Hi Annette

Statistics:

Quebec Hosts 9% (although some hosts in other provinces live in french too)
WWOOFers from France 12%
WWOOFers from Germany 23%
WWOOFers from Canada 31% (I imagine some of these wwoofers live in french too)
the remainder are from all over the world and speak many languages.

Another interesting statistic is that we receive very very few email written in a language other than English. A rough guestimate would be about 2 per month. And the most often used language is 1st German, then French, then Spanish, Italian, and once Portuguese which corresponds with the statistics above. I use Google to translate and although not perfect, it does get us by. At least I sure hope I haven't offended any body. I do always explain I am using a translator.

I have certainly wondered about the ability to have mirror sites in different languages. As you can see German would be the higher need.

I would imagine the costs of doing this would be very, very expensive. The site changes hourly with both new hosts and new wwoofers creating or changing their profiles, forum posts, etc. Plus there is constant changes to the structure, content, and functionality of the site. Again the costs to maintain many related sites I can't imagine, or even 1 other. Especially if hiring a translater to do a professional job. And that's the only way we would want to to it - professionally. If the website was static then I could see the possibility of having mirror sites in different languages.

But I will discuss this with our web team. Perhaps it's easier than I imagine.

And if we mirror our site in only 1 or 2 other languages then how is that fair to the other 56% of our WWOOFers?

Does the Google translation do a really poor job? Is it at all understandable?

Thanks for your offer of help Annette. We will certainly ponder this further and I will discuss it with the web team.

Cheers!

Becky
Coordinator

hi becky,

i'm sure this is just an oversight while you were typing, but there is no such language as 'mexican' - they speak spanish, which was already listed.

Google translate does a good enough job of translating the headings such as host listngs.

Is there a choice for languages spoken in the host listings? If there is, WWOOFers can search on a preferred language. If there is no such choice, then individual hosts should make sure they list the languages spoken in their household in their profile so it will show up during a search.

I agree with Becky that it would be a time consuming and expensive job to translate every aspect of the WWOOF site (forums, profiles etc.).

If a french speaking host wishes french speaking WWOOFers only, their profile should be in french to discourage english, german, spanish etc. volunteers from contacting them. I have seen several WWOOFer profiles that are written only in french so I assume they are only looking for french speaking hosts.

Noreen

Hi!

Thanks for the rapid answer. I think I have to make some precision about my inquiry to have a better translation.

Now, I'm quite busy and sorry if my English is not very neat – but probably still better than using Babelfish...

From the statistic I can imagine that if you add French wwoofer and Quebec host plus those from NB etc… you must have a good amount of frenchspeakingpeople...

Above all, it is not a question of providing translation of host and wwoofer profile and posting of the forum... It would be totally useless to translate the profile of a hosts who do not speak French. The host and the wooffer are responsible for their writing and their translation if they want to have one. For example you would not have the idea of correcting the spelling on profile nor on post, so I do not understand why you mention this. So of course, only the main information should be in both – or more language, if you want to - and this would just need to be translate one time, and then update from time to time or only when changes occur.

I was also very surprised when you write you would hire only a professional translator Most people with French as mother tongue and that have studied enough this language would do a good job (nothing to compare with Google translation you presently entrust!).

About Google fish. Yes, it is a poor job (ask among bilingual people) . Recently I had to help friends to register, because they needed to understand exactly the question you were asking, the translation was so unclear. Also you can not ‘’click’’ when you are on the translator to send your answer, you have to go back to the English version.
Babel fish help to understand and is better than nothing, but it is very difficult to read a lot with this translator nor be sure of the real meaning.

Also I think you should consider, that among French speaking people from Quebec and from France or French speaking people in Canada (Ontario, NB etc..) , some do not speak English at all or not enough, what is not the case for most traveller - particularly German people - who do not expect having service in German in Canada. People from France often travel to Canada because they know they will be able to communicate in French in Canada... (90 % of our wwoofers are from France).

So I wish you consider more the particularity of Canada which have the cultural luck to have a French speaking and bilingual provinces. Providing a French translation would just be fair to your fellow citizen and to the reality of Canada. It is not a question to be unfair to other wwoofer, who speak another language.

Please do not take this as a Quebec claim!…. I'm not even born nor grown up here ... I come from Switzerland where Multilanguage is part of the life of all national organisation and is respected - even if 70% are German speaking. I travelled through Canada and was often surprised about the unawareness and poor consideration from the English speaking province about the French part of Canada. Your argumentation just confirm this observation.

Thanks for your comprehension and believe in my sincere will to help you to make your organisation the best it can be!

Annette

Oh! I apologize. Yes I knew there was no "Mexican" language.

Thanks for the correction :)

Becky

Hi Annette

I apologize, you misunderstood me. When I said professional translator, I just meant not using an electronic translator like Google or Babel Fish. And I was mentioning this due to the constant changes to the website (excluding profiles & the forum) and the expected high costs of hiring someone to translate. I couldn't not pay someone for their services, because it would be a regular job. I wasn't trying to slight your offer and in fact am very grateful for your considerate offer and thank you again.

I did say I was going to discuss this with our web team.

And thank you for your clarification on profiles and forum posts. I didn't think of it that way.

I'll let you know once I've had a chance to research this.

Cheers!

Becky

I think that it would be worthwhile to provide a French translation of the main components of the site. It is true that this would be helpful for hosts who live in French as well as for wwoofers whose primary language is French; more importantly, however, a French translation would reflect the two official languages of Canada and the substantially different cultures that come with this. I also think that a bilingual site (or a site introducing even more than two language possibilities) would have great marketing value for woofers like myself who would like to experience the inter-cultural and interlingual aspects of woofing along with the relationships, sharing of organic knowledge, and building common experiences which is presented clearly on the website.

In short, I feel that in making the Canadian wwoofing web-site bilingual, with something more than a simple online translator, we would showcase the variety of wwoofing experiences to be had in Canada and would attract more people to participate - both by ease of accessibility for those whose primary language is not English and by underlining the fact that the differences between hosts extend beyond the geographic areas and the types of organic farming. I believe that these cultural and linguistic differences are valuable and should be highlighted wherever possible.