Language Translators in ELM and MinneTESOL

On November 9, ROI presented at the MinneTESOL (Minnesota Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) Conference held at the Hilton Doubletree in Bloomington.  This is the third time we’ve presented at this conference over the past four years.   This year the conference brought in a total of 450 attendees from around the state.  The theme was “Empowering Teachers and Leaners: Next Steps.”  The conference packed in a whopping thirteen simultaneous breakout sessions for attendees to choose from including ours, titled “No Longer Lost in Translation: Language Translators in ELM.” This session highlighted the language translation tools in many of the ELM databases.  Each vendor offers a different type of tool to translate their content into a variety of languages.  Most databases translate the document or article while others translate only the interface language and leave the article in English.  Let’s take a look at how some of these compare. Britannica’s translator is powered by Google Translate, and text within images will not translate.  After an article has been translated, some features may not work.  Britannica offers this statement before translating: “The translation may not accurately convey the intended meaning. Britannica does not review the converted text.”  After translating an article, all tools except font up/font down will be disabled. To re-enable the tools or to convert back to English, click "view original" on the Google Translate toolbar.  If you want to print an article that has been translated, you will need to copy and paste it from Britannica into Word or Google Docs.  Also, you will not be able to email or share a translated article since all of the tools will be disabled.  Britannica offers roughly fifty language options for translation including Afrikaans, Bengali, Dutch, Georgian, Korean, Malay, Tamil, Urdu, and Yiddish, to name a few. EBSCO offers the option to change the interface language through the “preferences” link.   This is a feature that many people are probably not aware of.  The “preferences” link appears in the upper right corner when viewing the EBSCOhost interface.  EBSCO uses an automatic translation software system that includes “comprehensive dictionaries and a collection of linguistic rules that translate one language into another without relying on human translators.  The process involves breaking down complex and varying sentence structures; identifying parts of speech; resolving ambiguities; and synthesizing the information into the components and structure of the new language.”  As with all of these language translators, EBSCO notes that it does not produce the same quality of translation that a human translator could provide. ProQuest, like EBSCO, allows you translate the interface language by selecting from a link at the top of the screen with a small globe/world icon.  You can choose from 17 different languages including Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, and Italian.  When viewing an article, you can easily select the Translate link just above the article text. ProQuest translations are powered by Language Engineering Company, LLC whose products translate documents, websites, e-mail and more between major world languages. In Gale’s Student Resources in Context, I was able to translate an article but not the interface.  Once you view an article, you can select the Translate link under the Tools menu.  Gale offers translations into 10 different languages and they also offer this disclaimer when you click on Translate: “You have requested a machine translation of selected content from our databases. This functionality is provided solely for your convenience and is in no way intended to replace human translation. Neither Gale nor its licensors make any representations or warranties with respect to the translations.”  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2007, Minnesota had 464,630 people speaking a language other than English at home, and that was 6 years ago.  The growth of language diversity in Minnesota has encouraged schools in the state to develop programs that help non-English speakers, including adults and students, to navigate the system. These language translators can play a role in aiding students and adults in obtaining and understanding information to help them succeed in school and in the workplace.