Specifics of the Chinese digital market\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Simply put, the Chinese digital market is massive. Here are some numbers to put it in perspective:<\/p>\n
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- The country has a population of 1.4 billion<\/li>\n
- In terms of GDP, it is the second-largest global economy<\/li>\n
- There are over 900 million internet users<\/li>\n
- Of these, around 70% use Baidu as their preferred search engine<\/li>\n
- By this year, e-commerce is expected to reach 64% of all retail sales in the country – this is bolstered by the rise of websites and online shopping<\/li>\n
- Around half of the population makes use of mobile payments<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
It is therefore essential that you carry out native-level Chinese e-commerce translation in order to succeed. But what are the challenges of Chinese language translation? Let\u2019s take a look.<\/p>\n
What are the challenges of Chinese language translation?\u00a0<\/h2>\n
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Chinese is a complex language. It consists of Simplified and Traditional Chinese. What\u2019s more is that in Mandarin alone, there are more than 80,000 characters. A much, much bigger combination than English\u2019s simple 26 letters. Furthermore, of these 80,000, there are about 3,000 characters that are used most frequently. These, together with 6,000 characters are commonly used in technical writing and literature.<\/p>\nThere are also a great number of dialects and you need to know exactly which one you are catering to so that your e-commerce translation is completely spot-on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Idioms and their usage in the Chinese language are also major nuances that you need to be aware of. We all know that direct translations of idioms can be extremely difficult and often, the exercise remains futile and unintelligible. Therefore, it\u2019s vital to localize your idiom usage and ensure that you use local idioms to convey your primary idea. If you don\u2019t have idioms in your marketing content, it may be time to consider incorporating some as this is an essential way for Chinese people to express themselves.<\/p>\n
There are also sentences and sentence patterns. In Chinese, good translators know that there are both simple and complex sentences. However, there are often no direct, word-for-word or character-for-character translations. Instead, one needs a trained and experienced eye in order to get the right meaning across using the right sentence structure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And last but not least, there are complex grammar rules to consider. For example, in Chinese, there are no singular or plural words to express nouns or objects. There is also no verb change when it comes to expressing tenses. Finally, sentences in Chinese begin with the topic or subject first and proceed with the rest of the information. This can be tricky to navigate if you are not a native speaker.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What does the future hold for e-commerce localization in China?<\/h2>\n
In closing, it\u2019s important to note how great a potential the digital market has in China. It is a behemoth compared to other global giants and is only expected to be fuelled further as more options and convenience are offered to Chinese shoppers. This is why you need not only effective Chinese e-commerce translation. You also need to work with an e-commerce translation agency that is well-suited to e-commerce localization. Localization takes translations one step further and turns words into meaningful content for users to appreciate in their own language, in the most authentic way.<\/p>\n