: Re: How to write to accommodate subsequent automatic translation The texts I am writing will be translated by people who are not experts in the topic and in some cases by a machine with next to

@Harper186

Vote Up Vote Down

Let me add some tips regarding computer translation, although I believe Rob Hoare's answer is great:

Write the original in a 'popular' language for the simple reason that those are most tested and most optimized. If for example you will be using Google Translate then it's mostly like the the node distance to any language is smallest from English (or maybe sometimes Spanish). They used to give some indication of this in the past, but now have forsaken this in favour of a simpler user experience.
Use short sentences and use commas purely for clauses and lists, do not use commas where dashes could be used as well.
Place the English term behind expert terms in square brackets like suggestopedia [DNTenglish: DNTsuggestopedia] when first used, then remove those from the original and hand translated versions, and do a replace in the computer translated versions for DNT with '' (nothing) leaving suggestopedie [english: suggestopedia] (The DNT is there to make the word invalid so it won't get translated). True, it takes a bit of hand work, but as those terms sometimes get mistranslated this allows the reader to figure that out for himself. (Sadly sometimes the word order get's mixed up leaving the note in the wrong place, it might be a good thing to add a remark warning readers of this together with the general warning regarding computer translations)
If using Google translate, be aware of the fact that it is a system that has 'learned' languages by being fed thousands and thousands of hand translated documents. Those documents were mostly formal and literary works, thus those are the kind of language styles it is most fluent at translating. Just to put the "Use standard, formal language" a bit into context.
This doesn't fall within the scope of Writers SE, but build a feedback mechanism for readers to improve upon the machine based translations. And make sure to always add some reference to the original version of the text.

Oh well, just a few thoughts :)

(0)

Login to post a comment!