Multi Lingual Web Sites

A collection of national flags

If you want to reach a worldwide audience, you should write your site in English. If the site is aimed at people from a specific (non English speaking) country you could publish in their native language. You could even provide alternative versions of your site in different languages.

Spelling and Grammar

Whichever language the site is published in, it is important to get spelling and grammar right. Unless you are fluent in the language (or languages) used on your site, getting the grammar right may be difficult. Spelling should be easier as there are tools to help you with that (both on the WWW and with most modern word processors)

Multiple Languages

One way to reach a vast audience would be to publish your site in many languages. There are at least three ways to do this (contact us if you would like to share some more methods with us):

Separate versions

You could have separate versions of your pages and let the visitor choose which one they wish to visit. The default page could be a simple "splash" page or the English version, with a clearly marked link to other versions. For an example, visit the Government of Canada website.

Side By Side

You could show different versions on the same page in two columns. Not recommended for more than two languages as the columns could get rather narrrow. For an example, see part of the author's family site

Online Translation Services

Provide links to translation services available on the WWW. At this stage this service is only available for a few languages but it is gradually expanding. Please note that these are usually quite basic, word for word translations - they are no substitute for a human translator yet.

Try Altavista's BabelFish for example. It can translate words/phrases you type in, or a whole web page (if you provide the web page address).