FareHarbor Translation Overview and Processes

What falls under this category?

• Incorrect translations or inconsistencies in the FareHarbor software/product (Dashboard text, hard-coded Lightframe text, etc.)
• Incorrect translations or inconsistencies on the FareHarbor marketing website (demo page, software tour, about page, etc.)
• Incorrect translations or inconsistencies in FareHarbor Sites (“Book Now”, “Learn more”, generic privacy policy, etc.)
• Incorrect translations or inconsistencies on client-facing request forms (new item request form, new availability form, etc.)

Before submitting a request

• Review the important notes below to understand how we deal with translations for certain terms or phrases.

Submitting a new request

• To submit feedback on existing translations, please fill out the Product Translation Feedback Form form.

Timeline and expectations

• Submissions related to the FareHarbor product will be reviewed by the Product team and addressed accordingly.

  • High priority requests will be addressed within 1-2 weeks. All other requests will be addressed within 3-6 weeks.
  • Updating product translations requires engineering support and a deploy from the Product team, which may extend the timeline in some cases.
  • See FareHarbor + Language Translation for more information about how our product is translated.

• Submissions related to the marketing website will be reviewed by the FareHarbor Sites team and addressed accordingly.

  • High priority requests will be addressed within 1-2 weeks. All other requests will be addressed within 3-6 weeks.
  • Updating marketing website translations requires engineering support and a deploy from the FareHarbor Sites team, which may extend the timeline in some cases.
  • See Translation workflow for marketing website for more technical details about this process.

• If the team has any questions regarding your submission they will contact you to ask additional questions.

Country-specific words for taxes and fees

We often receive requests to update translations for the words “taxes” or “fees” to be clearer to end customers who are booking with companies in certain countries. An example might be changing the French translation for “taxes” to “TVA” to reflect the word most commonly used for taxes in France. However, there are some complexities involved with this, which is why we often need to push back or seek other solutions.

• Changing the French translation for “taxes” would mean that someone in France with their language set to French making a booking for a US company would also see “Includes TVA” in the checkout, which isn’t correct. We need to account for the fact that a French-speaking user might be booking with a company in a completely different country, which does not use TVA or other country-specific taxes.
• There can be legal implications of changing the way we refer to taxes and fees to end customers. If a change needs to be made, we will most likely need to do extensive research to make sure that the change will not get us in trouble in different countries or regions.
• Our current translations are intended to most accurately reflect the original English text. For example, in places where we show the more generic word “fees” instead of “booking fees” in English, we will do the same in other languages. In most cases, it would be inconsistent to use more specific terms in other languages.

Using existing features to display country-specific words for taxes

Whenever possible, use tax display labels to override the word “Tax” in the pricing breakdown that is displayed on the book form, confirmation page, and emails. This allows us to display country-specific taxes like “TVA” or “VAT” per company while keeping basic terminology (like the generic word “taxes”) translated accurately in all languages.

In certain countries where laws dictate that taxes and fees need to be broken down in more detail, we’ve aimed to provide solutions within the product (such as tax types and splitting taxes and fees) rather than changing the translations themselves.

If our current solutions are not working for a particular country or company, or if you believe that the existing translations are legitimately incorrect, let us know and we will look into additional solutions.

Turnaround and project scope

Because any changes to existing translations require changes to the codebase (and also cost us money!), all feedback requests go through a detailed review process to assess priority and scope.

A request that may seem quick and easy (such as updating the translation for “Send text message” to “Send SMS” on a booking) requires finding and reviewing all variations of the original term: text message, text messages, text, texts, texting, etc.

If the Product team has any questions on the scope of a request or whether a more specific term needs to be updated in more than one place, the team will reach out to you for clarification before proceeding.

• FareHarbor Sites does not currently have full translation support. To ensure we are producing the highest quality work in all languages for our clients, use the process outlined on the Internal FHS Translation Support page.
• The FareHarbor Help Center: Documentation in the FareHarbor Help Center is available only in English. While a small number of pages were previously translated into Spanish, there are currently no plans for the foreseeable future to translate the Help Center further, as FareHarbor does not have in-house capabilities for the translation and eventual management of this body of content.

• All company content (item names, descriptions, policies, canned messages, etc.) is managed by the company itself. FareHarbor is not responsible for translating this content, but can help get these translations into the Dashboard once they are provided. Translations can be added and updated at any time in the company’s Dashboard Settings > Translations.

  • See also: FareHarbor + Language Translation, Translating your FareHarbor content into other languages (client-facing page)

• Legal documents. Given that these documents have legal implications, only the English versions of any given document will be legally binding. If you are in need of a courtesy copy in a different language, please contact your region’s General Manager.