[Sigia-l] Question on multilingual sites

[Cunliffe D J (Comp)]

Hello,

> -----Original Message-----
> Jan Knight
> If a site has primarily English content but also has some content in
> Spanish dotted around, my take is that everything on the English
> interface should ALL be in English. Now, I'm not talking about a site
> where there is an entire translated equivalent site, just one where some
> pages or articles are also provided in Spanish.

You don't mention anything about your users - are they bilingual or
monolingual? This may well make a difference.

It is also not clear why there is Spanish content dotted about.

Is the Spanish content aimed at a Spanish speaking user segment - if so why
are they having to navigate through English menus, why not create a small
Spanish subsite? Even if your Spanish speakers have some ability in English
requiring them to navigate the site in English seems unnecessary. 

As a general rule I would recommend that links to material in a particular
language be in that language, particularly if these links are going to be
embedded in an interface in another language. I have seen Welsh language
sites where the link to the English version is labelled "yn Saesneg". I
think it is only when you are confronted with a language that you don't
understand that you fully appreciate how hard it can be.

Cheers,

Daniel.