FW: Examples of multilingual documents

Best Regards,
Gershon

---
Gershon L 
Joseph
Member, OASIS DITA and DocBook Technical Committees
Director of 
Technology and Single Sourcing
Tech-Tav Documentation Ltd.

 

From: Tony Jewtushenko 
[mailto:] 
Sent: Monday, June 05, 
2006 7:07 PM
To: ; 

Cc: ; 'Bryan Schnabel'; 
; ; 
; ; ; 
; 'Howard.Schwartz'; ; 'Jennifer Linton'; 
; ; ; 
; 
Subject: RE: Examples of 
multilingual documents

Another example: 

 

Boston Edison 
(electricity provider) sent out warnings about planned work resulting in 
electrical supply downtime in a variety of languages on the same flyer.  If 
memory serves me correctly, Spanish, French, Chinese, Russian, and Vietnamese 
instructions were printed on the same page.

 

Regards,

Tony

 

-----Original 
Message-----
From: 
 [mailto:] 
Sent: 05 June 2006 12:19
To: 
Cc: ; 'Bryan Schnabel'; 
; ; 
; ; ; 
; 'Howard.Schwartz'; ; 'Jennifer Linton'; 
; ; ; 
; ; 

Subject: Re: Examples of multilingual 
documents

 

Here are a few more 
examples: 

1.  Government forms (and 
instructions on filling out forms) and publications in many multilingual 
countries - Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland, Malaysia, India. 
 Almost all immigration and custom forms (with the US as a major 
exception). 
2.  Magazines in some 
countries.  Airlines inflight magazines (some have different sections while 
other have different languages on the same page - to save on reprinting 
pictures).  I recently flew on Singapore Airlines which has a very 
extensive on-demand movies, with movies from different countries.  On one 
page of their magazine they show movies from Hong Kong, Korea, India, France, 
and Japan, with descriptions in the corresponding language. 

Regards,
Charles 
Pau
Director, Globalization Architecture and Technology
IBM
Tel. 
+1-617-751-4179   IBM Tie-Line 364-4116
e-mail: , 
Notes mail: Charles Pau/Cambridge/IBM@Lotus
URL : 
http://www.ibm.com/software/globalization
"Tell the rich of the midnight 
sighing of the poor, lest heedlessness lead them into the path of destruction, 
and deprive them of the Tree of Wealth." - 
Bahá’u’lláh

  
  

    
      
"Gershon 
      L Joseph" <> 

      
06/05/2006 03:15 
      AM 

      
        
        

          
            
Please respond 
            to
gershon

      

    
      
        
        

          
            
To

          
            
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            <>, <>, 
            <>, "'Bryan Schnabel'" 
            <>, <>, 
            <>, <>, 
            <>, <>, 
            <>, "'Howard.Schwartz'" 
            <>, "'Jennifer Linton'" 
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cc

          
            
 

        

          
            
Subject

          
            
Examples of 
            multilingual documents

      
 

      
        
        

          
            
 

          
            
 

      

Following up on action items from last 
week, here are some multilingual
documents I've come across:

1. A single user manual containing the product's 
documentation in multiple
languages 
(in Israel, typically English, Hebrew, Arabic and several 
European
languages like French, 
German, Italian, Greek). I've often seen this with
manuals that accompany mobile phones, cameras, and small 
electronic
equipment. The medical 
industry also produces a single document (typically
printed on 2 sides of a single sheet of paper) that documents 
everything
about the medication in 
every language required by the law of the country
it's sold in. In Israel that includes Hebrew, Arabic, 
English, Russian, and
a few more I 
can't think of off-hand. In South Africa it used to be 
English,
Afrikaans, and several of 
the local African languages. I think South Africa
now has 11 official languages, so I expect medications to 
ship with
documentation in all 11 of 
them. Products sold in Canada probably require by
law documentation in at least French and English (I'm sure 
someone on the
group will correct me 
if I'm wrong).

2. A 
single-language document with a warnings section that contains a set 
of
warnings in 20 or more languages. 
For example, the manual would be entirely
in English or French, but the preface or first chapter would 
contain a
section that lists the 
same laser (or other) warnings in every language the
field engineer installing the product may speak. Typically, 
I've seen this
approach in 
telecommunications equipment (not end-user equipment, 
but
equipment sold to service 
providers to integrate into their networks).

If anyone has anything to add to this, or other examples, 
please discuss on
the list. I doubt 
we'll get to this item this week (since it's on the 
bottom
of this week's agenda), but 
hopefully we'll discuss this next week.

Best Regards,
Gershon

---
Gershon L 
Joseph
Member, OASIS DITA and 
DocBook Technical Committees
Director of Technology and Single 
Sourcing
Tech-Tav Documentation 
Ltd.
office: 
+972-8-974-1569
mobile: 
+972-57-314-1170
http://www.tech-tav.com