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Automated Translation of Federal, State, and Local Government Websites
There is technology available that allows for quick and fairly accurate translation of websites. Once translation service that my organization has utilized is WorldLingo. It isn't perfect, but if you have someone who can spend some time on it (no special language skills needed) it can be made pretty accurate, and its cheap enough to make it practical to offer a multitude of languages. This could help newcomers to the U.S. learn about how the government works here, become more knowledgeable about government programs and regulations, learn how to become tax paying active citizens, allow more people to volunteer and otherwise participate in government programs, etc. It could also help federal, state, and local agencies have improved two way communication with this growing segment of the population, in order that these government agencies might be better able to serve all residents.

Why Is This Idea Important?

Our country is experiencing rapidly shifting demographics, with more people from more countries of origin immigrating to all parts of the U.S. Today immigrants are a sizable and growing part of the population in many cities and counties; in urban, rural, and suburban cities and towns of all sizes. Government at all levels needs to recognize this fact and adjust their practices to allow more people to communicate effectively with their elected and appointed leaders. Many people in the US have limited English ability, and this easily implemented and affordable technology would be one step towards allowing this growing segment of the population to have a voice in and an understanding of government processes, regulations, and programs. (Greg Keidan, Public Engagement Consultant)
Comments
Edward 10 months ago
Government websites should be accurate down to the last word and not convey false information. I have also used language translation tools and there are countless examples I could give where the translation software was wrong.

Google Translation is a perfect example of how this happens. While they are fairly accurate they can convey the wrong meaning for certain words and without the context you wouldn't know what they were talking about because they even translate the word into English and there is no such English word.

For example, I translated your comment into German and then back into English using Google Translation and I got several major errors that changed the meaning of your comment. One of those errors was "There is technology available that allows for quick and fairly accurate translation of websites. Once translation service that my organization has utilized is WorldLingo."

This was re-translated as "It is [There is] a technology available, enabling a quick and fairly accurate translation of websites. Once the translation service that my organization will be used [has used] WorldLingo."

Comments in [ ] are my corrections. As you can see you went from having used something to will be using. That's a total different meaning.

There needs to be a human who understands the language to proofread a translation before the government translates any of its documents and websites into another language. While I am not sure how accurate WorldLingo is there's always error when there isn't a human translating and the government should never give the impression that it isn't professional.

Now taking the words from the website on the Open Government Initiative inviting people to participate. This is what was written:

"The Administration is committed to developing those recommendations in an open fashion. Consistent with the President’s mandate, we want to be fully transparent in our work, participatory in soliciting your ideas and expertise, and collaborative in how we experiment together to use new tools and techniques for developing open government policy."

This is what comes out after you translate it into German and then back into English: "The Administration is committed to those recommendations in an open manner. In accordance with the President's mandate, we are fully transparent in our work, in advertising participatory share your ideas and know-how, and cooperation in the experiment, as we work together to use new tools and techniques for the development of open government policy."

So I think this is a bad idea but not a bad one if a human is who knows the language is using it to save time.
colingallagher 10 months ago
Greg, I appreciate that in the past you have contacted me about the availability of a grant for City-level local government to enable utilization of WorldLingo. I support this idea. However, it never advanced -- there was diminishing interest in it at a management level, possibly because of a perception that the English to Spanish translation might not be adequate if it were automated, and because of a perception (which I believe t be incorrect) that Spanish speakers would not use the web. I find that an increasing number of primarily Spanish speakers are using the web - in internet cafes and on web-enabled 3G phones, actually, and most of them are young (juniors or seniors in high school, and college or university students, usually).
wondernugget 10 months ago
I have to disagree with the website idea. Websites are not secure enough to provide trusted government information. We have an issue of old ideas from old minds.
bradley.will 9 months ago
Wait, "websites are not secure enough to provide trusted government information"? I'm afraid you've missed the boat, sir. Websites and the Internet are secure enough to conduct billions of dollars of transactions a day.
antoinette_lasalle 9 months ago
Newcomers should be strongly encouraged to learn English. I certainly don't want to spend money on projects that work against that goal. In fact, I think we should by law establish English as the national language.
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