Reviews help ensure quality on crowdsourced translation site

Regular readers may remember myGengo, a Japanese site that taps the native-speaking crowds for online translation. Now operating on much the same principle is MyTranslation, which adds reviews to help ensure the quality of translated work. Only native speakers are allowed to serve as translators on French MyTranslation, and they must pass a test to qualify. Clients with work to be translated, meanwhile, can post their requests on the site and translators will respond with bids including both price and ETA. Clients can then consider those factors as well as the translators’ past reviews in deciding which one to hire. Translators are available 24/7, and confidentiality is always maintained, the site says. Progress, meanwhile, can be tracked in real-time while the work is done. If the client is not happy with the result, there’s a money-back guarantee, and reviews can also convey any problems that arose. Express translations are also available at a rate of USD 0.08 per word. Now that all the world is connected online, the need for native, human translation doesn’t seem likely to be going away anytime soon. As in so many areas, leave it to the crowds to get the job done. Spotted by: Guillaume de la Serre