Communicating internationally with users: the cultural and language implications for translating electronically delivered information

Technical communicators today write information for a wide range of media and audiences, many will not read English. Consideration has to be given to how the writer's work will stand up to translation and how the material will be received by those from other cultures. Business information systems are usually written and presented in English with online help and error messages in English and with graphics and icons designed from a western cultural perspective. This paper presents a project which involved translation of online help from English to Chinese. It describes the approach taken and discusses some of the associated difficulties.