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Do transalations matter on Play

RizbIT

Member
When you publish an app on Play Store to worldwide, you usually just add an English translation. They say that for other languages Google will automatically translate the description.

So why then do they sell translastion service?

Why can tyou just use Google translate and then copy that translation into a new language description on the store?

Has anyone tried the paid translation service on the dev console does it work, does it increase downloads?
 

YellowAfterlife

ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ ᴍᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ
Forum Staff
Moderator
Why can tyou just use Google translate and then copy that translation into a new language description on the store?
Because it'll look not much better to the speaker of the language than this looks to you (while that specific game is iconic, a common complaint is that people are unable to derive any meaning from the text).

Just how terrible it is will depend on specific language and writing style - for example, careful writing with extensive use of commas in Russian allows to have the text translated to English without immediately giving away the fact that it is translated,
Потому что переведенное описание будет выглядеть для носителя языка не гораздо лучше, чем это описание выглядит для вас (отдельно взятая игра достопримечательна, но одна из наиболее частых жалоб - то, что тяжело разобрать какой-либо смысл в тексте
Because the translated description will not look much better for a native speaker than this description looks to you (a particular game is noteworthy, but one of the most frequent complaints is that it's hard to make out any sense in the text)
but trying the opposite gives away the fact that it's machine-translated within the first few words
Потому что это будет выглядеть не намного лучше для говорящего языка, чем это выглядит для вас (в то время как эта конкретная игра является знаковой, общая жалоба заключается в том, что люди не могут извлечь никакого смысла из текста).
as "говорящего языка" means "of speaking language|tongue" in sense of "of language|tongue that speaks".

With languages of different groups (e.g. English<->CJK languages) the results are usually far less bearable, as you might have noticed if you've ever-seen machine-translated descriptions for Chinese products.

Overall I'd suggest to not go with presenting a machine translation unless you are willing to take a risk of making the whole ordeal look like a spit in the face of it's speakers. And especially don't machine-translate in-game text.
 

Genetix

Member
I'm not entirely sure, but I believe they will have a real person translate and check, If you've ever used Google translate it is far from perfect - You definitely could probably get by doing so of course
 
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