Now you can help translate Facebook into any language
For months, volunteer translators around the world have been using Facebook’s innovative Translations application to translate all 24,000 phrases on Facebook into Spanish, German, and French. Now, Facebook has opened up the Translation application to everyone in order to translate Facebook into every major language on earth.
How does it work?
1. Add the Translations app and choose your language. (Currently, there are translation projects going on in English, Français, Deutsch, Español, Català, Čeština, Dansk, Euskara, Galego, Italiano, 한국어, Magyar, Norsk, 日本語, Nederlands, Polski, Português do Brasil, Română, Русский, Slovenščina, Suomi, Svenska, ภาษาไทย, Türkçe, 中文(简体), 中文(繁體).)
2. Turn on in-line editing. This will highlight every word on Facebook that needs translating. You can click on each phrase and vote on translations submitted by others or submit a new translation yourself.
3. Browse the translations directory to view and translate more phrases. You can browse and vote on any of the 24,000 phrases. Facebook’s top translators have had thousands of translations accepted!
This is one of the most elegant approaches to localization I’ve seen, making it easy for everyone to contribute, if even only a word or two. Nice job, Facebook Translations team!
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
It’s a nice idea although it doesn’t work very well. They should just pay a few professional translators – after the big payout from Microsoft they must have the money, and it would be much quicker and of better quality. I used the Spanish version when it launched for about a month, but switched back to English because there were SO MANY errors. Guys being referred to as girls and vice versa, singular forms used when the subject was plural or even a mixture of both in one sentence. Sometimes the errors would change from day to day, but they wouldn’t be replaced by a correct translation, just new errors. Also sometimes I saw random formatting instructions in English eg: instead of displaying the date once it said ” dates in Spanish are not displayed like this please see style guide for more information” or something like that.
April 6th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
The idea of freelance translators is not bad, even for multimillionaire company like fb.
When they allowed my language – bulgarian, to be translate, i`ll do my best. There can`t be any mistakes, but they`ll disappear. Voting for some translation from other person in same country will give more quality i think…
April 21st, 2008 at 2:00 am
[...] http://www.insidefacebook.com/2008/04/02/now-you-can-help-translate-facebook-into-any-language/ [...]
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:29 am
Why is there no other language here like Uyghur?
Can we translate the facebook to Uyghur ??
May 21st, 2008 at 6:01 am
[...] its launch earlier this year, Facebook Translations has spurred on significant international growth for the primarily English-speaking social network. [...]
June 24th, 2008 at 2:27 am
[...] addition, Facebook announced today that it has added 55 new languages to its crowd-sourced translation efforts. Facebook’s Chad Little says, Now native speakers can use our Translations application to [...]
October 8th, 2008 at 9:37 am
please translate my facebook back to enlish
November 18th, 2008 at 10:29 am
please translate my face book back to english.
thanks
March 17th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Not *any* language at all. Almost year after the post there are still only 103 out of around 6,000 languages in the world are on the list. :)
For example, Kyrgyz, official language of Kyrgyzstan (population 6 mln people) is not on the list. Quite disappointing for me personally.
Google, for example, has 117 interface languages (112 real + 5 fun languages).
May 7th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
[...] Facebook continues to expand internationally, its crowd-sourced Translations application continues to play a vital role in making Facebook accessible to more and more people around the [...]
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:36 am
TRANSLATE MY FACEBOOK TO ENGLISH
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:42 pm
please translate my facebook back to english
June 5th, 2009 at 12:44 am
i need my facebook in english only please..help.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:19 am
why the h*&ll is my facebook suddenly in arabic???
June 10th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
[...] not apparent what caused such rapid growth in the last month, Facebook has made great strides in language localization. In March, Facebook announced that the site was available in Arabic, one of the official languages [...]
June 12th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
please change my facsbook language from arabic to english,i cnt do it my self cos i dnt understand arabic.please i need it in english
June 16th, 2009 at 9:40 am
My facebook page is in dutch. Please convert it to English
June 29th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
stuck in Japanese Help!
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
My facebook is STUCK in Japanese and will not go back to English even after I click ENGLISH at the bottom?
WTF? Over.
August 14th, 2009 at 3:20 am
please translate my facebook back to english.i cant understand any language, only english and tagalog.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
pls. translate 2 english my facebook
September 21st, 2009 at 6:33 am
translate my facebook to ENGLISH,South african english please
September 29th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
[...] to how Facebook has let users translate its site into more than 65 languages, the company is releasing a new version of the tool so third parties can let users translate their [...]
September 30th, 2009 at 9:29 am
[...] to how Facebook has let users translate its site into more than 65 languages, the company is releasing a new version of the tool so third parties can let users translate their [...]
October 1st, 2009 at 8:09 am
[...] to how Facebook has let users translate its site into more than 65 languages, the company is releasing a new version of its crowd-sourced translation tool so third parties can [...]
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:49 am
[...] enabling its incredible international growth over the past two years. Since the Translation app was launched in April 2008, Facebook has been translated into over 70 languages – even including some “long [...]
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
[...] enabling its incredible international growth over the past two years. Since the Translation app was launched in April 2008, Facebook has been translated into over 70 languages – even including some “long [...]
October 4th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
[...] which enable users to translate any phrase on the site and then vote on the best translations, in early 2008, Facebook has penetrated many markets on every continent. We continue to follow Facebook’s [...]
October 4th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
[...] which enable users to translate any phrase on the site and then vote on the best translations, in early 2008, Facebook has penetrated many markets on every continent. We continue to follow Facebook’s [...]
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:11 am
well it looks like im not the only one that has had problems, by trying to help the facebook team it looks like youve changed all my facebook to spanish now, and im english so could you please change it back, i was trying to help you with translation process, why cant you make it plain and simple instead of no real guidelines as to what im just about to do to myself. Cheers
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:19 am
I would like help to translate my facebook back to english, seeing as your translation ideas are as clear as mud, one click now im screwed, why cant you put clearer points like”you are just about to change your facebook to spanish, do you still wish to proceed?”
November 9th, 2009 at 2:02 am
hi all
i want to translate facebook to my language (kurdish) how i can do that?
thanks.
December 10th, 2009 at 4:12 am
Can you please translate my facebook back to
English instead of germany
December 13th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
PLEASE PUT BACK MY FACEBOOK INTO ORIGINAL ENGLISH TRANSLATION I CANT UNDERSTAND ARABIC…
January 5th, 2010 at 8:20 am
TRANSLATE MY FACEBOOK TO ENGLISH
January 12th, 2010 at 9:00 am
please transalate my face book to english
January 15th, 2010 at 7:29 am
prevedi mi facebook na hrvatski-translate my facebook on croatian pleas.
January 21st, 2010 at 2:43 am
traslate facebook to english
January 24th, 2010 at 7:39 am
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It is easy to use and to price your next project’s translation needs.
March 8th, 2010 at 6:51 am
Facebook is wrongly translated in NEPALI. Please don’t mess with my mothertongue!
Or, let me take part in translation!
April 1st, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Few months back, very sorry to say, I mistakenly add my email account with my another facebook test account, and so, I lost my original fb account (though in the meantime, I got back all my friends, Group & page ADMIN Roles by contacting with facebook team).
BUT unfortunately my fb account (with same email account: ripanchy@yahoo.com) which was positioned 10th/11th in Facebook Bangla translation, is no more showing in the leaderboard list.
You can check your database about my translations.
Since I worked hard to translate facebook to bangla, I would request you to bring back my position in leaderboard again.
Pls
PLs
PLS
April 3rd, 2010 at 8:31 am
i want my profil facebook english
April 7th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
I need english back what can I do???????
April 29th, 2010 at 1:14 am
please help me. ineed facebook in english. not esponal
May 1st, 2010 at 11:10 am
Please please help me translate my facebook back to english from Arabic.i read english not Arabic.i was unable to get into my facebook since last year,please tell me how i can get it back please!
May 2nd, 2010 at 1:07 pm
pls. help me to change english from arabic of my facebook account. thanks
May 6th, 2010 at 10:14 am
pls. help me, i need english not Norwegian….
May 6th, 2010 at 11:46 am
please help me translate my facebook in homepage back to english from Hrvatski.i can’t read.
how to get back !!
May 10th, 2010 at 10:14 am
how do i get english us on facebook . some how i got dutch , nthank you
May 13th, 2010 at 9:35 am
i want my page in latin
May 14th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
please translate my facebook to english cos i dont understand chinese (traditional han)…please
May 27th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
please transfer my facebook in english permanently coz i dont understand arabic
May 29th, 2010 at 5:11 am
plz translate my facebook page into english permanantely i dont understand arabic
June 18th, 2010 at 10:26 am
i want change my facebook langugage
July 8th, 2010 at 1:22 am
pliz have my face book back to english permanently because idont understand arabic
July 12th, 2010 at 9:14 am
You should check out the new social translate tool: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/giljlmclogpacbccpelmggfcjnickhhf
July 21st, 2010 at 9:59 am
thank a lot for you
August 1st, 2010 at 10:14 am
pls translate my facebook to english i’cant understand arabic
August 16th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
thank-you for helping me join facebook translation
August 20th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
plise translate my facebook page to english
August 24th, 2010 at 10:34 am
salam please i want participate in translate facebook but when i click it’s display an error .so what i can do to add this translate
September 4th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
hi..
please tell me or allow me to translate facebook into Kurdish Language ..what i have to do ? please i need answer
September 10th, 2010 at 9:49 am
hi…
please allow me to tanslet facebook into english,
pls. i need answer
October 21st, 2010 at 12:20 pm
i want translate arbic to ital
November 10th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
pleas transulat in english to
November 22nd, 2010 at 11:44 am
Please Translate all my Pacebook back to Enlish .
November 30th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
translate my facebook to english please
December 11th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
esther levy de loya says
translate my facebook to english please
December 16th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
[...] [Facebook Translations,Inside Facebook,TechCrunch] Tweet This entry was posted in Social Media, Web and Technology and tagged [...]
January 16th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
my facebook stuck on korean language,plaese bring it back to english.
May 31st, 2011 at 12:44 pm
[...] 2008 hat InsideFacebook über die Translation App berichtet. Damals konnte jeder User aktiv seinen Beitrag an der [...]
August 16th, 2011 at 10:05 pm
[...] Por exemplo, para o público externo crowdsourcing era “inteligência coletiva”. Internamente na Google era “redução de custos”. Sempre quando a Google pedia aos usuários que ajudassem na tradução de uma página, a intenção era cortar gastos com tradutores (tática adotada pelo Facebook anos depois). [...]
February 2nd, 2012 at 1:23 pm
[...] sites now have dedicated crowd translation facilities. Big examples are Twitter and Facebook. The approach here is good. You get to translate where it is most suitable, the site itself. That [...]