There is a fine line between news and entertainment on a new Web site that translates hundreds of the world's newspapers into English. Consider this headline translated from The Beijing Daily: "Sells which roast the dried bean curd girl." From The Okinawa Times comes this gripping lead: "The light where the body of the strong so stainless steel material is sluggish is shot."
Those are samples of "gist level" translations by Newstran. com (www.newstran.com). The three-month-old site, created by Rick Perez, links to AltaVista's free translation service, named Babel Fish. Babel Fish, which uses dictionary software from Systran, was the first such online translation service when it appeared in late 1997; today it supports 19 language pairs.
As a result, Newstran.com can translate newspapers into English from German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. (It also can translate English-language newspapers into any of these languages.) Whether or not readers will understand the result is another matter. At the very least it takes some patience to muddle through the babble.
"Sure, it stumbles on slang and idioms, but you can get the gist of most things," said Perez, who runs an advertising and public relations. "I wouldn't base any major business or life decisions on what you read here."
To be fair, Asian languages are the most difficult for computers to translate into English. French and Spanish newspapers tend to be the most readable; a few attempts at German-into-English were laughable and resulted in Spiegel Online headlines like "Single dumps from the telex."
While Newstran.com may not be perfect, it can still be useful. The ability to translate Web sites (news or otherwise) is increasingly important in a world where an estimated 400 million people are communicating and conducting business online of which 53 percent speak something other than English as their native language.
Perez say his main goal is to open the world's media to all readers -- especially those without access to a free press. "It's more of a crusade than a business project," said Perez, who finances the site through his nonprofit organization Humanitas International. "I'm going to put every dime I have into this to make it successful."
Perez may be headed for some legal trouble, however, because of the way his site works. When a user calls up a newspaper for translating, the newspaper site is contained within a frame and is surrounded by Newstran advertisements.
The New York Times Co, for one, has sent a "cease and desist" letter to Perez. The Times Co's legal department "will follow up if the illegal framing and unauthorized use of The New York Times' content is not stopped," a company spokeswoman said.
Perez said he was not trying to steal any traffic from newspapers. He doesn't want to take The New York Times on the Web off the site, but isn't sure what he will do. "According to my attorneys, I'm not violating any laws," he said. "We're a nonprofit organization providing a service."
Aside from any legal problems, professional translators say that Newstran may be spreading itself too thin by trying to translate so many newspapers between so many languages.
"The problem with a general-purpose site is that there's no such thing as a general-purpose language," said Rose Lockwood, director of research at Berlitz GlobalNET, a subsidiary of Berlitz International.
Systran, the company that provides the dictionary software for Babel Fish and, by extension, Newstran.com, is a pioneer in the realm of machine translation, but its system works best when customized. As ragged as the newspaper translations are, they will only improve as Babel Fish expands its vocabulary. Unknown words are added to the dictionaries, so the longer it is used, the better it gets.
"We're only in our infancy," Perez said. "As computers get faster and smarter, the translations will get more precise."
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Yilan at 11:05pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter was located at sea, about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km, CWA data showed There were no immediate reports of damage. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Yilan County area on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. It measured 4 in other parts of eastern, northern and central Taiwan as well as Tainan, and 3 in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, and 2 in Lienchiang and Penghu counties and 1
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE: Beijing would likely intensify public opinion warfare in next year’s local elections to prevent Lai from getting re-elected, the ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ said Internal documents from a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company indicated that China has been using the technology to intervene in foreign elections, including propaganda targeting Taiwan’s local elections next year and presidential elections in 2028, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday. The Institute of National Security of Vanderbilt University obtained nearly 400 pages of documents from GoLaxy, a company with ties to the Chinese government, and found evidence that it had apparently deployed sophisticated, AI-driven propaganda campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan to shape public opinion, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. GoLaxy provides insights, situation analysis and public opinion-shaping technology by conducting network surveillance
‘POLITICAL GAME’: DPP lawmakers said the motion would not meet the legislative threshold needed, and accused the KMT and the TPP of trivializing the Constitution The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved a motion to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德), saying he had undermined Taiwan’s constitutional order and democracy. The motion was approved 61-50 by lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who together hold a legislative majority. Under the motion, a roll call vote for impeachment would be held on May 19 next year, after various hearings are held and Lai is given the chance to defend himself. The move came after Lai on Monday last week did not promulgate an amendment passed by the legislature that
Taiwan is gearing up to celebrate the New Year at events across the country, headlined by the annual countdown and Taipei 101 fireworks display at midnight. Many of the events are to be livesteamed online. See below for lineups and links: Taipei Taipei’s New Year’s Party 2026 is to begin at 7pm and run until 1am, with the theme “Sailing to the Future.” South Korean girl group KARA is headlining the concert at Taipei City Hall Plaza, with additional performances by Amber An (安心亞), Nick Chou (周湯豪), hip-hop trio Nine One One (玖壹壹), Bii (畢書盡), girl group Genblue (幻藍小熊) and more. The festivities are to
RSS