This post is announce about an announce.
But if you do not care about my multilingual experiment, and want just to apply it to your own web-writing, be it personal or professional, go here.
First, when I wrote on August 5th that Multilingual online publishing – part 2 that from August 16th the posts would have been “GoogleTranslate Ready”- I lied.
On August 2nd, upon request from some Eastern European online friends in my “virtual village” (1100+ people scattered worldwide), I published a first example of my new Russian handwriting skills.
Yes, I am learning Russian. Tried many times since I was in high school, but never went past the alphabet.
The lie? Because, from July 30th, I started a weekly multilingual blogging exercise (see at the bottom of this post for the list as of 2009-08-16).
Using GoogleTranslate.
I prepare a simplified English version that “survives” when converted into Italian via GoogleTranslate.
“Surviving” means: the Italian syntax and semantics closely match the English original.
And both comply with their respective grammar (i.e. it is not just a translitteration!).
Then, I use GoogleTranslate to produce the Latvian and Russian version.
Finally, using a technique that I learned during my 8 years of Latin in school, I produce a blog posting that shows one line in each language.
Why? To inspire readers in comparing the languages- and give GoogleTranslate a try.
While visually picking up some “patterns” from each language.
Aim? Not to replace a professional translator, or language learning.
But to replace those terrible tourist dictionaries- and allow people to communicate with people.
Yes, in my home (also when I was a kid), traditionally there is always about a dozen of dictionaries (here in Brussels, over 30 on paper, plus the electronic ones 
).
Often the Latvian and Russian translations are really “rough”.
Anyway- good enough to understand the meaning and keywords, with a limited effort- and no use of the dictionary.
The result? I started receiving messages in Italian.
From people that speak only Russian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Polish, etc.
And this experiment follows another experiment, that I started in Summer 2007, after visiting in Latvia some old friends that I had met while studying in Sweden during the Summer of 1994, and that I escorted in Italy during the Winter 2006.
I often exchanged messages with online friends, sending the text in English, basic Latvian or Russian, and sometimes Italian, French, Spanish, German- or whatever language they told me that they understood “een beetje” (a little bit, in Dutch); I do not speak Hungarian, but I found a decent online translator to/from Hungarian.
“Decent” means: if you get the same text back and forth (e.g. English to Hungarian to English), the meaning is not “lost in translation” (BTW: a booooooooring movie- never saw it to the end; maybe one day…)
Yes- I used the dictionary for Latvian and Russian, and with the former also my old grammar books (Latvian, like Latin, is an highly inflected language). In mid-1990s I learned quickly (in few months) spoken Latvian, but then, of course, I never used it!
And, yes, the secret, both in language learning and in writing multilingual messages was: streamline your message.
Write short phrases.
More haiku than rambling (the latter being my usual writing style).
If you are curious, the list of my most experiments is at the bottom of this post, with the number of readers on each post.
Incidentally: in February 2009, I set up a rule- I would re-post on my open blog any post in my “virtual village” that reached 40 readers.
Since then, it usually takes 24 hours or less- with no advertising, and with some posts getting over 100 readers in few days.
But as it took a life of its own, I am now preparing a “parallel” personal public blog (i.e. most posts with the keywords “draugiem” or “gramata” are currently not available in this blog).
The reason for the GoogleTranslate “test” is that I saw an interesting phenomenon.
Whenever the title was in two or three languages (no matter which ones)… also friends that do not speak any of those language made an effort to have a look, and sometimes wrote to me in whatever language they know, complaining about the lack of their language 
It is free.
It is easy.
It is far from perfect but right on the spot, as it gives you a chance to communicate across the language barrier.
Better than using dictionaries or improvised “language mediators”.
More than once around Europe I had to play the multilingual “Cyrano” role. And, and somebody else wrote, it take just a (virtual) village to understand that perfection is often the enemy of action.
A final bit of practical advice for companies and organizations
In my professional activity, I saw many corporate websites that keep having a “time lag” between the English version and any other version.
Why? Lack of time, and, often, lack of budget to maintain what was created as a monolingual website.
And then, became a multilingual brochure. Before reverting to a mainly monolingual corporate portal.
My suggestion: if you do not have the budget to be really multilingual, build your website by layers.
- Layer 1
- in your language, what matters and can be updated by cycle (e.g. every quarter, etc). If budget allows, this material should be produced also in your other reference languages (I guess: you main markets/target linguistic communities)
- layer 2
- more dynamic material, like news releases: produce an abstract in simplified English, and test that it is still undestandable in your main target languages afte passing through GoogleTranslate the text published online will be in your main language, but with the abstract shown automatically in the language that the user selected as her/his browsing language, preceeding the full version
- layer 3
- articles, etc, that are not easily translated: do as in layer 2, but then publish online only the full version, with a link, automatically translated, with a title like “summary in your language”
I did it as an experiment when I first published my online e-zine in 2003 (BusinesSFitnessMagazine.Com), and it requires only few lines of code.
At the time, I produce personally first the English version, and then the Italian one, with an abstract in French- a boring task.
I will post an example of this “automatic translation based on the user browsing choices” soon on my own “e-business card“.
If you visit it, have a look at the source code (see the option using the “right click” of your mouse- the menu option is different in each browser).
It is fully commented, with one purpose: allow anybody to use any technology (from CSS, to AJAX, to HTML, to JavaScript etc) for your own publishing purposes- without using a developer or becoming one.
Just copy and paste the source, experiment, and… drop me a line
It is my own version of the Creative commons: democratic access to technology.
And if you are curious… here is the list of my recent postings related to multilinguism/multiculturalism in my “virtual village”.
And no, I use neither advertisement nor SEO in any form and shape to attract readers.
Just plain, old, word-of-mouth (or “viral marketing”, if you prefer- but without any action to “initiate” the process )
[Legenda:
number of readers: as of 2009-08-18 at 09:00
number of comments: includes only the public comments, and ignores the e-mail messages commenting or discussing the post, that often exceed the number of public comments]
- 2009-07-30 14:30
- Are you a politician? Yes, you are , 63 readers, 1 comment
- 2009-07-31 22:28
- Yet another month And another goal , 59 readers, 1 comment
- 2009-08-01 17:11
- я понимаю что… I understand that…, 72 readers, 5 comments
- 2009-08-02 18:00
- as I promised yesterday…, 70 readers, 4 comments
- 2009-08-06 10:20
- (twin) splitting (English and Русский) – A new game / В новой игре / Jauna spēle, 60 readers, 3 comments
- 2009-08-06 22:15
- A good start / un buon inizio / Labs sākums / А хороший старт, 58 readers, 4 comments
- 2009-08-13 13:01
- Time flies / Il tempo vola / Laiks peld / Время летит, 56 readers, 3 comments
- 2009-08-16 12:38
- Today, the kitchen! / Oggi, la cucina! / Šodien, virtuvē! / Сегодня, на кухне!, 51 readers, 5 comments
Tags: access, democratic, english, google, italian, latin, latvian, multicultural, multilingual, russian, technology, translate