Google’s Experimental Human-Powered Translation Goes Live
Google in its latest move to break the language barrier between the vast nations of the world, today unveiled a new human-based translation service, an extension of its Translate service called Google Translation Center, for freelance and professional translators.
This is a remarkable move, and carries broad significance for the translation industry, which has so far been fragmented and somewhat behind the times, from a technology standpoint.
With the translation service, the company hopes to connect people who need documents translated by humans who will be paid to do so, according to the Google Translation Center information page. The site was discovered by sharp prying eyes at the Google Blogoscoped blog.
“Google Translation Center is the fast and easy way to get translations for your content. Simply upload your document, choose your translation language, and choose from our registry of professional and volunteer translators. If a translator accepts, you should receive your translated content back as soon as it is ready,” the site said.
“All reimbursement arrangements are left to the individuals involved, but Google will store results on its own servers.”
The service is presently allowed only to members of Google’s Trusted Tester Program, according to Philipp Lenssen, who operates the Google Blogscoped blog. But at some point, it will be opened to wider testing.
Many already comparing the new service to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service, which links up people/companies needing services with those who can provide them.
The front page indicates it will allow you to “request, provide, and review translations” for uploaded documents.
“Are you passionate about converting content into your language? Browse through Google Translation Center to find open translation requests into your language. Accept translation requests and use Google translation tools to provide quick, high-quality translations,” the site explains.
The idea is fairly easy: Those in need of translated documents can browse translators and work out the details with them, and can submit the material via the Translation Center and post a request. Translators can post their services and make use of Google’s new “easy-to-use translation tools.”
Unlike Amazon Web Services that offers a wider service through its Mechanical Turk. It allows registered “requesters” to post paid tasks for online workers. Translation is one of many possible assignments that can be posted using the service.
But Google on the other hand mentions that not only professionals, but also volunteers as potential sources, and the service will compare current translations with previous ones to prevent duplication.
Besides, Google looks engrossed in a more focused service. It allows users to upload documents and request translations into over 40 languages. The value is practically obvious to those in the translation business and to those, like webmasters, academics, etc., who need content translated into as many as 40 languages (Google Translate’s current capability).
The potential use of this unique service largely aims at SEOs and Internet marketing managers who will be benefiting hugely. The service may offer affordable ways to translate not only URLs but entire Web sites.
Google employees would not be allowed to participate in the business of translating documents. Rather, Google will offer volunteer and professional translators the opportunity to use Google tools and technologies to translate. In previous columns, we have discussed the need for localization in translation. It looks as if Google will take the lead on using local translators to aid machine translation.
Based on the Bilingual Evaluation Understudy method for rating translation accuracy, Google scored first place in a 2005 evaluation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology evaluation.
Google was tight-lipped about the project. “We are always looking at new ways of providing tools for users to connect with each other, share information, and improve access to information on the internet, but we do not have any new details to share at this time,” the company said in a statement.
Ever increasing search is the major doorway for people to discover the widely distributed contents on the Internet, so developing an automated bi-lingual translation into the process could open up the very parts of the Internet that today are available but effectively hidden by language barriers.
Google’s Cross Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) can translate a search query into a foreign tongue then translate the answer back into the search results. Clicking a link produces the translated version of that page.
For example, a search in Russian for Tony Blair’s biography will present an option, in Russian and presented at the bottom of the search results page, to search pages written in English. Clicking on a link then translates the English page into Russian.
Google executives have given indications recently about just how grand the company’s ambitions are for the automated language translation. The company wants people from any major language to understand any other.
“We will ultimately do 100 by 100 languages, to take this set of languages and convert to another,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in a June talk. “That alone will have a phenomenal impact on an open society,” he said, a reference to concerns many have expressed about Google’s censored search results in countries such as China.
Furthermore, Google would not take a slice of whatever arrangements are made, leaving lots of speculation as to how the new service fits in with the search company’s overall strategy.
In short, Google could create the world’s largest repository of completed homework assignments for students taking a foreign language.