

Offer HN: We'll translate your iOS application to Japanese for free - dturnbull

Here&#x27;s the offer:<p>My partner — a native Japanese speaker and actively working translator — and I want to translate a handful of iOS applications from English into Japanese for free.<p>Why?<p>Well, we&#x27;re hoping to snag a few testimonials, smooth out any snags in the process (although my partner has translated multiple apps already), and also be able to say on our website, &quot;These are some of the apps we&#x27;ve translated...&quot;<p>Here&#x27;s the catch:<p>* We&#x27;re a two-person team, so we can&#x27;t handle a lot of volume. (The exact amount will depend on the complexity of the apps that people send us.)<p>* There&#x27;s no hard limits on the amount of words we&#x27;ll translate, but we probably won&#x27;t accept apps that have thousands upon thousands of words (like games with a lot of dialogue).<p>But for those who we do accept, the translation will be done with a lot of care (which is important, since Japanese is a highly contextual language) and, since Japan has one of the fastest growing App Stores, we&#x27;re hoping you&#x27;ll also see an uptick in sales.<p>To take us up on this offer, send an email to hello@davidturnbull.com. We&#x27;ll get back to you within 24 hours if you&#x27;re selected.<p>Regards,<p>David Turnbull, iostranslate.com
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SchizoDuckie
Would you be willing to translate an open-source web-app / chrome extension?
I've currently autotranslated the stuff through google translate but I can
imagine that's hilariously wrong:

[https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/DuckieTV/blob/angular/_local...](https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/DuckieTV/blob/angular/_locales/ja_jp.json)

Even if you won't : kudo's for posting this offer to hn!

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xorcist
Serious question: Why would you do such a thing?

I'm asking because I have this feeling it has become more and more common
during the last years. Just because I sent a header that I can read a certain
language, a lot of websites send me completely unreadable autotranslations.

There is nothing hilarous about it. If it's not a proper translation, if it's
not something a native speaker would understand, then why send it at all?

Why butcher a beautiful language, put the pieces back together with random
dung and then throw the resulting muck in the face of your users?

Are you that afraid that someone from France, Finland or the Faroe Islands
would stumble upon your site, in the vast sea of the English speaking
Internet, and then never come back just because it's not translated to their
mother tongue?

Truly sorry for the rant. It was something built up. I do wonder about the
prevalence of autotranslations however.

~~~
steveridout
Completely agree, especially since Chrome now offers to translate web-pages in
other languages when the user opens them. It's far better to leave the
decision to use machine-translation to the end user.

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hrjet
Why only iOS? If you and the developers use a tool like GetLocalization.com
you can support many platforms easily.

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dturnbull
Because we feel like we can offer better service by specialising, since we can
test the apps ourselves, etc. We want to give every app a considerable amount
of attention so the final result isn't just a translation that "makes sense,"
but that will be truly appreciated by users in Japan.

~~~
hrjet
That's a fair point; though I am not sure what limits you from testing on
other platforms. Even if you don't have real hardware for them, most of them
have cross-platform emulators.

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AznHisoka
They're doing it for free. They have a right to be picky :)

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majc2
Damn right! They have a right to be picky if they're charging too :)

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melling
I've had issues trying to get my language apps translated in Japanese. I just
had someone do it for a second time. My translations are in this Google
Spreadsheet:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z-bF17uM76g7YsGB0Cbn...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z-bF17uM76g7YsGB0CbnxILPWxw2yhu7BDh4weicZuc/pubhtml)

I've got several language apps but my reviews in Japan haven't been good.

Spanish: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-
lite/id388918463?...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-
lite/id388918463?mt=8)

French: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-french-
lite/id687567532?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-french-
lite/id687567532?mt=8)

Anyway, if you could verify my app localization, that would be great.

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stcredzero
The good thing about this: Cultural and language barriers create
opportunities. This is a very powerful factor and there are huge opportunities
for arbitrage.

The big unknown in this: For such arbitrage to work, the key is to demonstrate
there is good understanding of the language, culture, and market on both
sides, and that there is a mature process for delivering a quality product. I
can't think off the top of my head how such things can be demonstrated to
developers who don't already understand the language, culture, and market on
both sides.

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DanGTZ
Hi, I've got an iOS app that allows car enthusiasts to measure their car
performances
:[https://itunes.apple.com/app/perfexpert/id549390700?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/app/perfexpert/id549390700?mt=8)
I would be interested for the translation in Japanese. I can send you a promo
code to download the app for free, so you can see the amount of text to
translate. Thanks Claude Joseph-Angélique Founder at PerfExpert

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dturnbull
Note: We were having trouble with the original email in this post so I've
switched it over to my personal email. If anyone's sent a message already,
please resend. Thanks. :)

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ajani
I can't locate your personal email in this post. Am I missing something? Or
you edited the original post and the email in it is the personal email?

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dturnbull
Sorry for not being clearer. I edited the original post, so use that email. :)

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ttty
What about web apps? you can test them too with any browser (:

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scrumper
YHM. Very interesting offer - thanks.

