Is correct language important?

[Tirilej]

A couple of years ago I started a thread about how important I thought it was that casinos translated their rules so people would understand them. Especially those that already had the rest of their casinos translated. I still think it's important, but I realized back then that it wasn't always possible.
There are many languages in the world and it's still mostly the English version that's the valid one.

I have always thought that if a casino is translating their sites, and spend a lot of money on it, that it at least should be done in a professional way.
Now you can't expect any professional to know the terms about gambling, but mostly the casinos do have staff that speaks the language so you would think what's wrong would be corrected?
Sometimes it is but very often not.

For me a correct language is important. It tells me that the management do bother, and it tells me that they are acting in a professional way.

If I see Swedish that's wrong, or bad, not correct grammar and so on, I usually tell them.
If it's a casino here I tell their rep.

One casino I have been fighting with since they opened because every time I open a game I have the word deposit in the bottom.
It should at least be that word, but in Swedish it is a word that doesn't exist in Swedish
So everytime I'm reminded of it but I've given up and realized that for them it's not important.

The other day I did a little job trying to help one of the new casinos here because their Swedish wasn't ok.
Just the most important mistakes. I did it for free and I don't have an account there.
Now it turned out that they didn't want the help. Ok

Another one have their rules mixed with both English and Swedish and I haven't bothered to tell them. The Swedish is bad too.

So my question is if I bother too much? Is it my age that makes me believe a correct language is important?

What do you as a player think?
What do you as a rep think?

Please tell me so I know if I should stop bother, and I apologize if my English isn't correct

 

[Valhalla]

I fully agree with you Tirilej. If I visited a casino and found that the English on the site was below-par, I would be wary of it (the casino).
If they aren't going to bother to take the time to do a professional job with language and presentation, what other aspects are going to be less than professional?
It's all about creating a level of trust between player and casino; when a casino speaks my language (literally), I'll speak theirs (cash)

Also - you're clearly joking regarding your English. I speak French but could never write it to a level your English is.
I've never once met a Scandinavian who couldn't speak English, in fact your English is better than a lot of native speakers I know

 

[fun4all]

For me a correct language is important. It tells me that the management do bother, and it tells me that they are acting in a professional way.

Totally agree with you. I judge casinos very quickly on things like that. If their website is shoddy then I presume the whole operation is shoddy. It's a fair assumption to make. The language of a casino website is a clear indication either way of how professional they are. I use other things also When you see how reps here handle talking to players (players that sometimes are out of line and sometimes have a fair grievance) then I use that as a judge also. Would not want to gamble at a place run by a person who hates customers!

 

[incrediblestuff]

Well i do feel language should be basically error free, and preferably also clear..
One of the worst things even in English sites run by English native speakers, i sometimes see stuff that boggles the mind, and then i am not talking about typo's but your typical incomprehensible T&C stuff..

If there are a lot of errors on the site, i most likely wouldn't bother to register.. if however it is a site i know and trust, depending on the form of the error i do the same as you tiri..

That is, if it's one letter in a promotional mail that is going out once and expires a day later, and further doesn't affect the meaning of the words or make room for possible false interpretation, i won't bother, but if it's something that is fix on their site, like rules, policies and whatnot, i would damn well be shocked if they didn't want the help! As that not only is quite ungrateful, but indeed shows the wrong level of care for their appearance..

A lot is in the details, and a Casino will never be perfect probably, but they should try their best, there's a lot of money involved, and if you do mind the details customers will notice, and of course also possible customers, which visit the site for the first time, and see some errors even most young children wouldn't dare to be caught making, well, they might leave and never come back.

A lot of people don't realize that there is a huge audience out there, that really is allergic to gross spelling errors, and indeed with translations these seem to be much more common. Logical if you think about it, as the persons that run the Casino often don't speak much of the languages the site is translated in, but nevertheless that does not make it less sloppy.

 

[Takkaone]

Thanks for the thread! Now i know that i am not alone with my (maybe old-fashioned) position on how important correct and professional communication is...

For me as customer these kind of translation-issues simply scream either "unprofessional" or "garage company". In gambling or for that matter all other businesses involving lots of financial transactions / confidential data this does instantly disqualify the company from any future dealings / any customer-relationship.

I can absolutely accept if a site is only available in english. But if a company does offer their product in different languages then they need to put in the required effort / ensure that the translations are on par with the quality of the english site. Bad translations tell the foreign customer that he is either not "worth the effort" to get a quality product or that there are some other serious issues with the company. (E.g. not enough money to get a professional translation, which in itself would raise a red flag)

Maybe we really are old-fashioned as i see a related issue every day at my own workplace: Flawless professional communication seems to not be a priority for more and more people. Business emails with lots of typos / including things like "lol" or smileys are a no-go for me, but become increasingly common. Somehow a lot of people dont think about / dont care about the impression they leave on customers and business contacts which i simply cant understand and dont want to accept in professional dealings.

 

[Tirilej]

You have no idea what it means to me right now to hear that others feel the same about language.
I did start to doubt myself regarding this.

I know there are a few new casinos out there that are trying to make their casinos look young
They are using a language I would never use but I still can accept it as long as the Swedish they use are correct.

One word though that I hate when they use wrong is the word Enjoy.
Some don't understand that the direct translated word in Swedish is what you use to describe a great meal, a beautiful sunset or really good sex
To feel like that when playing isn't really possible

I think the managers probably want to believe their own staff and that can be a problem. It's very young people working in this business and maybe they don't know their own language as well as they think they do, or they are simply not players themself.
What they see when working is not the same as I see when I play.

 

[Casinomeister]

I was the project manager for an online translation firm back in Internet BC (Before Casinomeister), and what a lot of companies didn't realize was that translations need to be proofread by native speakers who specialize in the translation's subject matter. Doctors need to review medical translations, athletes reviewing translations of sports equipment, cosmeticians for cosmetic websites, etc. One thing which is rare is to find is a well translated casino since there are not many translators who specialize in gambling.

This is where you guys come in. There are bucket loads of players in this forum that speak other-than-English languages and who are schooled in the gambling lingo. I'm really surprised that casinos are not jumping in here and contacting members who are fluent in Russian, Swedish, Finish, etc., and hiring them to proofread their "translated" websites.

Members who feel confident that they can properly review casino webpages should come up with a plan and post an ad in our Help Wanted section:
https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/community/help-wanted-ads/

For you casino reps, you can search the membership database for language skills here:
Link Outdated / Removed

There is no excuse for having a badly translated page if you are an iGaming rep member of this forum

 

[bigjohn]

So my question is if I bother too much? Is it my age that makes me believe a correct language are important?

What do you as a player think?
What do you as a rep think?

Please tell me so I know if I should stop bother, and I apologize if my English isn't correct

No, I don't think you bother too much. If you feel the issue is important you should definitely speak up about it but you can't expect your advice to be followed all the time or even most of the time. I think the important thing is that you saw something that could improve someone elses site and could be easily fixed and you did your part to help them.

And now I'll help you a little, in the bolded part above it should read, "a correct language is important" or "correct languages are important". If you are talking about one thing use "is" if you are talking about several things use "are".

 

[Tirilej]

No, I don't think you bother too much. If you feel the issue is important you should definitely speak up about it but you can't expect your advice to be followed all the time or even most of the time. I think the important thing is that you saw something that could improve someone elses site and could be easily fixed and you did your part to help them.

And now I'll help you a little, in the bolded part above it should read, "a correct language is important" or "correct languages are important". If you are talking about one thing use "is" if you are talking about several things use "are".

I was waiting for someone to correct my language I appreciate such things.

Thank you bigjohn :notworthy

 

[homerbert]

I am personally do not care, but i am always check russian pages, and for most casinos... Well, they just use google translate.
But i am always trying to offer casinos a help with translating, correct their mistakes, and all for free!
I helped redbet(when Andy was their rep). Andy even credit me a bonus! Very nice, and it was a pleasure for me to help them.
I helped betat and slottyvegas recently, also they was kind and credit me bonus, and it is really shows that they care about players. Thumbs up!
Igame has perfect russian pages, best i ever see. No any mistakes or anything lke that.
And the winner is casino luck/ next casino. Some time ago i sent email to their management, offer to make some translations / corrections, because their russian pages are awful. All for free. They replied that they do not need it now. And they have RUB as currency, and i know they have good amount of russian players. Strange, right?
P.S. John correct me too pls

 

[cncas123]

Its also extremely important that the punctuation is correct as well, a comma in the wrong place can change the whole context of a sentence.

 

[dunover]

Well, this is partly why I took apart the terms and criticized the general faecal standard of the Red Star site recently posted on here by Bryan for baptism.
The grammar is poor, there is bad copy and pasting including duplication of the same sentence in one case, the spelling atrocious and generally in English reads like a 10 year-old constructed it.

For me this just puts me off, as if they take that little care over their 'shop window' then how much care would I get as a player?

It's just plain lazy and amateurish - surely they can find a native English-speaker to proofread it, there's more than enough of them!

 

[Mousey]

Players are expected to abide by the T&C to the letter - which is impossible if the terms are not clear and understandable. Yet when we sign up at a casino we are agreeing to abide by those terms. A native language proofreader is imperative to make sure those terms make sense (without 'all your bases are belong to us'-type pigeon English) and are not contradictory.

I've seen T&C so sloppy I've skipped signing up simply because I didn't trust a casino that couldn't write clear T&C.

 

[bigjohn]

I am personally do not care, but i am always check russian pages, and for most casinos... Well, they just use google translate.
But i am always trying to offer casinos a help with translating, correct their mistakes, and all for free!
I helped redbet(when Andy was their rep). Andy even credit me a bonus! Very nice, and it was a pleasure for me to help them.
I helped betat and slottyvegas recently, also they was kind and credit me bonus, and it is really shows that they care about players. Thumbs up!
Igame has perfect russian pages, best i ever see. No any mistakes or anything lke that.
And the winner is casino luck/ next casino. Some time ago i sent email to their management, offer to make some translations / corrections, because their russian pages are awful. All for free. They replied that they do not need it now. And they have RUB as currency, and i know they have good amount of russian players. Strange, right?
P.S. John correct me too pls

Ok, I'll take a shot at it. Below you will find how I think what you wrote should have been written. Just a few small changes and it sounds perfect to a native English speaker.

I, personally, do not care but i am always checking russian pages, and for most casinos... Well, they just use google translate.
But i am always trying to offer casinos help with translating, correcting their mistakes, and all for free!
I helped redbet(when Andy was their rep). Andy even credited me a bonus! Very nice, and it was a pleasure for me to help them.
I helped betat and slottyvegas recently, also they were kind and credited me a bonus, and it really shows that they care about players. Thumbs up!
Igame has perfect russian pages, best I've ever seen. No mistakes or anything like that.
And the winner is casino luck/ next casino. Some time ago i sent an email to their management, I offered to make some translations / corrections, because their russian pages are awful. All for free. They replied that they do not need it now. And they have RUB as currency, and i know they have a good amount of russian players. Strange, right?

I can't even imagine how other languages work but I know English is supposedly very complex to try to learn as a second language.

The best thing to do is start with basic sentence construction. A basic sentence contains a subject (noun) and a predicate (verb), like this, "The paint dried." 'The paint' being the subject and 'dried' being the predicate. Once you have the basic idea you can jazz it up a little like this, "The yellow paint dried quickly in the hot sun", but the message is still the same so you can take out all the fluff and end up with, "The paint dried."

If you try that with the first six words you put above (take out the fluff) you end up with, "I am care." You have a subject 'I' but you have two predicates 'am' and 'care' and that's why it would sound odd to a native speaker. There are a few other things I changed in there but it's all pretty minor. You are better at writing than a lot of the people I went to school with!

 

[Tirilej]

Yesterday I gave 3 examples from casinos using a Swedish language I can't accept in my OP.

I also sent pm's to them about the thread so they would know. I hadn't even told one about their bad Swedish before.

One of them asked me to give him some information and I did. He promised to look into it.
Today I talked to one of the others and gave also him some tips, and he promised a change.
I don't have much hope for the third one but then I won't sign up either so it won't bother me

I never ask for anything and I don't want it either. I just want them to believe that I know what I'm talking about.
So they did restore some faith in me those two. Thank you

 

[vinylweatherman]

Players are expected to abide by the T&C to the letter - which is impossible if the terms are not clear and understandable. Yet when we sign up at a casino we are agreeing to abide by those terms. A native language proofreader is imperative to make sure those terms make sense (without 'all your bases are belong to us'-type pigeon English) and are not contradictory.

I've seen T&C so sloppy I've skipped signing up simply because I didn't trust a casino that couldn't write clear T&C.

If there is one audience that needs perfection in language, it's lawyers. Perhaps it's the lack of court cases that has allowed casinos to get away with sloppy language in what is, in effect, a legally binding contract. In more established industries, a misplaced comma, or wrongly used word, can cost a company millions. I am sure that being on the wrong end of such a lawsuit because of a sloppily written or translated contract is a strong incentive to use proper translation and proof reading services. The more complex a contract is, the more scope there is for expensive errors, another thing the casino industry is yet to learn the hard way.

 

[Jasminebed]

Correct language is very important to me. Grammar also.

It may well be at least partly because of my age, but are we not the demographic that has reached a point in our lives when children are grown, student loans are long in the past, and perhaps our mortgages are paid off if we purchased homes in our twenties? We may be retired, or semi-retired and have time to play. It certainly is true of landbased casinos.

I prefer livechat, where I am forgiving of typos, and certainly can accept that my chat reps first language might not be English.

No excuses for terms and information on the site. Even less if a mistake is pointed out and it is not corrected.