Re: Multilingual conversion - Ideas ?

In article <yy2hf.133162$yS6.12493@clgrps12>,
Oliver Wong <owong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>"James J. Gavan" <jgavandeletethis@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:fX1hf.587004$tl2.527860@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Just as important as your translation is, you also have to take into
>> account cultural differences. Some while back, not computing, but saw
>> where some 'household' product names just didn't make it in the Third
>> World - the translations were either hilarious or offensive in particular
>> countries.
>
> Anecdote off the top of my head (no citation available): some Microsoft
>product localized for Spanish had a set of radio buttons asking if the user
>was "male" or "bitch".

A nice bit of debunking follows... but... from
http://spanish.about.com/cs/culture/a/chevy_nova.htm :

--begin quoted text:

It strains credibility to believe that a company as large as General
Motors, with marketing executives and other employees and contacts
throughout the world, wouldn't be aware of a negative meaning of a product
name.

--end quoted text

This fellow has Great Faith in how corporations work. The page at
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp makes similar arguments:

--begin quoted text:

Assuming that Spanish speakers would naturally see the word 'nova' as
equivalent to the phrase 'no va' and think 'Hey, this car doesn't go!' is
akin to assuming that English speakers woud spurn a dinette set sold under
the name Notable because nobody wants a dinette set that doesn't include a
table.

--end quoted text

.... but does not assume 'They're rich, so they must be smart!'

DD
.