RE: translation

Sorry for suggesting the machine translation--I thought I suggested this to someone looking to put his/her site in a number of languages--not to translate a w3c document!
 
--C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar@hotmail.com




As a former translator, I would not recommend using Google online translation software to start a translation.  In my opinion it is more likely to introduce errors than to speed things up.  
 
In a former life I used to project manage work with Systran when Xerox was sponsoring the development of new MT language pairs, and part of my role was to test the effectiveness of the translations.  We found that once you got beyond a certain level of language complexity or left behind controlled English source authoring, the editing required to fix up even reasonably good automated translations took longer than it would take a translator to create the translation from scratch.  In addition, not all the idiosynchrasies of the machine-generated translation get worked out during editing.  A translator working from scratch never puts those in.
 
I note errors in pronoun reference, verb tense, maybe other errors in reference would occur.  (But is it possible to use a machine translation to feed troublesome portions of the translated document into to see if what comes out is anything like the original, with maybe a few errors in gender and tense?)
 
What is useful, on the other hand, is to be able to quickly substitute technical terms from a pre-validated list.  Whether dealing with automated translation or not, you will probably do well to develop a list of domain-specific and organization-specific terminology, and validate it with your in-country contacts.
 
 
Thanks for suggesting this!
 
Richard.
 
--C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar@hotmail.com
 



From: w3c-translators-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-translators-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of CE WhiteheadSent: 03 January 2008 20:51To: mkivo1@comcast.netCc: w3c-translators@w3.org; site-comments@w3.orgSubject: RE: translation

Hi, maybe try google's online translation software to get a rough translation, and then send the results of thatwith the original document(s) to anyone you can find to proof them (searching for translators you should find a few companies that provide translators for fees). That's all I can think.
 
Note:  this was in reply to someone looking to translation non-w3c documents I think; that is someone who wanted his/her personal site translated--but I may have been quite confused!
 
Sorry!
 
--cew> > Hello,> > Please see this FAQ question:> http://www.w3.org/Help/Webmaster.html#source> > W3C is not involved with this site; W3C produces the XHTML> standard, which is what you found in the HTML source for that page.> > _ Ian> > On Wed, 2008-01-02 at 10:44 -0600, Monte K wrote:> > I’m having a website built that I need a language selection for> > several different Countries.> > > > > > > > I noticed a site that was using what appeared to be a translation> > script from your web address:> > > > > > > > http://www.idealshippingltd.com/> > > > > > > > http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd> > > > > > > > Is this a translation script? As I’m having trouble finding someone> > that can do a translation into different languages.> > > > > > > > Thanks,> > > > Mikhail> > > > > > > > > -- > Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/> Tel: +1 718 260-9447