HN Explorer

Ask HN: Are you bilingual? (bloglation.com)

9 points by yangtheman ↗ HN
If so, do you think correctly translating blogs could be useful?

I created the site after frustrating attempt to translate one of Paul Graham's essays to Korean. I used Google Translate initially, but the translated content completely sucked. Yahoo wasn't any better. My Korean isn't all that good, so it took me a while to correctly translate his essay. Then I thought of crowd-sourcing/wiki model, where there could be combined efforts from anyone on the web to correctly translate interesting blogs or any other contents on the web. Another good example is Ryan Tomayko's blog about REST. It's just fundamental concept, I think all web developers should know and follow it, no matter what language they use.

While I did two-years of computer science in college (eventually graduating with EE degree), I didn't have programming career. I used Ruby on Rails to build it, but I don't think it's nowhere close to be good enough. And having a full-time job prevents me from working/improving it seriously.

So, if you are bilingual and find it useful, I would love to elicit your help. Perhaps I could learn one or two things from you. I am always up for learning new things and improving my skills (however low it might be).

Please let me know!

23 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 56.5 ms ] thread
[dead] openfly
yep. english / portuguese.br
phamilton
Yes. I speak 4 languages with varying degrees of fluency (mostly due to lack of recent use.) From most fluent to least fluent. English (I'm American) Swedish (I lived in Sweden for two years as a missionary) French (I spent High School in Belgium as an expat) Spanish (Took 4 years in High School and got pretty darn good at it.)
petervandijck
Yes: Dutch native, English fluent, Spanish pretty good, French ok, German basic.

One day I'll learn another language or two. Perhaps when I finally create that online language learning thing ;)

ElbertF
Same here, except for Spanish. No Habla Español.
it0ny
I speak Spanish (I am Mexican), fluent English (I have been in the US since high school), and I am trying to learn French (beginner).
snitko
I have a feeling I am, because I speak english fluently. Although I'm not truly bilingual: I started learning english when I was 4, but it was not the language I spoke, but rather the language I studied. I also don't feel that's such a huge asset, because being able to speak english is somewhat a must and being able to speak Russian is only valuable in Russia. I hope I find time and motivation to learn spanish someday.
keefe
Ten years ago I was fluent in german and had a very limited chinese vocab, but it's all pretty much gone now.
eru
Bilingual is quite a low standard.
wlievens
That's arrogant and elitist of you. What's next? Bragging about how many programming languages you know? My coding-dick is longer than yours?
c1sc0
I'm sorry, but it is a low standard. I'd say that almost anyone in Europe with a little education is bilingual. Don't hold the rest of the world to your own low standards.
wlievens
I am European, and I do speak 3 languages, but I still think it's arrogant.
eru
And don't forget about India and other places.
vgurgov
I dont think so. In Europe its a must because you have to know English. This is also a case for me.

If you are American or UK native you DONT HAVE TO invest in learning any other lang. Although you can if you want to. But i know many smart ppl Americans who rather invest ALL their spare time in learning/practicing programming and or math. There is nothing wrong with that, i dont see why these guys are in "low standards"

eru
Maybe.

It's a pitty, though. Done right language education shouldn't take any effort at all: Just do it when the kids are very young, and learn languages naturally.

helveticaman
English: native.

Spanish: oh-so-close to native. Varies from day to day. I mean, I've spent 20 years in Chile, but it is not easy to stay bilingual. I'm not even sure it's possible to remain completely native in 2 or more languages permanently.

wlievens
Sure it's possible, but only if you use both frequently. Most of what I type is in English, so I'm fluent, but my daily life happens in Dutch.
wlievens
Dutch (Flemish) native, English fluent, French from high school but not very fluent. Planning to learn Spanish in the near future.
c1sc0
French, German, Dutch, English. My fluency varies from year-to-year depending on which language I use most in daily life. I remember the first time I came back 'home' and found out that I had trouble adapting to speaking my mother tongue. So bi-/tri-/x- lingualism (is that a word?) is not a fixed, but varying property on one's cv.
davidw
I speak Italian quite well, but will always speak it as a foreigner. My 2 year old daughter, on the other hand, has a shot at growing up truly bilingual, and is doing a pretty good job of it so far. I'm quite proud of her:-)
Indyan
Yeah. I am comfortable in both Bengali (mother tongue) and English. My grasp of Hindi is also quite decent.
Mz
I speak conversational German and can read and write some French, neither to my satisfaction. I also know a smattering of words in Russian and Spanish. I consider myself a dabbler.
sleepingbot
English, Spanish and Catalan here. All of them as mother tongues.
barry-cotter
English mothertongue, German at a conversational level and it's steadily improving though writing is still a pain, Irish and French were both pretty good about 9 years ago but are goddamned rusty. I can still read both of them pretty well though expressing myself at all, whether in speech or writing is torture.