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LETTERS: Akira Sekikawa, Ingrid Libman, Lucia Iochida, Ronald E Laporte, and Eugene Boostrom People will be able to surf across languages for health data on the Internet BMJ 1996; 313: 1264b-1265b [Full text]

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Breaking the language barrier

Benjamin Acosta   (3 June 1999)

Breaking the language barrier 3 June 1999
Benjamin Acosta Send response to journal: Re: Breaking the language barrier	Editor Access to the Internet has greatly increased in the past few years; therefore, the opportunity to disseminate health information has markedly improved. This is especially important for scientists from developing countries, where the availability of leading biomedical journals is still limited. There is no doubt of how the Internet can break geographic barriers; however, there is still an important barrier: language. Most of scientific health information on the Internet is in English, and although English is widely used in science, not everyone is able to communicate fluently in this language. 1 We are developing a multilingual Supercourse of Epidemiology, the Internet, and Global Health through the Internet (http://www.pitt.edu/~super1). Currently we have 80 lectures in English and the plan has been to translate these into both Japanese and Spanish. However this would be both time consuming and costly. Moreover, when changes are made to the English versions then translation changes have to be made for lectures in all languages. This supercourse is not a course by itself but it is a collection of independent lectures written by authors who want to share their experience with people of other countries. The lectures are provided for free to classroom teachers for free through out the world. They customize and filter the lectures to improve the comprehension of students in their local areas. It would be ideal if translations could be made faster and cheaper. There are different web pages that provide bidirectional translations on line. We have tested our lectures with one of them (http://translator.go.com). This application translates a whole web page instantaneously (Just in Time translation) so once the first page is translated, one can navigate completely in the language one chose. Even though the translation is not perfect, it is quite comprehensible especially as the classroom teachers filter and interpret the materials. We believe that translation software helps to accomplish one of the most important objectives in science: to communicate. By using translation software it is possible to produce comprehensible "Just in Time" translations and it is excellent for sharing lectures through the web. However, it may also be beneficial for reading journals like the BMJ, Nature Medicine, the Lancet, Science, JAMA, etc. The BMJ and books associated with the BMJ such as Epidemiology for the Uninitiated are readily translated into Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Portuguese. Although the translations are not perfect, if the article is in ones field, the articles are quite comprehensible. For example, if one is a native English Speaker, and does not read Spanish, one can interpret about 15% of an article in a Spanish Language Journal in your field. With a "Just in Time" translation into English would produce a level of comprehension for major points is probably 80% or better. We believe that it is better to understand 80% of an article that is in bad English, than 15% of an article in excellent Spanish. The quality of translations by using this technology is thus comprehensible and will become better in the next years. We recommend that all web journals and books have buttons for "Just in Time" translations in order to contribute to the globalization of health information resources. People can then chose what language to which they want to read. Please request a "Just in Time" translation by going to http://translator.go.com and then type in www.pitt.edu/~super1 and www.bmj.com. You will see how easy it is, and why we think this can help us break through the wall of language incompatibility. Benjamin Acosta Fellow Department of Epidemiology Akira Sekikawa Fellow Department of Epidemiology Deborah Aaron Assistant Professor Department of Epidemiology Eunryoung Sa Fellow Department of Epidemiology Ronald E. LaPorte Professor Department of Epidemiology University of Pittsburgh Diabetes Research Center 3460 Fith Avenue Pittsburgh PA 15213 USA 1 Sekikawa A, Libman I, Iochida L, LaPorte RE. People will be able to surf across languages for health data on the Internet. BMJ 1996;313:1264-65.