Unbabel API
Languages and libraries
translation api
SHOW HN2014
143points
65comments
#177of 2,272 in 2014
Top 8%of 2014 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
15 positive, 17 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 8 critical, out of 41 comments about the project. Thread score +0.20.
Idea: 9 for, 2 againstExecution: 1 for, 4 againstDesign: 1 for, 1 againstPricing: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Clever use of machine plus human correction; lowers need for bilingual experts
From 2 comments
There is a kernel of genius in this: I can't translate a word of Chinese, but I can usually do a good job of correcting a good machine translation. If the machine does the first…
zmmmmm on HNThis type of crowdsourcing meets ML is a really nice example of where we can leverage humans and machines to the best of their current abilities. It would be great if the…
etrain on HN
Fast turnaround useful for customer communication and releases
From 2 comments
I use unbabel a lot, and the really fast translation has a lot of implications that aren't immediately obvious. You can communicate with international customers efficiently in…
kvnlw on HNThanks Trey. Our goal is to get to 15 minutes of translation time. That would make it usable for email and customer service messages. Right now it depends on when our users are…
vasco_ on HN
Objections
Post-editing quality concerns, especially for low pay per word
From 2 comments
I just saw a machine-translated text that was given to a translator I know for "post-editing". Basically you have to delete everything that the machine translated and do it all…
exolab on HNPretty neat, will have to try it out for Kiva. We translate a giant volume of words every year (we've translated nearly 100 million words total). As it stands, we have an awesome…
nowarninglabel on HN
Translation quality poor for non-native translators
From 2 comments
I didn't know the product by itself, I'm not commenting about the API. Seems a really good idea, however I looked at:…
vmarsy on HNAlso, you are correct, one of the things we are noticing is that requiring that the translator be native in the target language provides significant quality. As we increase the…
vasco_ on HN
Limited language coverage
From 2 comments
Good point, we are in the process of updating our homepage. Things have been moving so fast it is hard to keep up. In any case we currently offer translations in English,…
vasco_ on HNMaybe this is intentional, but from your homepage, I have no idea what languages you handle.
donw on HN
Requests
Support for more languages
From 2 comments
Good point, we are in the process of updating our homepage. Things have been moving so fast it is hard to keep up. In any case we currently offer translations in English,…
vasco_ on HNGreat platform. I hope you add more languages soon. My english is not good enough but I could provide you with 2 east european languages and translate them into german. Also…
aluhut on HN
Subtitle and time-coded transcription support
From 1 comment
Do you offer support for time-coded transcriptions (i.e. video subtitles) as well? We would love a good provider to enrich video with translations (for when we find a good one…
mtrimpe on HN
Bitcoin payments
From 2 comments
Great platform. I hope you add more languages soon. My english is not good enough but I could provide you with 2 east european languages and translate them into german. Also…
aluhut on HNThank you. We are planning to add Bitcoin at some, paying our translators across the world is sometimes hard.
vasco_ on HN
Questions
How per-word pricing is counted for languages without spaces
From 2 comments
> Human Corrected Translations for 1 cent per word "Per word" of the source language, or the target language? Sum of both? What about languages which have a different concept of…
lignuist on HNWe are still trying to figure that out, there is no clear answer regarding how to base the pricing. Perhaps it should be based on words that were actually corrected? So for the…
vasco_ on HN
How dynamic strings and context are handled
From 2 comments
Just curious, how is dynamic text handled in the Unbabel API? Can you pass something like "Your score is %1" where %1 would be replaced by the first parameter? Or would you have…
TapocoL on HNHow do you guys deal with "context" around translations? Lots of shorter strings in web application require some hand-holding for translators to let them know where the phrase…
mmastrac on HN
Alternatives named
Google Translate
From 1 comment
I didn't know the product by itself, I'm not commenting about the API. Seems a really good idea, however I looked at:…
vmarsy on HN
Duolingo crowd translation
From 1 comment
Duolingo has an also cool approach, where they offer free language courses for students, and charge companies that want certain documents translated. The students themselves…
bederoso on HN