For example, Japanese multi-language manuals have always had perfect Chinese as well as the other languages
Well, I have a $100K pick and place machine, built by Yamaha and sold under the Philips brand. I have 3 generations of the manual for it.
The first looks like it was translated word by word from Japanese to Dutch to English, and it quite horrible. I have one dated a year or two
later that is MUCH better, but still difficult to understand in places. Then, the third version was obviously a total rewrite from the ground up
by a native English speaker who was intimately familiar with PC board assembly work. You can tell that the pictures in all 3 are identical with few
exceptions, but the text goes from ghastly to OK for tech-speak, to a REALLY WELL WRITTEN manual. I don't know how this even happened,
but it was a good thing.
I also have a Japanese (Toshiba) VFD on my lathe. I called the distributor for a manual, and when I gave him the model # he said "Gee, we don't sell
too many of those in the US. He sent the manual, and I could see why. It seems a cultural thing at least with Japan, they can never tell you HOW to
do something, that would be condescending. So, they have to explain how the thing works, and let you figure out how to wire it up for common
applications. So, while a VFD manual written by an English speaker would have diagrams showing the most common setups (controlled by pushbutton
switches, controlled by PLC, etc. with some simple description, the Japanese-written manual has endless tables of connections and their functions,
as directed by setup parameters in the software, and NO simple info on the most common setups and how to wire it. I've seen this enough to be pretty
sure this comes from some kind of cultural bias.
Jon