On Nov 26, 8:43 am, Ron Barak wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Following is a suggestion for a new feature for Google Translate
> (GT):
> have a "translate back" key that will put the translated section in
> the translation window, will swap the languages, and will then perform
> a translation.
>
> Rational:
> I find GT invaluable, especially when dealing with Korean/Chinese
> speakers, who sometime do not sufficiently master the English
> language.
> However, since I read neither Korean nor Chinese, the way I check that
> the automatic translation GT provide is adequate is to do a "back
> translation", namely - I translate the GT translation back to the
> original language and see if what is produced is close to my original.
> I suggest that GT allows one to automate this process with the
> suggested "translate back" key.
>
Yes, this would be useful. But I think what you really want, is some
measure of the quality of the translation: approximately how much
information is lost, and which words were left untranslated (back
translation won't reveal the latter). One suggestion would be to
encode this in the text.
Example: In modern bibles and other translations of ancient texts,
they will often use italics or square brackets to denote words that
are missing in the original text, and have been inferred, typically
prepositions or articles. While this might clutter the output somewhat
for quick and dirty translations, it would be very valuable for those
who use the translator with a little more care.
Or there could be colour-coding to show how certain the translator was
about each word.
Or, when you suggest a better translation for a given word, sentence
part or sentence, the text could be retranslated with everything your
didn't correct inferred as the most likely translation, given your
suggestion.
