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Content translation

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Content Translation tool showing information about a link in the source and the translated article.
Introduction to Content translation
Wikimedia Foundation projects
Content Translation
Computer-assisted translation tool for Wikipedia pages
Group: Internationalization and Localization
Start: 2014-01-01
Team members: Development team – Amir Aharoni, David Chan, Kartik Mistry, Niklas Laxstrom, Pau Giner, Runa Bhattacharjee, Santhosh Thottingal
Management: Amir E. Aharoni (product manager), Runa Bhattacharjee (engineering manager)

The Content Translation tool allows editors to create translations right next to the original article and automates the boring steps: copying text across browser tabs, looking for corresponding links and categories, etc. Thanks to the more fluent experience, translators can spend more of their time creating high-quality content that reads naturally in their language.

The tool, while still in active development, is available for you to try and has been used already to create over a million articles resulting in reported improvements in translators' productivity.[1][2] Content Translation integrates tools such as dictionaries or machine translation services. Those are not supported in all languages, but the tool can be extended to include more.

Content Translation complements the existing Translate extension: while text from Wikipedia menus and other user interface elements are translated and kept in sync by the community using Translate, Wikipedia content can be translated using Content Translation.

See also:

  • User documentation
  • Technical documentation
  • Section translation and mobile support. The Section Translation initiative expands the capabilities of Content translation. Translators will be able to expand existing articles by translating a new section on mobile and desktop. Section translation is in active development and you can participate and track progress of recent updates.

Try the tool

You can access the tool from Special:ContentTranslation from Wikipedia in any language. Accessing it for the first time will also enable the tool for that wiki.

Content translation is available in Wikipedia in all languages for logged-in users. In some languages it must be enabled as a beta feature, and in others it is a usual user preference enabled by default. When it is enabled, you will see additional entry points to easily start a translation from your "contributions" page or from the list of languages of Wikipedia articles when they are missing in your language.

If you had any issue with the tool or you just want to share the experience with the tool, please provide feedback at the talk page.

Screencast showing how to use Content Translation

Purpose of the tool

Content Translation allows you to create an initial version of a Wikipedia page based on an existing version from a different language. The tool is focused on transferring and adapting content from an existing article to a new one in a different language. It allows editors to reuse as much or as little content for their initial version to later keep editing it with their usual editing tools.

We expect that Content Translation will help to expand the sum of the human knowledge to more languages. The tool is targeted to users that know two or more languages.

For current editors the tool will simplify the process of translating content. Currently, about 15% of users also edit a second language edition. These multilingual users were found to be more prolific than their monolingual counterparts, making about 2.3 times as many edits on average.[3] In addition, the tool is aimed at attracting new editors who may benefit from a way of contributing that is easier than creating a new page from scratch.

The tool was designed according to the following principles:

  • Save time. Help translators to create content quickly, without unnecessary copy & paste to external tools.
  • Provide assistance. Prevent errors, and make the user confident of their translations.
  • Encourage quality of translations. The tool should properly communicate the purpose of translations in Wikimedia context and help the user to avoid bad quality translations.
  • Don’t force the user. Since different translators follow different editing patterns, the aids provided should not intrude into the editing process.
  • Focus on content. Translation is more focused on content than text styling. Technical elements such as wikitext should be dealt in a way that do not make the translation harder.

More details about the analytics considered are available.

How to participate

References

  1. ↑ Wikipedia’s coverage of essential vaccines is expanding, Wikimedia Blog
  2. ↑ How content translation improved my wiki edits, Wikimedia Blog.
  3. ↑ Multilinguals and Wikipedia Editing, Scott A. Hale. Dec 2013
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