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multilingual php site

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:44 am
by whiteadi
Hi,

are there php based solutions (?!) for making a multilingual web site?

Regards,
Adrian

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:52 am
by twigletmac
It's done quite a lot on forum software and is present in phpMyAdmin. Don't know if there's any specific software for it but the generally it appears to be done either using indexed arrays in a flatfile or via databases with tables for each language.

Mac

10x

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 9:16 am
by whiteadi
ok, I myself used a tool (Language Manager) and also the database solution but I wanted to see if php developers thought at something special

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 10:22 am
by feyd
The multilingual work I've done, both sites and software have used stored, precompiled (or as close as you can get to it) lists of all the words or phrases used in the software.

Although I like databases more, I believe it takes more time to load all the data from the database than it does from a "static" file. However, with files, you can get into weird synchronization problems if you forget to update language_z after updating language_x. So one thing that can be done is use a database for the actual content, and auto-generate a "compiled" file of the language data whenever that table is updated (on demand, or as a function of the CMS system you use)

Dynamic Translation

Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2004 3:37 am
by bigduke
I've been thinking in terms of dynamic translation using the babelfish API coupled with nusoap. Does this ring any bells ?

Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2004 8:51 am
by manichaen
Any dynamic translation will only ever reliably convey the gist of what is being said in the original language. Have a look see at the results google gets when it translates sites (search for something in a foreign language then click on the "translate this page" link in the google results), and think whether this level of language (usually understandable with a little imagination) is good enough for your site.

If people are not specifically aware that you're using dynamic translation to render your site in other languages, then I don't see them taking the site very seriously... so lots of disclaimers.

If the site is going to be some form of professional site, save your reputation and pay for a translation.