By walden on

We are looking to build a spanish language translation for an existing corporate drupal site with about 200 pages. This translation will only have about 30 pages to start and we are wondering if it is worth using the i18n module.

Our alternative is to add the spanish content to our existing drupal and just modify a duplicated theme. Are there any potential hangups with this plan? Would it be better to use i18n in the long run as we may want to add 1-2 other languages in the future? How long does i18n take to get up and running on a site of this size? [it took us about 50 hours to upgrade from 4.6 to 5.1]

Also, if we do use i18n, how are the menus handled on the translated site? are they paired with their english counterparts or are they completely separate and customizable?

Thanks!

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

zeta ζ’s picture

zeta ζ commented

Take a look at http://drupal.org/project/Modules/category/97. I’ve just built a site using Locale & Localizer – a blog for a friend who has done a lot of traveling (6/7 languages). Not live yet, but v. cool :-) (not all languages have translations for interface or content, but this situation is handled without any drama).

Google Translate also looks very interesting – Google might provide a good starting point for refining a translation.

Why bodge themes to do a task it was not designed for, when a purpose built solution exists? One of the joys of OSS is you don’t have to settle for such compromises. Do it once, do it right – it will pay back in the long run.

It shouldn’t take long to set up – maybe less than 1hr to get translated interface, then you can enter the translations of your content; should be a lot quicker than an upgrade.

I18n shouldn’t produce a separate site with different functionality – only the text changes, not the structure.