翻译技术速递Automatic Translation Could Come to Twitter
Twitter或将自动翻译推文
Twitter has announced that it will expand its translation feature by testing automatic translation with a small group of users in Brazil. The social media giant currently supports built-in translations that allow users to click or tap a tweet written in a foreign language.
For users who set their primary language to English on Twitter, any tweet using a non-English language will provide a translation button. As convenient as this method might appear, it also adds a step to the user experience, requiring manual action for the user to opt into the translation. In order to simplify that process, Twitter hopes to experiment with automatic translation so that all tweets will be automatically available to the user.
In a blog post, Twitter explains:
“To make it easier to understand the conversations you follow on Twitter, we’re experimenting with automatic translation for Tweets in other languages that appear on your homepage. We know that it can sometimes take a long time to translate Tweet by Tweet into different languages and stay on top of what is relevant to you.” (This text was translated from Portuguese by Google.)
The posts will provide an alert at the bottom to notify the user that the tweet has been translated and by whom. Although the company did not state whether it will partner with any machine translation providers, it does mention both Google and Microsoft as possible options. The company could also be weighing the possibility of combining the services to provide the most accurate translation available.
Among some of the issues of the new feature, the default translation could become a frustration for users. One obvious issue currently facing machine translation is the inaccuracy that occasions some translations. Furthermore, bilingual or multilingual users who have can only choose one language as their primary language might prefer a feature that allows them to read tweets in both languages or to continue in the opt-in structure.
Whether these issues will hold back the scaling of this new feature is not clear, but Twitter has not yet set any plans to expand the automatic translation any further than Brazil.
Twitter宣布，官网正在巴西小范围内测试自动翻译功能，以求将来扩展其翻译功能。这家社交网站巨头目前自带翻译设置，需要用户点击或选中该条外语推文。
以英语为主要语言的Twitter用户，浏览任何其他语言的推文都能点击翻译按钮。虽然这种操作看起来很方便，但却为用户体验增加了一个步骤，即手动点击翻译推文。为了简化这一过程，Twitter期望通过测试自动翻译，使所有翻译好的推文自动呈现给用户。
在博客中，Twitter对此作出解释:
“为了方便您理解Twitter上的评论，我们正在测试自动翻译您页面上的其他语言的推文。不过有时候，一条一条地将推文翻译成不同的语言，并掌握您需要的内容，会花很长的时间。”（这段话原为葡萄牙语，谷歌翻译。）
这些推文底端会有提示，告知用户该推文已翻译好，及其译者是谁。虽然该公司未明确其是否会与任何机器翻译提供商合作，但它提到了谷歌或微软可列入合作范围。该公司还衡量是否能将这些翻译服务结合起来，以提供最准确的翻译。
新的自动翻译功能存在一些问题，其中缺省翻译可能会让用户体验不佳。机器翻译目前存在的一个明显问题是有些翻译并不准确。另外，由于只能选择一种语言作为主要语言，那些双语或多语言用户可能更想要另外一种功能，即允许他们阅读两种语言的推文，不然他们还是更想继续使用选择翻译功能。
目前还不清楚这些问题是否会阻碍这项新功能的推广，但是，Twitter尚未有任何计划，打算将自动翻译推广到巴西以外的地方。
以上中文文本为机器翻译，存在不同程度偏差和错误，请理解并参考英文原文阅读。
阅读原文