Quick "translate" - How it works

Quick translate How it works

French

German

Italian

Portuguese

Spanish

Russian

[ * Opens in own window * ]

When you click the 'quick translate' links on any page here with this little box you will be taken to a rough machine translation of the text into the indicated language. After some seconds this language version will appear in its own window. [If for some reason it does not appear, it may be because the translator is busy, so please try a bit later.]

Cautionary note to user:

Bear in mind that what you will generate here are crude machine translations only -- and that they will be as useful to you as you chose to make them. If you are looking for Moliere, Shakespeare or Cervantes, this is not the place for you. But if you find yourself confronted with a wall of unfamiliar words in a language you do not know -- and if you have a true thirst for getting some kind of idea of what the whole thing is about, a machine translation can help you get a first rough understanding of the pages's thrust and content. Then, if you are interested enough, you may find it useful to print out both the original and that very rough machine translation and read them in parallel. Or get a real translation from a talented human being.

Tips:

When you ask for the translation, please be patient. It may take a minute or so (more if you do not have a high speed connection) to get the full text for a longer page.
When you get your machine translation, we advise you compare it directly with the original by clicking the "View Original Language" link on a translated web page. You will see it. Reading the two side by side is a great help for those curious enough to work at it.

And piece by small piece you will start to understand. Welcome!

Languages and The Commons

From the outset of The Commons back in the seventies, we have been continuously and painfully confronted by the fact that our work is cross-frontier and cross-cultural, and that means that is also involves people whose daily lives center on languages other than English. For us this has been a particular problem, in the first place since our consistent target and concern are the problems and possibilities of technology as confronted by people in their daily lives. Thus our target audience and collaborators are not necessarily international civil servants or experts trained for international work, but individual citizens who live their lives and develop their competence in their own language.

Thus we have today a situation in which a good number of initiatives along the lines that interests us in our various programs and areas of competence are taking place in different places and different language cultures. On the other hand, the common language of the Net, for better or for worse, is, for the time being at least, English… or at least some approximation thereof.

For this reason, we became early supporters and users of machine transactions, which we have both used as a useful tool in our own work and for the last three or four years tried to integrate as best possible into the thirty-plus programs and web sites that we maintain under The Commons. But of one thing we can be quite sure: our language adventure continues.

Universal Language

There is one. And you have heard of it: Esperanto. The only problem is that you and almost everyone else you know are quite sure that it can't do the job. You are as it happens delightfully wrong.

But of course you do not believe this for one moment. But without trying to do anything as foolhardy as to try to convince you of this here, let us at least point you a handy first reference, the Wikipedia Introduction to the Esperanto Language.

That said, do keep your eye on this space. You may in time be surprised.