantage has become very important:
Here you need more specifics. And at the same time - to hell with all the variables ("we speak your language" - well, let's call it that!)
And further:
In the end, I suggested replacing the “account” with “your profile” or “your personal account” - the site is used by many people who are far from IT, so you need to make their lives easier, not frightening with unfamiliar words.
And here, let me introduce, perhaps, the most important interface problem:
The fact is that the address is written partially in the original language (where the non-recurring toponyms), and partly in Russian (where the toponyms are translated). I tried twice to show the address to the taxi driver in the country with the hotel. He muttered in Cyrillic and called the number with a piece of paper. One more time I copied German addresses in Google Maps to understand where a hotel is located - and smart Google got two very similar names on address translation to normal form. As a result, I almost stopped 70 kilometers east than I wanted.
Recommendation - two addresses; one in the local language and one in Russian.
Here is another interface problem. The site has lists of hotels that perform the role of "favorites" or bookmarks.
What is the "list" is completely incomprehensible. And this is the "favorites." If this is not possible, then you must add either possessive “save to my list”, or change the description of the process “add to list”, “save these options in the list” with descriptions of the result like “remember hotel”.
Different indicative trivia:
Booking produces cool city guidebooks, which are written in a language much less official than on the site. If in this phrase at least insert the word "residents", there will be what the English originator wanted to say.
Here is the problem that the same variable can be taken from different places:
But the classics:
Here, apparently, in the localization was something like% compare_caption%; on hover -% compare_description%. I suspect that the second tag for the inference was made a copy-paste from the first one, and we have two% compare_caption%. By the way, I think that in Russian it is better not to “compare”, but “add to comparison” - they will chase the AB tests to get evidence.
Go ahead:
Here it is very touching for the user to learn to click on checkboxes. If the prompt has to explain how the interface works, then the interface itself needs to be changed, not the text to it:
There are funny moments for 12 times in English:
Here is a piece of localization: in an enlightened Europe, they do not know about interregional roaming:
Office and teams
When the edits accumulated under a hundred, and some sort of systematics appeared, it was necessary to discuss all this with the rest of the translation team. And she, surprise, sits in Amsterdam. Well, we took and called: for the first time, I appreciated how WQS was better than ordinary instant messengers, it was really useful. In general, the office has a very thoughtful infrastructure, we must take it to the future. Here, see, for example, a typical floor hatch:
"Spine" with wires:
All employees have the same laptops, and on all desks (including those in negotiations) the same docking stations:
Brought a laptop to the workplace, stuck in the dock - got a picture on the big screen and a keyboard. With a crunch pulled out, I went to a negotiation room, I stuck in the dock ...
Good employment indication
Some Norwegian-German order, all the cabinets in the kitchen are neatly signed:
And there are our games:
But again to the point. They showed one team (Russian), and then all this had to be explained by another English-speaking, which became a separate quest. Sometimes it was easy, and sometimes you need to do translation to make it clearer. I simply threw the tower away from the simultaneous analysis of Russian and English: I understand why translators sometimes get “washed up” by the eyes. They discussed various things on the video for almost three hours. Here are some examples:
By the way, it turned out that they in Europe do not perceive the bracket as a smile. It is necessary to draw the eyes with a colon, otherwise it is just some piece of punctuation.
In the end, there were a few hundred of such places. Basically, of course, the problems are typical - declination, numerals (1851 hotels found). It happens that somewhere a translator once translated the name of a button, and after a couple of years, someone, seeing the same English word, decided not to pull it again and used the variable elsewhere. And in the new context, the meaning has become completely different. Somewhere there were just difficult places - with all the enormous wealth of the Russian language, English is a bit more flexible specifically in business terminology.
The most important thing
The most important thing in localization is not to translate literally, but to translate precisely. Remember, I was telling a theory about translating all the incoming information into an internal dialogue? Here the principle is the same: if there is an advantage, it must be conveyed so that the person understands the first time. Compare:
Here is the most interesting part. It is necessary to understand what is most important for the Russian person from booking. Actually, the mat and rhyme managed to formulate everything in two lines at once. But when disclosing this formula, something like the following happened:
1. We, in general, do not need saving as an abstract “savings”. We need to know one simple thing: that "Less than I paid, no one will ever pay for this room in this hotel." Or even this way: peace comes from the fact that any other lodger pays more or the same. And the specific guarantee is this: if the hotel at least once gives someone a price lower than on Bucking, he will fly out of the base. Simple psychology. To understand this, you need to put yourself in the user's place: it is unlikely that he compares hotel prices, he just wants to get a fair price where he stopped. And he can only compare with other guests.
2. Booking shakes money from the hotel for accommodation, and not from the client. When paying by card in the chain there is no counterparty who takes a couple of percent. The second for a European is a matter of course, and for the first they use the phrase “No booking fee”. I suggested something like: “Without a commission. No hidden fees. In general, happy is the company that can write this on the main one without asterisks. For example - the same AWAD takes money for an air ticket with a sickly commission “for transfer by card”. It may sound crazy somewhere in Germany, but the absence of hidden fees is a competitive advantage.
3. An important advantage of Bucking is the number of hotels in the database. The problem is that they show them with numbers, and this is not very logical to do. The fact is that to compare their numbers and the number of other sites with hotels is simply impossible. Also a simple feature of the cognitive apparatus. People generally do not know how to compare numbers greater than three digits, if they do not memorize them on purpose. It is necessary to explain that the hotels on this website right here most of all.
4. In fact, the point about “most hotels” is also abstract. It can and should be updated. Quite a specific important fact - that in the city where the user goes from Russia, there will not be a hotel twice cheaper across the road. All (or almost all) hotels are in the database, and people will get the best accommodation for their grandmothers.
5. Managing online booking is a clause without specifics, because it is written from the point of view of the site owner. It needs to be disclosed from the point of view of the client. For example - you can cancel the number without a call and get all the money back if the flight was delayed. Or extend the placement while you are on the train. At night, in the bathroom and under the roar of a perforator. Examples of usefulness from small everyday stories are always very cool and very memorable.
6. The same goes for quick booking. We are accustomed to, that the hotel immediately confirms the settlement, but in Europe the tradition of calm answers in a day. Therefore, the site write "instant confirmation." We also have a much better phrase - “it will take only 2 minutes”. She is good because Bucking had done a great job at one time to speed up all the processes for clients, and all together it would really take two minutes. Again, an example from the client’s point of view is “You can book a room 2 minutes before check-in.”
7. Another feature is bank cards. They are used in Europe as a means of authorization, so many hotels ask you for data, block the euro and give it back to get the ID. When you book without payment, these cards are still sometimes needed. And you can pay at the hotel while staying in cash. Everywhere on the site in the display-sortings goes the phrase "pay later." There is a problem with this - “later” may be “after 2 hours” and “at the end of the order placement”. I suggested “pay on the spot.” These three words explain the whole concept.
8. Can somewhere boast a little. With a guest from Bucking, the hotel is always worn as with a written bag, because no one needs a negative review or a call from the office for a joint. This, of course, cannot be written on behalf of the company, but indirectly, for example, by raising one of the reviews. By the way, while I was searching in social networks for various references to the incomprehensibility of something on the site, I found the wonderful phrase of the blogger Zyalt, well-known in narrow circles, about the fact that with their reservation you are the king. Right here in the frame and home.
9. And finally - “We speak your language, we have support in 41 languages ​​...”. I do not care. 41 languages ​​- well, cool, but not about me. Only one is important to me. I call - and the operator speaks Russian. Even if I was stuck on an island from which the ferry had just departed, whose captain, a bad person, lives for an approximate time of plus or minus ten minutes. I then tried to explain to the dude from the hotel, providing a transfer. He either did not understand English, or quickly missed what exactly happened, and zakosil a fool. I found the boat, but the sediment remained. So, the phrase should be about the fact that the Russian operator will answer you both in central Africa and at the North Pole. If they build at least one hotel there.
Why all this is unnoticed
In practice, until I started picking the translation, all these moments were completely irreplaceable in the usual use of the site. Seriously, I did not even think that something was wrong with the translation.
The fact is that such “robotized” texts are, in fact, the standard de facto in RuNet. Look, here the primordially Russian Aeroexpress website meets us with uncharacteristic capital letters and strange punctuation in the first form:
But the registration form on the main Facebook is also the same translation problems and terms:
Here is the site of a regional theater, which accidentally came to hand, and whose English version is not even planned. Also hello from a robot in dates:
At the same time, evaluate JS-snowflakes in 2014-2015
And, by the way, the last is the secret of the sign "Rusia" at the door. This, it turns out, is the name of the legal entity, and not the cunning designation of the Russian representation. I suggested to write from above “Russian office”.
What is all over?
He showed the team a huge number of points where you can write better. I explained it first to all Russians (not quite politically correct - part of the team from Amsterdam nervously shuddered in places), then a little more polite and squeezed (Polina explained that you shouldn’t take a screenshot of the search for interests in the spirit of “Germany, mass executions”) - to an English group from a copywriter , developer and marketing representatives.
He digested the internal rules of the translation and offered to add a little (slashes, small letters in “you”, a minimum of abbreviations, and so on).
All of the above will be corrected slowly, thoughtfully and for a long time. Most likely - because of their system of releases and sprints, but I'm not sure. As for “there is no error, but it is possible better” - it will go to the AB tests, of which the site is constantly spinning nemeryanno.
Here is the main problem with the address:
True, this particular taxi driver would not have found anyway, because the hotel is not “Vassaga”, but “Baccarat”.
Here is the “pay later” fix:
Polina writes that they have recently corrected some of the problems with cases, but so far without a developer. For example, it was: Paris - is more popular among travelers from Russia for: Architecture, Cuisine , and it became: Paris is a popular destination for travelers from Russia who are interested in: architecture; the kitchen .
Yes, if you come across a glaring shoal, here's a feedback form:
Everything translates directly to the wonderful Polina Rybakova and the team of translators, they are really watched (but they roll out a release for a long time). I must say that there they really support a good language and constantly torture both developers, and English capital, and marketing. Most likely, you will often come across what I have already noted, but what has not yet been fixed. But six months later, yes, it will make sense.
Moral: love the Russian language. It allows cool to convey shades of meaning.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/250083/
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