catering for different languages on AoS

[Mike_New]

Marco has suggested that I start a thread for discussion in this area so that the technical wizards can give it some thought.
Basically my question is this, given that auto translation across multiple languages is now possible and reasonably accurate, how could we expand the appeal of AoS and interaction with those people whose native language is not English.
I am thinking here, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and possibly Russian (there are many others of course)
The idea being that threads could be read or posted in a native language and cross translated via English.

[DaveK]

Seems like a good idea to me but how do you implement it? The first thing that springs to my mind is a facility within AoS to implement Google Translate service (which, IMO, is good but not perfect) but that is surely beyond our (the forum) ability to arrange?
Long winded way might be to find a way (multi-language Sticky?) of inviting non-English speakers to post in their own language and for us to copy/paste it into Notepad and then use Google Translate (is that even possible?), the quid pro quo being that we (the native English speakers) would respond in English and ask them to reverse translate it.
Added to the fact that we do have a few members fluent enough in more than one language to perhaps polish any boo-boos commited by Google?
My two penn'orth.
Dave.

[Martinh]

I regularly post on a french forum (non hifi related) and I make the effort to write in French.

I wouldnt expect the forum to translate my English into French and I suspect that if I wrote in English, I wouldn't get anywhere either. They know that I'm English and they compensate for my OK ish French and we all get along just fine.

So, I cant see the point in providing a translation service myself. If people speak another native language, surely they would make the effort to translate it themselves? If they have Internet access, they can use google translate or similar.

Also, can you imagine if the AOS translate got it wrong and it misrepresented/mangled the views of the poster? Not the end of the world, but could create issues.

Edit: doing a search on google, it seems that vbulletin supports multi language already

Just my 2 euros worth,

[Beechwoods]

VBulletin supports translation of interface components but not Posts. At least v.3.8 that we're on can't auto-translate posts. Even translating interface components means a lot of work at the backend to translate all elements of text served up in order to render the pages.

I'm not at home so can't try Google Chrome's auto translate to see how that looks.

My own view is that any translation of members posts would put us in very dangerous territory on many fronts - if safety advice were misinterpreted, if product details became mangled, etc.

We would not be able to moderate in any way the text generated by some machine. It's a difficult enough challenge in just one language!

Any post translation like that should be done at the user end, with the onus being upon them to ensure it is correct and clear.

[YNWaN]

My experience of auto-translate software is that its efficacy is very dependant on which two languages it is translating between. In addition, slang or technical terms are often mis-translated.

[Joe]

Just type in capitals.

[jandl100]

Just type in capitals.

... and S-L-O-W-L-Y .... :eyebrows:

[jandl100]

With my version of IE, I just highlight a foreign text string and it does an auto-translate in a pop-up type box.
If you leave it at that then it is clearly not an AOS-provided service and the reader can make what they wish of it.

In other words, do nothing, the facility is already there. :)

[synsei]

My own view is that any translation of members posts would put us in very dangerous territory on many fronts - if safety advice were misinterpreted, if product details became mangled, etc.

We would not be able to moderate in any way the text generated by some machine. It's a difficult enough challenge in just one language!

Any post translation like that should be done at the user end, with the onus being upon them to ensure it is correct and clear.

+1 :)

[Effem]

I searched through a good number of online translators and I couldn't find a single one that translates from rubbish to english - needed on AoS sometimes :lol:

[The Grand Wazoo]

Would you like to borrow my Bollocks to English / English to Bollocks dictionary Frank?

[DaveK]

I searched through a good number of online translators and I couldn't find a single one that translates from rubbish to english - needed on AoS sometimes :lol:

Yes, and we need one that translates English to rubbish for the benefit of some of the visitors we get from other fora :lol: .

[Effem]

Would you like to borrow my Bollocks to English / English to Bollocks dictionary Frank?

Now is that the complete bollocks or the total bollocks dictionary that you have Chris? :lol:

[The Grand Wazoo]

The Concise Oxford Bollocks, mate.

[Effem]

The Concise Oxford Bollocks, mate.

Nothing but the best then :D

[Mr Nad]

... and S-L-O-W-L-Y .... :eyebrows:

:lol::lol::lol: