Archive for August 8th, 2008

In recent days, there have been a number of cool translation-related initiatives which have come through my feed reader. In the past, I’ve mentioned how translation is going to be important to avoid the fragmentation of the world wide web, and these developments are welcome solutions.

The first are the hints of a new service from Google called Translation Center. Google knows that its mission of making all the world’s information universally accessible requires widespread, accurate translation. The new service, uncovered at Google Blogoscoped, will bring together translators and those seeking translation. Volunteers and professional translators can bring web content into other languages through a manual translation effort through tools provided by Google. It is unclear if this will be a marketplace with payment or just voluntary exchanges. This development comes 7 years after Google offered volunteers the ability to translate Google services into their native language through Google In Your Language. This effort has seen the explosion of more than 100 localized versions of their site.

Secondly, TechCrunch reports that VoIP provider Jajah has introduced JAJAH.Babel which provides instant Chinese-to-English translation through a phone. Users call a number, speak Mandarin or English into the phone, and a few seconds later the translated version is read back. Apparently the technology works pretty well and could come to replace in-person translators who accompany business people, diplomats and others around the world. I’m surprised that the service works with Mandarin which I would have thought we be a more difficult language to translate, so I hope they expand it to other languages soon. Imagine the help this will be to tourists in China who now have a phone number which can explain to the natives what they need, in their own language.

Finally, a post from the recent iSummit held by iCommons explains the difficulties and promises of multilingualism online.

While statistics are difficult to get, it appears that less than a third of the web’s users use English as a first language, and only a third of all websites are in English. Unfortunately, building a multilingual web is more complex than simply using an automated translation service. Computers have yet to understand local contexts, cultural references, and do not have a proper grasp of grammar… Translation is extremely difficult, especially in a distributed context. For example, when translating from English to Chinese, one has to decide whether Traditional or Simplified Chinese will be used. Furthermore, a volunteer from Taiwan may use different characters or metaphors to describe events than a volunteer from Beijing. As such, volunteer management is often more structured and complex than one would initially assume.

These questions will certainly loom large for Google as they embark upon the Translation Center, but hopefully they can create a compelling product which motivates people to lend their language skills to bridging the gap between societies.

Update: Google now has Google Translate for iPhone.