Rumor has it that Facebook may be testing a translation feature to add in its social networking domain.
This move could overcome the language barrier faced by many users on the network.
The translation tool reportedly is for comments. A new Translate button at the bottom of comments (only on Pages) and next to the Like button will be seen, according to Inside Facebook.
Clicking on the Translate button will translate the comment to the language that your account page is set to see. Once the translation is done, an Original button would appear, by clicking which, you can get the text back in the language it originally was.
As of now, it is unclear as to how many languages the translator supports. Although so far, English, Spanish, French, Hebrew, and Chinese appear to be on the list.
The system is not perfect and it does not always translate all the words. At times it shows error that reads, “There is no translation available for this story at the moment,” zdnet.com reports.
The feature may particularly be useful for Page owners who have to rely on a third-party translation service in order to understand what their fans are commenting and posting. Also, it could benefit game and app users who want to interact with other gamers who do not speak the same language. And of course, this will be an excellent tool for people who want to interact with people from other countries speaking other languages, but cannot because of the language barrier, the report says.
See: The International Business Times
Also see: PC mag
Comments about this article
Индонезия
Local time: 23:50
Член ProZ.com c 2006
английский => индонезийский
+ ...
That's my comment as a translator and a facebooker at the same time. I would like to know other fellow translators' comments on this.
Великобритания
Local time: 16:50
французский => английский
+ ...
(a) it is realistically too dynamic for human translation to be practical;
(b) Nothing Bad Will Happen when translation mistakes occur, or the risks/consequences of translation mistakes are reasonable enough to accept (though look out for a future edition of Jerry Springer where somebody is suing somebody for thinking they were sleeping with their brother when ... See more
(a) it is realistically too dynamic for human translation to be practical;
(b) Nothing Bad Will Happen when translation mistakes occur, or the risks/consequences of translation mistakes are reasonable enough to accept (though look out for a future edition of Jerry Springer where somebody is suing somebody for thinking they were sleeping with their brother when it was actually their brother-in-law/stepsister/pet chimpanzee);
(c) if the free feature didn't exist, nobody would care enough to pay for a translation. ▲ Collapse
Турция
Local time: 19:50
Член ProZ.com c 2007
турецкий => английский
+ ...
The more people use machine translation, the more they will get to knows the ins and outs of it.
Греция
Local time: 18:50
греческий (новогреческий) => английский
The 'translate' link already appears next to comments on Greek pages. Since most of the comments are in very idiomatic language, the translation results are quite comical.
Индонезия
Local time: 23:50
Член ProZ.com c 2006
английский => индонезийский
+ ...
Neil Coffey, Atil Kayhan, and Dave Bindon, thank you for your comments.
Германия
Local time: 17:50
английский => немецкий
+ ...
Some of my friends are using Google Translate to translate my conversations in other languages.
Mostly, it ends up like this:
Friend "Huh, you are going to Memphis with X?"
Me "No, I am going to pick X up at her office"
I don't think machine translation will help anyone.
Германия
Local time: 17:50
английский => немецкий
+ ...
I usually just encourage people to comment in English on my fan pages which makes sense since the people they are about are American and my business fan page is definitely about German and English, it's no problem. If someone does comment in a language I don't speak, I try to get a machine translation to get the gist and then comment with the content of what it says.
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