Author Topic: Twitter translates tweets from leading Egyptians  (Read 979 times)

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Offline EC

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Twitter translates tweets from leading Egyptians
« on: July 05, 2013, 10:14:05 am »
Via the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23179269?ocid=socialflow_twitter_africa

Throwing this in here instead of tech as it has a list of Egyptian Twitters which can be automatically translated.

Quote
Tweets from leading Egyptians are being automatically translated as part of a new Twitter service for non-Arabic speakers.

As Egypt's military ousted President Mohammed Morsi on Wednesday, non-Egyptians were able to read his tweets in their local languages.

Other figures being translated included opposition leader Mohammed ElBaradei and Arab Spring activist Wael Ghonim.

Twitter is using Microsoft Bing translator as an "experiment".

President Morsi's last tweet, posted at 21:39 BST on 2 July, was translated as: "Mohammed Morsi confirms its attachment to the constitutional legitimacy and rejected any attempt to break them and call the forces armed pull its ultimatum and rejects any dictates dakhlihaokhargih."

The translation tool is clearly not yet 100% accurate and Twitter has not officially launched the service, but in a statement to digital news site AllThingsD it said: "As part of our experiment with tweet text translation, we've enabled translation for some of the most-followed accounts in Egypt, so people around the world can better understand and keep up with what's happening there."

Twitter has provided a list of all the Egyptian accounts it is translating, called egypt2013, which has 63 members.

The list includes Wael Ghonim, who has more than 1.1 million followers, and Tahrir News, which has more than 900,000 followers.
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Wael Ghonim tweet The new Twitter translate service could give journalists unfiltered access to new sources

Twitter began its experimental translation service this month, covering European languages such as Italian, French and Spanish, before extending it to Arabic on Wednesday.

Social media site Facebook also offers a translate feature for its foreign-language posts, while Google's search engine also offers a translate feature.

More at link.

The translations are pretty rough but usually get the meanings across if you squint a bit and use your imagination.
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Offline flowers

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Re: Twitter translates tweets from leading Egyptians
« Reply #1 on: July 05, 2013, 05:30:57 pm »
For one a few days ago I tried google translate, it worked well.