AttentionMax - Latest Comments in Translation In 42 Languages

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

Marcela — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:32:43 -0000

Max, I checked the Spanish translation (I'm assuming this is the Google Web translator gadget) and it's not perfect but it does make sense. The most common problem seems to be verb tense and word order, but again, it's a fairly good translation, way above the "Tarzan and Jane" translations you usually get with these kinds of things. :)

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

Pedro Arraes — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:10:26 -0000

Great! Keep me posted. btw, you and Laura still planning to do that Brazilian trip in the end of this year? Me and my wife will probably be there already, if you guys need any tips, just let me know :)

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

maxkalehoff — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:45:34 -0000

Of course I remember you! Thanks for your comment. As I noted above, the
Flags don't always correspond to the languages. Perhaps a simple list would
be better. Now that I have your email, I'll invite you to our startup's
monthly open house, Interesting Cafe. Cheers.

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

maxkalehoff — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:43:29 -0000

That makes a lot of sense.

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

Pedro Arraes — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:39:35 -0000

Hi Max. I don't you if you remember me from Namie's bday party :) I'm from Brazil and we speak portuguese language there. It's a litle bit different from portuguese from Portugal, anyway, I clicked in the Portugal's flag and the translation - of course - is not perfect, but I'm sure it's very useful because it can give the opportunity to several (why not million?) people around the globe to read what you have to say :)
Congratulations, it's awesome!

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

kathleenbostick — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:36:32 -0000

Max, you might want to rethink how you display your language options for your machine translation widget. Consider John Yunker's blog post "Flags and Languages Don't Mix" A simple list of the languages is much more appropriate. For example, if I'm in the UK, do I click on the US flag for English? Or if I'm a French Canadian, do I click on the France's flag? Just a thought to make your site more appealing to your global audience. http://bit.ly/BFiYU

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

Marc Poirier — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:04:55 -0000

It's down right now, but hopefully they will fix it soon

http://marc.poirier.com

It's a blog on fishing. :)

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

maxkalehoff — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:59:24 -0000

Feel better soon! What's your personal blog URL?

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

Marc Poirier — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:50:58 -0000

Makes sense to me, I think I will try that on my personal blog, just to see if it has that sort of effect. Have a great day Max! I am at home with stomach flu. Not cool.

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

maxkalehoff — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:46:24 -0000

Yeah...was thinking the same thing. High quality translation? No. But
indexing mediocre translations could make your content more discoverable to
people not searching in English (or whatever your root language is). Then,
hopefully, visitors would be fluent in your root language, and can enjoy the
original.

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

Marc Poirier — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:41:57 -0000

The French part is so-so, but clearly the quality of the text has improved dramatically since the last time I played with auto-translation. I wonder if all these pages will be indexed by the engines? Each time you produce one item, you get dozens for the same price, all indexed... would be nice!

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

emma_zero — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:48:01 -0000

Thank you for your reply. I failed to mention above that I do see a huge benefit in having a translator available right there on the same page, regardless of it's shortcomings in functionality. Surely it would show that your articles are meant to be globally inclusive, and that their author is conscientious. I think it's great, for we have to start somewhere. :)

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

maxkalehoff — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:18:20 -0000

Thanks for your feedback. That makes sense. I would presume that
Chinese/Mandarin would be poor as well. Hopefully the translation
service will at least make this blog more discoverable, and then
people can revert to the English root English version. Of course, that
would necessitate understanding English.

Re: Translation In 42 Languages

emma_zero — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:55:24 -0000

Auto - translating has always been a sore subject for me. When it comes to English-Japanese translation of more than a word, accuracy is not even mediocre. It is extremely close to unacceptable. Usually translating a phrase made of no more than two words at a time is its limit. This one on your page is no exception.
Of course the inefficiency may derive from the fact that English and Japanese don’t share common etymology. It may very well be possible that we will always need humans to make sense of translating those two languages. (And that enables someone like myself to remain useful.)
I’d been curious how much better it would work for other languages. Will look forward to read comments by others.