As I started to write blackLogger a couple of days ago I asked myself which language would be best suited for writing to a rather large world full of awesome people that I wanted to reach or rather making a part of me available to. But have no fear this isn’t going to be all about me. I think it really won’t be more than a little bit about me and a whole lot more about all kinds of other interesting stuff. Anyhow. Back to topic. Very early I decided to use English as my language of choice but I wondered if that would induce problems with German readers. I did consider writing both parts but with the limited ways provided by wortpress.com to customize your blog (or any entry) I think the result only would be a rather long and ugly post. I tried to figure out a better way to bring it all to you in English and German … but I failed to come up with something good … for now.
Anyhow, there is the ever advancing supply of translating services … maybe not advancing in count but in quality and therefore in applicability. I was really impressed by the kinds of bing- and google translator, which somehow in the past few years have managed to fledge and are now capable of giving quite good translations on again quite large texts.
I tried and pasted my entire first blog post in bing translator and later in google translate and got me some quite readable translations. (Using slang to challenge those two)
BING TRANSLATOR:
Ich denke, es wird nicht wirklich mehr als ein wenig über mich und eine ganze Menge mehr über alle möglichen anderen interessante Sachen sein.
I really started integrating them in my submitting process right away. When I finish a post and also at some points while writing I paste what I have in the translator and read the German text. When some parts are real squabbling I check against the English version and see if I have a typo there. With this very post here there are parts without typos yet with squabbling in the translated counterpart. That’s where I start second guessing the entire purpose of this post but it’s really more about how a long text can be machine translated and still be readable, and honestly I just was really impressed by the very first sentence I throw at bing translator which unexpectedly gave me a magnificent translation. I don’t know what sentence that was anymore but it was a little more than just subject, verb, object. I’m very excited when I think of the possibilities that might arise in the near future.
I think of the skype translate currently in alpha and supports English and Spanish I guess. It provides you with real time translation while you talk with someone that speaks a language that you don’t speak. And I wondered in what situations that might be. But as it happens today my aunt from Mozambique wrote a comment to a facebook photo and well she speaks Portuguese and I do not. Pretty short story eh? And yea I guess that is the first use case that I would see, talking with relatives in foreign countries. So, that’s it for today.
I guess a reader-involving question at the end would suit such kind of post very well. How about:
What experience have you made on the field of translation and the various translation tools? Do you prefer a specific one or would like to try out something new for a change?
Then again, up until now there literally … yes, not figuratively Ted … is no other reader of this blog besides me, at least at the moment of writing and it feels kind of strange to ask questions when no one is listening/reading.
So what is the take away?
I use translation services to double check my writings and the services seem to mature more and more heading to a hopefully bright future.
blackLogger 