Conversations Found in Translation

By on March 20, 2007 in Conversations, Cool Tools with 5 Comments

A few days ago, I put a Translate This Page tool on each individual article page, just above the comments. Traffic shows it’s getting used a few times each day, so it’s a good addition.

I’m not sure if the translation is always accurate (there’s some English-speaking folks who still don’t understand what I’m trying to say), but as Valeria Maltoni writes – translation is more about heart than head.

In Lorelle Van Fossum’s Problogger guest entry, Lorelle points out that ‘instant web translation isn’t yet ready for prime time.’ But I sure hope it gets here quick. I use the Google toolbar translation tool quite a bit when reading blogs in a language I’m not familiar with.

Big hat tip to Frank Gruber at SomewhatFrank on the use of a translation tool for each post.

Follow on Twitter or Facebook or on Google+

Find Your Social Media ROI

I hear it from a lot of business owners: “Where is the ROI with all this Social Media?“ If this is a question you ask yourself, maybe we should work together a bit more. We can work together solo, or via a professional learning community. Find and increase your ROI. There is a “there” there.

About Mike Sansone:

All Posts by
  • http://www.conversationagent.com Valeria Maltoni

    The interesting thing is that although the best interpreting work is done when we let the brain do the sorting without thinking, the worst translations also occur without thinking — by machine.
    The reason is in Blink: we have the information and make instant decisions directly without passing through consciousness. So the without thinking piece is a myth. We do not need consciousness to think. Surely this wins me the prize for brainiest comment ;-)

  • Janet Green

    Mike, I’ve all but given up on automated translation tools for the very reasons Valeria referenced in her post… they give you the words, but they do not necessarily give you the intended meaning. And even if you do get the intended meaning, the resulting translated phrase might be too cumbersome for your use. (In a publication layout, for example, where you have to replace three words of English with seven words of Spanish to get the right meaning across.) When procuring translations, I’m always wondering not only “does this mean what we want it to mean,” but even, “Is the whole concept here even relevant to the audience speaking the other language?” That level of self-doubt often means things just don’t get translated. I did have fun recently brainstorming names for a brownie business… we tried variations on themes of indulgence and decadence using Google Language Tools. I liked the sound of the French phrase “se livrer” (the Google translation of the word “indulge”) but when we fed “se livrer” into Google to be translated back into English, it meant “to deliver itself”. Hardly the same thing as “indulge.”

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    Agreed that the ‘machine’ translations are far from perfect, but as a reader – it gets me closer to an understanding than without it.

  • http://www.jemmille.com Jeremy

    I have a Bablefish (from Altavista) translator on the site of my page. I notice that after I added it the number of people reading my site from outside the US increased. I like to make my site as accessible as possible to all my readers.

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    Jeremy – thanks for adding to the conversations…and as we can measure the use of the tools, we can know whether it’s a benefit for the audience, right? If readers/customers use it – I support it.

Stop SOPA