International   

A web that speaks your language

In the early years of the Web, nearly all of its content appeared in English. But that is changing quickly. Today, articles on Wikipedia are available in more than 200 languages, for example. And about 36 percent of the 7 million blogs running on WordPress, a free software platform, are in languages other than English, according to the founder Matt Mullenweg.

Such changes create a challenge, says Ethan Zuckerman, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. “We are all experiencing a smaller Internet than we should be,” he said. “In the user-created Web, we’ve created a weird dynamic where there is more out there every day — some of it important — but each person can individually read less of it because it’s in multiple languages.”

A number of services, automated and human, are helping to translate what Mr. Zuckerman calls “the polyglot Internet.” Once-expensive machine translation technology is now available free at sites like Google Translate, which offers translations in 41 languages. At these sites, users can input a block of text, and a machine-generated translation pops up almost instantaneously.

Google Translate can also translate a search term into another language, then hunt for it on foreign-language sites. Results appear in two forms: in the target language and translated back into the original language.

Machine translations give workable renderings of basic texts, but complicated ideas or phrasings can trip up even the most sophisticated software, particularly in non-Romance languages. And when it comes to nuance, “machine translation just won’t get you there,” says Mr. Zuckerman.

People worldwide are stepping up to provide that nuance, free of charge.

Leonard Chien, a student and professional translator and interpreter living in Taiwan, charges $100 an hour as an interpreter. But two to three hours a day, he volunteers his translation skills to Global Voices, a citizen journalist site founded by Mr. Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon. There, Mr. Chien translates posts from around the world into Chinese.

Mr. Chien is co-director of the Global Voices translation project, called Lingua, which uses volunteers to translate Global Voices posts into 15 languages. He receives a small monthly stipend for his work as a director, he says, but he is happy to donate his time as a translator.

Mr. Chien is among 104 people who volunteered as translators for the Lingua project last month. Volunteers around the world have also participated in the “Google in Your Language” programme, helping the company translate its products into 120 languages. Last Wednesday, TED, an invitation-only conference featuring high-profile speakers like Al Gore and Bill Gates, posted translated subtitles and transcripts for many of the talks archived on its website. Of the 300 translations, 200 were done by volunteers.

Translators have various reasons for volunteering. “I enjoy the challenge of translating between two very linguistically and culturally different languages,” says Anas Qtiesh, an Arabic-English translator and editor living in Damascus who volunteers 15 to 20 hours a week with Lingua. The work also brings him exposure and experience, he says. — © 2009 The New York Times News Service

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

LTTE has been defeated, says Rajapaksa
And where is Prabakaran?
We know our job, says Kayani
Russia to supply helicopters to Sri Lanka
Guantanamo detenus can still be tried by military
Obama names Preet Bharara as U.S. Attorney
Maintain law & order, says Fiji
Status for Sri Lanka in SCO
Kuwait holds parliamentary polls
Germany: economy hits the brakes
Hollywood beckons Kenya’s pirate negotiator
A web that speaks your language

Copyright © 2009, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu