With the advent of crowdsourcing (the gathering of information from large groups of people, especially online) I think we have a good chance of improving the automated language translators.  This internet could finally become the “Great Open Basement” that Bellos discusses in Chapter 23.  Except that instead of one common language, we have a human chain of translators disseminating translations –on the internet.

In chapter 22, Bellos says that most of the world’s languages are spoken by small groups.  Therefore it would be impossible to fit a representative from each language in one place.  The internet takes care of this problem.

Of course, it’s necessary to have a system of review prior to disseminating a translation.  As we have discovered in class ( and by the words of Claudio Remeseira), it’s better if you can have someone review your work.

I did  have a mostly good experience using Babelfish, I believe one of the oldest services out there, it only had a couple of differences –even making me doubt my version and I changed the reference to Durst killing his female friend to his deceased wife’s friend…it seemed to make sense at the moment.