TechCrunch announced today (kudos to @matthewbennett for the link via Twitter) a new free service on Twitter called Twitrans. Twitter users are able to send their tweets to this service and a few minutes later a translation is received which the user can post to followers who speak another language. Unlike many similar tools, this is not an automated service. The translations are done by humans. The company that provides the service is called OneHour Translation. I really wince at the image of a network of translators madly typing away translations of the world’s tweets – not exactly a professional translator’s preferred way of working when they have multiple other large documents on the go, but I welcome any comments from translators who do work in this way.
Looking at the website of OneHour Translation, I’m sceptical (to say the least) about their ability to turn around larger documents (projects they say they can take on include websites and presentations) within just 1 hour. To me, the best use of this type of service is for something like Twitrans, not important or lengthy documents. What do others think about this type of service?
