Does anyone know of European sites?...I was with Alassy for a while which was a Dutch site with automatic translation...nothing came from it except a few enquiries for peak time.
But in this day and age there must be European sites! - all Dutch,Belgiums,Germans...you name it speak beautiful English and probably 2 other langauges as well.....the majority of English on the other hand....nomally speak dreadful English and nothing else...this could open up 2 debates...schooling and the English language
There are loads of European sites. But it is difficult to make sense of them if you don't speak their language - what they offer, for how much, and how you go about creating your ad.
Some will offer translation from English I am sure. There are European ones that are multi-lingual - abritel.fr, allovac.com, homelidays.com, vacationhouses.com, to name a few I have come across. I don't know if they are any good. To know that you would have to perform some Google searches in German, Italian, Dutch, etc. and see which are top of the pile.
I can help with some rudimentary terms:
ferienhauser = 'holiday homes' in German
semesterhus = ...in Swedish?
case per le vacanze = Italian
Possible translations for 'holiday rentals':
affiti vacanze = Italian
alquileres de vacaciones = Spanish
verhuur van vakantiewoningen = Dutch
vermietung von ferienobjekten = German
Then I guess Normandie is the same for all?
Any linguists out there? If you speak a European language fluently, how would you search for accommodation in Normandy using a search engine?
I'm not a linguist. Its all double dutch to me but one could try:-
“affitti di festa� – Italian
“sedi di festa� - Italian
“alquileres del dÃa de fiestaâ€� - Spanish
“hogares del dÃa de fiestaâ€� – Spanish
“Feiertagmieten� – German
“Feiertaghäuser� – German
I hadn't realised it was such a task to find one! Thank you all for the input....shame Allassy.nl didn't work as they translated automatically for you....there MUST be one out there surely that would be good for us all....I shall be getting all my continental friends on the case AND my former guests - what an excuse to be back in contact
What about Pour-les-vacances.com ? You do need to translate everything into French and also have a French web site, but it would allow you to tap into the French market and might even attract from further afield?
I think that the English version comes as an 'add-on' for a small extra fee. We get many enquiries through Pour-les-Vacances, but often at the last minute and the French seem particularly good at asking for a discount or a 'special'price! I wonder if this is the done thing in France?
The great advantage of Pour-les-Vacances is that the number of properties from each area is limited, so you can't get lost in a sea of others. It also really makes you work hard at your French!
We set our euro rates before the recent surge in the pound, and I forgot to change them when the exchange rate altered quite dramatically, so a couple of people had very cheap holidays, thankfully out of season! At least I've got some repeat bookings from my mistake!
Maggie
thank you all - I will investigate - you are right though the French do like 'value' for money and will bargain - I am hoping to also tap into the German/Dutch & Belgian market - I'll let you know!
It's free and according to our French friends they say it is fairly accurate - just a few grammer alterations...slightly literal translation. I used to use freetranslation.com but that was all over the place!
I occasionally use babelfish for a phrase but it is really not up to the job of translating an ad into another language. For instance here is your last post babelfished into French - you can sort of make out the meaning but it's not good enough if you are trying to market something:
I agree, the translations can sometimes churn out complete gibberish.
For English to French translations my advice would be to attempt the translation yourself first, if your French is anywhere near reasonable, then use the site to double check whether you have said what you intended to.
I wouldn't rely on it completely. More's the pity.
thank you all - I will investigate - you are right though the French do like 'value' for money and will bargain - I am hoping to also tap into the German/Dutch & Belgian market - I'll let you know!
It's free and according to our French friends they say it is fairly accurate - just a few grammer alterations...slightly literal translation. I used to use freetranslation.com but that was all over the place!
And here it is translated by Systran Server v 4.0 Translation System. Systran is multi-language (English into and out of French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian) and I think it is frequently the engine used to translate pages on the Internet, but - does it do a good job?
Unfortunately, it can’t translate Rubbish, Geordie or Gibberish. My wife tells me it would be very useful for me if it did. Apparently those are the languages I use when I get excited.
Just as one example, the use of the word 'free' in English has been translated as 'libre' which you would use when referring to being free to do something (available). In the given context however, it should be translated as 'gratuit'.
That's definitely better, but still not quite good enough. If you spoke good French you could get a passage translated this way and then go through correcting the mistakes like libre/gratuit.
It definitely carries more of the sense of the original - is it free and where does it live?
For whatever my humble opinion may be worth, ALL of my French enquieries / bookings have always come from www.abritel.fr
The site is in English & French, thus easy to use. The "advertisers' tools" are not great but sufficient.
As for Germans, Swiss, Austrians etc, www.vacationvillas.net is a good, multi lingual site from which I get many enquieries / bookings.
