Tag Archive for 'United States'

Facebook’s Newest Machine Translation Tool Falls Flat

Published on November 15, 2011 in English Language, News, Spanish Translation and Translation Buyers. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Just in case you need more proof that most machine translation tools don’t quite cut the mustard, the latest attempt by social media giant Facebook to incorporate machine translation (MT) into its platform fails miserably with most languages.

In an effort to help pages connect better with their fan base—often found scattered across the globe—Facebook recently introduced machine translation, powered by Bing. With just one click, users can get an automatic translation of status updates and comments. Facebook plans to roll out this feature to all profiles (not just pages) in the near future.

There’s just one problem: most of the translations are unintelligible. Posts on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are rife with slang, and Bing’s machine translation tool simply isn’t up to task. An analysis of Bing’s performance by the site Lexiophiles shows that Bing only gets it right about 50% of the time, leaving users confused and, at worst, possibly misled by faulty translations. Interestingly, out of the ten languages tested, posts translated from Spanish to English fared worst of all, with less than 10% of the rendered text considered intelligible.

For greater accuracy, Facebook will also be implementing a feature that allows bilingual users to offer an alternative translation. If other users endorse the accuracy of the crowdsourced translation, it will take the place of Bing’s original translation the next time the “Translate” option is clicked. Page administrators will be able to manage crowdsourced translations through a “manage translations” link below the posts on pages they control.

One of the great arguments in favor of MT has always been that it can at least offer users a gist of the conversation when no other means of translation is available. It seems that, at least for now, Bing’s tool doesn’t even offer that to Facebook’s users.

Translated Literature Reveals Cultural Similarities

Published on August 14, 2010 in English Language, Languages, Tips for Translators and Translation Buyers. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Americans notoriously read very little in the way of foreign literature. With translations representing a paltry 3 to 5 percent of books being published annually in the United States, authors and translators alike are crying out for more fiction to be translated. Intellectuals argue that exposure to writing by foreign authors will help us to bridge gaps of understanding and bring us out of our cocoon of cultural isolation.

After reading a collection of short stories by various European authors, writer and translator Tim Parks observes that he is “struck by how familiar these voices are, how reassuringly similar in outlook to one another and ourselves.” The elements of humor and narrative forms found within the collection only serve to underscore the similarities. “Across the globe, the literary frame of mind is growing more homogeneous,” Parks writes.

There’s no doubt that translated foreign literature deserves a spot in the bookcase, but perhaps we should shelve the idea of greater cultural awareness through these works.

Read more about the topic here on The New York Review of Books.

Bilingual Education in the U.S.

Published on August 6, 2008 in English Language and Spanish Language. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

If your goal is to become fluent in another language, many times total immersion is the best practice. However, this is not the case for young recent immigrants in public schools because they also must become proficient in the subject matter of instruction. This is where bilingual education comes in.

Bilingual education and its alternatives have been up for political and moral debate. Its proponents posit that mastering English, literacy, and subject matter simultaneously is too overwhelming for most students and that a combination of instruction in one’s native language and in English is necessary for success. Its detractors state that bilingual education retards the mastery of English which in turn retards students’ acquisition of knowledge in all areas.

There are varying levels and approaches to bilingual education, roughly broken into the following strategies:

  • Transitional: the goal is to transition English language learners into English-only classrooms as quickly as possible and provides content instruction in the student’s native language while they learn English.
  • Two-Way or Dual Language: these programs are designed to teach both native English and non-native English speaking students to be bilingual and biliterate.
  • Specialized Dual Language: subjects are taught in the students’ second language with bilingual teachers who can field students’ questions when they need assistance in their native language. Literacy instruction in students’ native language is also provided separately.
  • Late-Exit or Developmental: Students are educated in their native language for an extended period of time, complemented by education in English.

The debate over bilingual education takes place within a larger political and social context, which may be to the detriment of students’ acquisition of knowledge of both English and material in content areas. Furthermore, while bilingual education might be effective practice in areas of the country where there are fewer native languages spoken, the system becomes unwieldy and impossible in areas where immigrants come from all over the world.

For more resources on bilingual education, both for and against, follow these links:

National Association for Bilingual Education

Twisted Tongues: The Failure of Bilingual Education

The Case Against Bilingual Education

California Association for Bilingual Education

Spanglish in the United States

Published on July 30, 2008 in Spanish Language, Tips for Translators and Translation Buyers. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

There’s language as it appears in grammar books and there’s language as it’s truly spoken every day. The way that bilingual Spanish and English speakers in the United States combine the two languages is a perfect example of this phenomenon. In every day vernacular, people use the term Spanglish to describe the mixing of the two languages. But from a linguistic perspective, the term Spanglish lumps together several different ways of using the two languages under this umbrella.

Below are brief descriptions of a few terms linguists use to describe the linguistic phenomena many understand to be hallmarks of Spanglish:

1. Code-switching: when bilinguals use elements of both languages in conversation, either between sentences or within a single sentence.
2. Loanword: a word directly taken from another language with little or no translation.
3. Language contact: borrowing vocabulary and other language features from another language.

While Spanglish is not yet considered a separate language as Haitian Creole or Cape Verdean Creole is, scholars are beginning to take its use more seriously as the number of bilingual Latinos in the U.S. grows. Many continue to distrust Spanglish because of its status of not quite English and not quite Spanish.

But Ilan Stevens, author of Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, speaks to the value of Spanglish:

“Latinos are learning English,” he says. “That doesn’t mean that they should sacrifice their original language or that they should give up this in-betweeness that is Spanglish. Spanglish is a creative way also of saying, ‘I am an American and I have my own style, my own taste, my own tongue.’”
(from: Spanglish, A New American Language : NPR)

For more online resources about Spanglish:

• Don Quixote de La Mancha: Spanglish version
• Wikipedia entry
• NPR interview with Ilan Stevens

Examples of Spanglish

Spanglish Spanish English
breaka frenos brakes
carpeta alfombra carpet
chequear verificar to check
glasso vaso glass
ganga pandilla gang
likear gotear to leak
mailear enviar coreo to mail
marketa mercado market
norsa enfermera nurse
puchar empujar to push
ruffo techo roof
signear firmar to sign

Spanish usage in US

Published on April 30, 2008 in News and Spanish Translation. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

On April 23, 2008 Transpanish posted a blog article about the movement to cultivate the usage of “proper” Spanish on the Internet. Remember that this movement originated in Spain. But what import does this movement have on Spanish speakers residing in the United States? The usage of proper written and spoken Spanish may still be of import in university Hispanic Studies or translation studies programs in which students are working from documents written by native Spanish speakers. But the reality of spoken and written Spanish and how they’re used in the U.S. is very different from what the Real Academia Española purports.

Take the following points into consideration:

• Mainly monolingual Spanish speakers immigrate to the U.S., but by the third generation, the descendants of those immigrants are primarily English speakers.

• The children and grandchildren of first-generation immigrants generally speak some Spanish, but are educated in English and therefore do not have a background in the conventions of written Spanish.

• Spanish speakers in the U.S. are extremely heterogeneous with regard to their educational level and country of origin.

• Spanish speakers, regardless of their fluency in English, must to some degree navigate an English speaking world.

The result of these combined points is that Spanish spoken in the U.S. is constantly transforming and deeply informed by English, which results in the unique language that we refer to as Spanglish.

Spanglish is the popular term for what linguists refer to as code-switching, which can be either mixing English and Spanish terms within the same sentence (i.e. “Voy a hacer un appointment” instead of “I’m going to make an appointment”) or transforming words from one language by applying the conventions of another (i.e. parquear instead of to park). Spanglish can only be used when both the speaker and listener are equally versed in both Spanish and English, the numbers of which are constantly growing.

Because of this, those who market to Spanish, English, and Spanglish speakers have to be flexible and aware of the truly fluid nature of language use in this country. A good translation agency will be able to help clients navigate the constantly transforming landscape of Spanish as it is spoken in the U.S.

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