New Facebook translation connect makes some skeptical

Want to read your friend’s wall posts on Facebook in French? You now can at the click of a button.

The popular social networking Web site now offers a new multilingual feature called Translations for Facebook Connect.

Translations for Facebook Connect, created Sept. 24, allows Web site designers to implant a Facebook login box on their Web site. By logging into their account, users can translate any Web site into another language using the Facebook service.

Central Michigan University foreign language students are willing to try the new feature and see how it can be helpful.

“I usually don’t use online translators because of all the mistakes, but I feel like this is more reliable because you are getting help from real people,” said Ashley Moore, Shelby Township sophomore and SPN 202: Intermediate Spanish II student.

Users can then post their results onto their walls so their friends can vote on which translation is the most accurate. The idea is to avoid all the mistakes that other translation Web sites often have.

Ishpeming freshman and FRN 101: Elementary French I student Mollie Anderson believes Translations for Facebook Connect can be helpful, especially if she had a lot of friends who spoke French on Facebook.

Although optimistic, she has some doubts about the idea.

“Honestly, I think it might be viewed as a joke,” Anderson said.

Used for teaching?

CMU foreign language professors have mixed emotions about the new feature.

“It could help to spread understanding and knowledge, but I’m very skeptical about it being used as a language tool for learning,” said assistant professor of foreign languages Amy Ransom, who teaches French. “I also have academic honesty concerns if it were used for help with an assignment for a class.”

However, Spanish instructor Cindy Espinosa said it is an excellent idea.

“Single-word translations are reliable from a dictionary or Web site but, when it comes to stringing the words together, it gets very complicated,” Espinosa said. “That’s where people can really help.”

Ransom and Espinosa feel unable to pass technical judgment, however, because neither has tried the program yet.

“Who knows? It could turn out to be a great tool,” Ransom said.