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Duolingo gets users to translate Buzzfeed articles

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John Marston
John Marston  Identity Verified
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crowdsourcing Mar 4, 2014

I don't know much about the usefulness of crowdsourcing, but it definitely seems to fly in the face of professional translation standards. While Duolingo is a fairly interesting language-learning tool, as a commercial source of translation it looks really lazy. I don't see the comparison with Wikipedia, either, since that's monitored by experts and you can cite sources and so forth.

What do others think of this?
 
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
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Crowdsourced translation is an illusion Mar 4, 2014

They may think they are getting a translation, but what they are getting is text that only looks like a translation on the surface. Check out this great article on the topic by Miguel Llorens:

http://traductor-financiero.blogspot.com/2012/08/what-is-professional-translation.html



[Edited at 2014-03-04 20:36 GMT]
 
Little Woods
Little Woods  Identity Verified
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In my opinion, the idea is totally wrong to begin with Mar 6, 2014

The article stated that the translations are done by their users cum students who are learning a language. If it were me, who still in their right mind, I wouldn't want the translation done by someone still learning a language and may be still a beginner. Translating is not an easy career with continuing education and learning, upgrading class and many things to back it. In my country, such crowsourced translation like this is mostly done by google. The user just paste and copy it from GG transl... See more
The article stated that the translations are done by their users cum students who are learning a language. If it were me, who still in their right mind, I wouldn't want the translation done by someone still learning a language and may be still a beginner. Translating is not an easy career with continuing education and learning, upgrading class and many things to back it. In my country, such crowsourced translation like this is mostly done by google. The user just paste and copy it from GG translate since they dont have much time to do it by hands and by their brains.

[Edited at 2014-03-06 02:06 GMT] ▲ Collapse
 
Kate Deimling
Kate Deimling
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Bad idea, but even worse website Mar 11, 2014

Little Woods wrote:

I wouldn't want the translation done by someone still learning a language and may be still a beginner.


Little Woods, I totally agree with you (and with the skepticism of other commenters), and I took a look at the French Buzzfeed to see what it was like. Basically Buzzfeed is so short on content that the translations matter less than you would think. But this attempt to attract a French-speaking market is full of other pitfalls (I can't speak to the other languages, but I imagine the approach is similar). You can read more at katedeimling.com.

[Edited at 2014-03-11 14:06 GMT]
 
Daryo
Daryo
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Exceptions do exist Mar 11, 2014

"I wouldn't want the translation done by someone still learning a language and may be still a beginner."

As a general rule, I would surely agree.

But I remember right now of one case where it was EXACTLY the opposite.

Number of years ago there was a in Serbia a couple monopolising almost all film subtitling - apparently these two were experts in about 10 languages at least.

What I could spot for sure was that their translations from French were... See more
"I wouldn't want the translation done by someone still learning a language and may be still a beginner."

As a general rule, I would surely agree.

But I remember right now of one case where it was EXACTLY the opposite.

Number of years ago there was a in Serbia a couple monopolising almost all film subtitling - apparently these two were experts in about 10 languages at least.

What I could spot for sure was that their translations from French were utter rubbish - they were totally lost when translating argot or anything that requires more than some beginner's French-Serbian dictionary.

And then one day, a miracle happened! I was watching a French movie without being irritated by rubbish subtitles. So, for a change at the end the movie I watched the credits rolling, curious to learn who translated the subtitles.

I turned out to be the collective work of a group of secondary school kids! ▲ Collapse
 


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Duolingo gets users to translate Buzzfeed articles







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