Dear Community:

As some of you know, we have been working to implement a machine translation of the regional discuss lists in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.

This service is expected to go live later today.

What will happen is that each email sent to the list will get machine translated from the original language into the other languages. The original text will appear at the top; the translated versions will appear below.

For LAC-Discuss, the languages will be: English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese
For AFRI-Discuss, the languages will be: English, French, Portuguese

It may interest you to know that many other areas of ICANN are interested to see how this new service works, in order to decide whether or not they will also begin to machine-translate their lists in this way. At-Large is therefore taking a pioneering role once again within the ICANN system in trying new approaches to help foster understanding by non-native English speakers.

You may see some test emails come across the lists today; this is normal, and you should feel free to email normally.

In order for machine translation to produce output which is close to the original, there are some simple rules you can follow when composing your messages. A link at the bottom of the list emails will link to these rules, and they are reproduced below:

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We shall invite you to respect the following writing recommendations so as to make our translation job easier.

OT = original text 

PT = preferred text

1. Check the spelling and grammar of the messages you send us. A spelling error will result in a mistranslation or the non-translation of a word. A grammatical error will make it more difficult for the program to identify the syntactic function of all words in a given sentence. Use your spellchecker!

2. The translation engine used to translate your messages is designed for texts that are correctly punctuated. Punctuation marks, such as commas and periods, help the program to identify sentences and clause boundaries. A period should therefore be placed at the end of each sentence. The symbols /, *, _ and - should not be contiguous with words. Add a space to separate them. For instance, change male/female to male / female.

3. Use upper and lower case. A sentence should always start with a capital letter; a sentence typed entirely in upper case may cause translation problems.

4. Divide lengthy and complex sentences into shorter sentences. In particular, avoid using parentheses and dashes to set phrases apart.

5. Whenever possible, avoid using passive structures, for example: OT: A copy of the report will be sent to all Allies. PT: We will send a copy of the report to all Allies.

6. Whenever possible, avoid idiomatic expressions:

OT: It happens once in a blue moon.

PT: It rarely happens. 

7. Include optional words that clarify the function of other words in the sentence, such as "that" or "whom" in the examples below:

OT: The book I bought was very interesting. 

PT: The book that I bought was very interesting.

OT: The man I wanted to see was on vacation. 

PT: The man whom I wanted to see was on vacation.

8. Similarly, if the subject of a sentence refers to more than one verb and is separated from the second/third verb by a number of words, you should repeat the subject in front of each verb, like this:

OT: They visited our warehouse yesterday and bought several products. 

PT: They visited our warehouse yesterday and they bought several products. 



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Regards,
 
Nick Ashton-Hart
Director, At-Large
ICANN
PO Box 32160
London N4 2XY
United Kingdom
Main Tel: +44 (20) 8800-1011]
USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460
Fax: +44 (20) 7681-3135
mobile: +44 (7774) 932798
email: nick.ashton-hart@icann.org
Win IM: ashtonhart@hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart@mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart