Can you translate your website into Chinese?

We recommend that you not translate your website for the Chinese markets.

• Your business website needs to remain foreign-looking, so you must convey confidence that your products and services are genuine.
• The overhead of translating your website into Chinese will be high, and ongoing maintenance will slow down adding and updating information.
• Chinese people reading your website can and will use translation options in their browsers to translate your website as and when required.
• We do recommend translating the SEO data into Chinese.

Summary of options

Chinese Language Background

The Chinese language is among the most confusing subjects in publishing/selling on the Chinese market.

Chinese language types

For the basis of trading in China, there are three groups of languages:

• Local language—Most cities/regions have a local language. In most cases, this is not a regional dialect. It is a language in its own right. People from different cities/regions often struggle to understand each other’s languages.
• Mandarin is China's primary language. The emperors started using a single Chinese language, which Chairman Mao fully implemented. “One country needs one common language." Mandarin was used because it was already the official language of the government.

• Hong Kong, Taiwan, and many southern Asian areas use traditional Chinese as their local language, e.g., Cantonese and Taiwanese. These two languages share a common written language but are spoken differently in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Cantonese is spoken in areas where Chinese people emigrated before the 1930s, such as California, USA.

Most people in China speak Mandarin, their local language and in increasing numbers, English as part of their international language education at school and college. It is estimated that more than 100 million people are learning English in any given year.

There are three forms of the written Chinese language, partly covered in the above:

• Traditional Chinese – The original written language of China. The handwriting of the Traditional Chinese language is an art and takes many years to perfect.
• Simplified Chinese is the written language of China.
• Romanisation systems—Many ways have been developed for writing Chinese characters in Latin (European). A keyboard for 2,000+ Chinese characters is impractical.

The internet has adopted Pinyin, the standard used by most Chinese people under 40. If you were schooled over 35 years ago, you would have been taught one of the other systems (like Pinyin).

Pinyin allows you to type in Latin characters and choose the corresponding Chinese Character from a drop-down list on your PC, mobile, or other devices. While this may sound like slow typing, it is speedy, possibly faster than typing English. To learn more about Pinyin, there is an excellent summary on the BCC website.

Automatic translation to Chinese

Most browsers have a built-in APP to translate internet content.

Chinese people are not put off by internet content in a foreign language. The translation software used in China, including browsers and mobile devices, has been developed to translate Chinese to and from most international languages.

Whatever languages are on your website, do not use automatic translation. The Chinese reader will not know that they are reading an automatic translation. Your Chinese readers will encounter poor translation content, which reflects poorly on your company.

The Chinese reader will use an automatic translation when needed, e.g., Baidu automatic translation. In doing so, the Chinese reader will know that the Chinese language presented has been automatically translated and does not reflect poorly on your company.

If time and resources allow, have a Chinese speaker read your internet content in Chinese using Baidu's automatic translation. Check for any significant issues in the automatic translation of Chinese. When major translation issues are identified, consider changing your local language content (often, the problem is an error in the original language).

Automatic translation will not help your ranking in the Chinese search engines.

Who do you use to translate?

Word-for-word translation can give you a technically correct but meaningless description of your business, products, and services.

Many Chinese people will not necessarily understand your business. When translating, a word-for-word translation may not accurately reflect your business, as seen in the phrase "Lost in Translation."

We recommend that you use a translator from your own country. Many colleges and universities produce proficient Chinese speakers who can better understand your business and provide more accurate translations.

Chinese language translation options

• Do nothing – No Chinese translation

Please leave your website in your local language. The two primary languages used on the internet in China are Chinese and English. Your website content is not in English or Chinese, which is why you're seeing very little internet traffic from China.

If your internet content is in English, you can receive internet traffic from China, except for providing Chinese search SEO, which is set up.

• Automatic translation – Automatically translate your website pages using software like Google Translate

Automatic translation can be inadequate. The Chinese reader will not know it is an automated translation, which can reflect poorly on your business. Let the Chinese read and use their local automatic translation software. Any errors created in the translation will be known to be an issue with the translation software and will reflect poorly on your business content.

For more information, please take a look at the Automated translation into Chinese.

• Create a Chinese page – An additional description of your business in Chinese

Add a page to your internet content, a “Welcome Page” in Chinese that explains the critical elements of your business.

Provided the Chinese SEO data has been created, this will help your website be indexed in Chinese search engines.

• Translate your SEO data into Chinese

Create a copy of your website and translate the SEO data.

By combining a Chinese domain with your internet content hosted in China / Asia, you should see an increase in your Chinese internet traffic speed.

For more information, please see the Chinese SEO.

• Chinese search engine SERP

Similar to Google's rich text, Baidu's Search Engine Result Page (SERP) significantly enhances your search engine ranking.

• Multi-media translation

If your business has multimedia content, consider adding Chinese subtitles, etc.

While automatic Chinese translation can handle your internet content, it is less effective for spoken words and, in most cases, not suitable for multimedia content.

We recommend adding video subtitles to your website to help the Chinese search engines understand your business.

• Key product and service translation

The translation of your essential internet products and services. 

This is a beneficial approach when promoting an essential business activity. A translation is also required if you are using Chinese e-Malls.

For more information, please see the Chinese SEO.

• Chinese marketing website

Create an internet marketing brochure in Chinese that links essential products and services to your overseas pricing / online cart.

This approach is far better than creating a complete translation of internet content, provided you keep the descriptions to a minimum to avoid generating a significant overhead in translation maintenance.

• Full translation of your internet content

This option is not recommended unless you have an existing customer base in China that demands a site in Chinese.

Remember that Chinese users have an automatic translation option in their browsers.

Chinese Social Media

Chinese social media is the exception to the above options.

Chinese social media content is usually entered in Chinese. You can enter your content in your local language. However, there is no method in Chinese social media platforms for Chinese users to translate content from their local language into Chinese automatically. Using your local language on Chinese social media will significantly reduce the opportunity for your content to be followed.