Engadget Stumbles Upon Community Translation

Article Details

Global Watchtower

Common Sense Advisory Blogs

Posted by Nataly Kelly on August 27, 2010 in the following blogs: Technology, Translation and Localization
Pages \| \|

We're avid readers of Engadget, a web magazine with in-depth reviews and coverage of electronic devices for consumers. And, we're longtime observers -- and occasional participants -- of the practice of community, crowdsourced, and collaborative translation. So, when we saw a review of a new tablet PC with, "We wish we spoke Hindi" in the title, we felt compelled to ask, "So... why don't you?"

Engadget is no stranger to multilingual content. It has localized websites in various languages aside from English, including Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. So, it's odd that a reviewer would post a Hindi-language video on its English site without attempting to at least get a basic understanding of the content. That's where Engadget community members stepped in. A helpful Hindi-speaking member posted a summary of the content, enabling others to engage with the review more fully and have a conversation about it.

And that's where it begins. Community translation enables populations of web users to make more content available in other languages. No, they are not necessarily professional translators, nor do they necessarily need to be. As our research shows, most of the companies that use community translation are just like Engadget - they don't hesitate to spend money on setting up localized websites and paying for translation and localization. It's just that they can't possibly translate each and every piece of information that their members produce. This content is largely user-generated, changes rapidly, and is not in every case going to be valuable enough to merit the average price per word.

What boggles our mind is why Engadget hasn't yet made it easier for its members to make content available in other languages. The simple addition of a "submit a translation" button or a "summarize this review in another language" link would solve many problems. Of course, any user-translated content (UTC) would need to be published with the appropriate caveats -- for example, "[username] translated this review on behalf of the Engadget community," or "this English-language summary of the Hindi video was contributed by [username]" would provide transparency while making it clear that the target-language content was submitted by community members.

As we predicted, community translation is not slowing down --it's growing. Each full issue of the Economist is translated into Chinese by a dedicated group of translators/fans. The world-famous TED talks are also available to more people thanks to crowdsourced translation practitioners. And, the implications of community translation reach far beyond just sharing information in the category of leisure reading.

We've written before about how businesses are embracing crowdsourced translation to enter new markets. Companies like Twitter, HootSuite, and others have recently embraced this practice too. However, some researchers even propose leveraging the power of online communities to quickly make information available in other languages for assisting with emergency response efforts in various parts of the world. Imagine if the victims of flood-hit Pakistan could quickly and easily receive cutting-edge, real-time information on relief and recovery efforts in each of the 73 languages spoken there.

In summary, as more companies like Engadget just "happen across" the potential of multilingual communities to make information available to others, our hope is that it's a sign of things to come. We envision a time when generations of web users around the world will say, "An online language barrier? That actually existed back then?" And, we'll recount the old days, when online content in Sindhi (with 18.5 million speakers in Pakistan) was quite difficult to come by.

Categories