Comments on: Lost in translation: Why online translators generally suck

By: Voices en Español » Tarzan Spanish: The perils of automated translation

Voices en Español » Tarzan Spanish: The perils of automated translation — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:36:06 +0000

[...] on automated translation and was wondering if maybe it was causing more harm than good. I’ve written about this topic before on this blog but the subject of automated translation is a gift that keeps on giving. It bears [...]

By: eleena

eleena — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:52:46 +0000

Chris,
Thanks for the link to the Forrester piece. I feel like there’s so much conflicting info out there. The Hispanic market and the potential is so huge, particularly in the U.S., I guess there is room for multiple perspectives and interpretations of the market. But here’s a fact that Forrester Research doesn’t mention, at least not in that posting…..Only about 5% of the world’s web pages are in Spanish. That compares to 45% for English. Also, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, fluency and preference in using English at home increases significantly among the children and grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. That’s why I think it’s too easy an assumption for Forrester to say that because there are 40+million Hispanics in the U.S. that automatically means that the majority of them are going to be seeking out Spanish content on the web. Not necessarily.

Thank you for steering me to the Forrester report because this is a topic I’m very interested in.

By: chris

chris — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:58:27 +0000

Hi Eleena, It seems that you made the right decision in being bilingual according to the study by Forrester Research quoted on Web Worker Daily here: (and many thanks for the plug)