Archives for August 2008

Original Article

by Garett Rogers
It appears that Google has been working hard on a new human translation service that will hopefully make it easy for people to request translations of a document from a human. The new service, called Google Translation Center (the link still doesn’t work), appears to be volunteer based, but it would make sense for it to evolve into a service that could make translators money. Talk about avoiding the question:

Are Google Translation Center’s translators paid or are they volunteers?
We provide Google Translation Center tools to all translators.

Currently, the service has been released under Google’s Trusted Tester program that lets friends and family members of Google Employees take new services for a test drive before public release. Usually things like this FAQ and Learn More page are secure behind the trusted tester system, but for this service they are still accidentally public.

It makes sense to publish some documents in multiple languages — but what if you don’t speak anything but English? Upload your document to this new service, choose a language, select a translator, and wait. If the translator you selected accepts your request, your document is on the road to being available in the language you specified.

If you are a person who knows more than one language, Google Translate Center makes it easy for you to find documents that you can help translate. Google gives the translator the tools he/she needs to make a high quality translation.

It will be interesting to see if this type of application will gather any kind of momentum. I would think that it may have some difficult gaining momentum because of the limited number of people that will likely make use of the system, and also the small number of translators willing to offer their time free-of-charge. What do you think?

Garett Rogers is employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the cellular and electronics industry.