Monday, August 25, 2008

How accurate are they?

Chicago is a multi-ethnic paradise, with a mishmash of languages spoken here. The situation is such that I have always thought it absurd that the Chicago Argus existed only in English.

The problem is that not only am I NOT a multi-lingual person, the writing of daily commentaries for two weblogs (along with the writing I do that actually pays money) does not leave me any time to think of translating these commentaries by myself.

So for what it is worth, I have added the AltaVista BabelFish function to this weblog and to its sister site, The South Chicagoan. The widget can be found near the bottom of the far-right column of this site. But I have heard the horror stories of translation programs that turn English into foreign-language nonsense.

I would appreciate hearing from anybody who is actually fluent in a foreign language who can tell me just how accurate these translations really are. I’d rather not have them on the site if they’re turning my commentary to garble (and I caught a couple of minor errors in the Spanish-language translation of one essay I checked).

Contact me at the e-mail address offered to the right, if you find glaring errors. I want to know.

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