I used to work in a county museum in Taiwan. We have guidebooks and webpage 
in English and Japanese versions except from our official language Mandarin. 
I was responsible for review of  English translation. From my experience, 
the easiest way is to find a good translator whose native language is 
English and also good at Mandarin. That works well.

Good luck!

Jenli


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ayumu Ota" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 9:23 PM
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Foreign Visitor Services


>I was assigned to review English translation hand-out of the permanent 
>exhibition labels/captions and am interested to know how other museums are 
>developing services for foreign visitors.
>
> Since I am working for a museum in Japan, my institution's first attempt 
> is to develop English translations of web pages, a general brochure, and 
> exhibition labels.
>
> It is possible to translate web, brochures, labels, audio guide scripts, 
> videos, etc. into different languages. However literal translations may 
> not be able to communicate meaning/concept to people with different 
> cultural background.  Do you develop texts by additional/background 
> information for visitors who are not familiar with your culture?  If so, 
> who will be writing these texts (curators, educators) and how to decide 
> what to include or omit (visitor evaluation?).
>
> Also, how do other institutions design, train, and evaluate guided tours 
> in other languages?  If inquiry methods are not common in one culture, 
> does institution allow more didactic tour or try to incorporate inquires? 
> Do you hire multi-lingual person to evaluate these tours?
>
> Any experiences/suggestions/thoughts will be helpful.  Thanks in advance.
>
> Ayumu Ota
> Shibusawa Memorial Museum
> Tokyo, Japan
> www.shibusawa.or.jp
>
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