I finally got an "plug" email this morning that wasn't from a political campaign looking for some free PR. Hallelujah! It seems those pesky politicos are finally paying some attention. Anyway, the email was from a gentleman by the name of Robin who was looking to promote his service: watchingamerica.com
To summarize quickly: Robin and his partner---a former editor for the International Herald Tribune---are keeping an eye on the non-American/non-English-speaking press and are translating a wide range of articles from an even wider ranging selection of newspapers worldwide. They post their results on their site for those greedy English-only speakers like myself.
I had questions regarding the technical details of the translations and here's what Robin had to say about it:
{...}Most people don't know about this, but for many languages, esp. the romance languages, computer-based translations are over 95% accurate when it comes to meaning. The English they spit out is messy but a professional editor can turn it into the real thing. So we use technology to translate many languages, with the support of editors and a few native-speaking volunteers who help out with the tricky parts.For some languages, such as Polish, we use only human native speakers. They support us voluntarily and on a part time basis. The total number of people who contribute to WA is about eight now.{...}
I would highly encourage you to check it out when you get the chance.
Posted by Kathy at April 21, 2005 01:58 PM