Dear Stephen
I think in principle, it is a good idea to make translations available, esp
if the learners are working independently and a good idea to try this out,
as you are doing. Having said that, I am concerned about the quality of the
translation.
I have just had a look at the translation into Dutch of the pages you have
made available. Now clearly Dutch is not likely to be much called upon
(although we do have quite a few Dutch-speaking Somalis now) but if we take
it as a sample language, the translation varies considerably in quality. In
some places it is accurate; but in many others it just does not make sense.
I had to check back the English original on quite a few occasions to
understand what the Dutch might have meant. On this basis, I would
recommend that translations are thoroughly checked for accuracy, preferably
by a qualified translator, before they go online.
Regards - Philida
-----Original Message-----
From: ESOL-Research discussion forum and message board
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stephen Woulds
Sent: 05 June 2009 19:45
To: Subject: translation pages on websites
Hi there
The ESOL UK website has so far received visitors from 59 countries and gets
on average 1000 visitors per week during term-time. The largest percentate
of these visitors are ESOL learners in the UK with their ESOL tutors. I am
considering putting a google translation engine onto the site which will
translate any webpage within seconds into any of the languages below. Some
of the translations are quite good though I haven't been able to check all
the languages yet.
However, from a code-switching, biliteracy perspective, what is the
consensus of ESOL tutors? Do you think this is a good or bad idea?
Your feedback is much appreciated. Please visit this trial page to see what
you think of the functionality: <http://www.esoluk.co.uk/calling>
Translations possible:
Albanian
Arabic
Bulgarian
Catalan
Chinese
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Estonian
Filipino
Finnish
French
Galician
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Latvian
Lithuanian
Maltese
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese
>
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