Among those cute stories and political jokes, though, you often find more disturbing things – for example, videos translated from Arabic by organizations like Memri, highlighting the latest outrageous statements by Islamic fanatics. Those videos are a window into the staple ideological fare of tens of millions of Muslims, and realizing that they probably represent the beliefs of nations and cultures throughout the Muslim world is, to say the least, scary.

We take it for granted that Israel always gets the short end of the stick in social media – that “they” hate us regardless of what we say, that our hasbara (pro-Israel public pronouncements) is second-rate anyway, etc. But interestingly, whenever MEMRI posts a video with translations on the bottom, allowing English speakers to understand what is really going on in the “mysterious Orient,” everyone suddenly understands the problem and danger: The talkbacks (sometimes thousands of them, when taken as a single unit) make it clear that lots of people, not just those who love Israel, are scared. And Muslims who do not subscribe to the “Down with Israel/America” philosophy and tactics espoused by these imams suddenly appear, posting messages and counter-videos showing the rational side of Islam. Why we don’t hear from them more often is a question we can’t deal with here, but suffice to say that when the fanatics decide to go after the “kaffir” (heretics against Islam) of the world, they usually start by “cleaning house” – ie, going after the Muslims they aren’t fond of.

What works on the negative side – showing the true face of radical Islam – can work on the positive side as well, showing the positive side of Israel. While there are many pro-Israel videos on Youtube, there are so many positive, untold stories that have never been told – possibly because those telling them don’t know English, or don’t have the “connections” to get their story out to the Youtube world. In a world of homogenized milk and homogenized fast food, language is the last barrier to getting your message out to the masses. Thousands of years later, the “curse of Babel” is still with us, and for thousands of years, the only to make yourself understood was to hire a professional translator, who knew the language of the people you were trying to reach.

Slowly but surely, that last roadblock to human understanding is disappearing, thanks to innovative web services that are bringing speakers of different tongues together. Google Translate, for example, lets you type in text or paste a URL into its translation box, and seconds later, you get a direct translation of your text in one of several dozen languages – or, a fully translated web page. As I’ve written previously, the translations aren’t always perfect, but if you paste the URL of an Arabic language news page into Google Translate, you’ll get a passable English translation of the page (sans, of course, proper grammar, in most cases. But who worries about grammar these days anyway?)

Text translations, while far from easy, are infinitely less complicated than audio translations. Accents, dialects, and the quality of elocution of speakers makes writing standard translations software nearly impossible, with applications needing major component additions for each specific language. That’s not stopping Google from trying, though, and one of the result of the company’s stated desire to make all knowledge accessible to all people is the new Youtube Transcribe Audio feature. Google doesn’t really have an audio site of its own, but it does own Youtube, and almost videos have sound. And when you combine Google Translate technology with audi transcription, you get either a window onto the world – with an automatic English (or other language) text translation of what you are hearing  – or, in some cases, a really funny story!

That’s because the service is still in beta, and clearly is going to be an ongoing project for awhile. Even the automatic transcription of audio in the same language (English voiceover to english text) isn’t always successful, but Google gets lots of credit for at least getting the ball rolling. When you load a Youtube video like this one, you may see a box on the bottom right of the video marked “CC” – which stands for “closed caption,” a caption generated by Youtube of the voice on the video. Hover your mouse over that box, and you’ll see a selection for “Translate captions,” which gives you a list of dozens of languages to translate the captions into. Magically, the captions change into something you can understand (more or less – try it on the above video and you’ll see what I mean!).

The criteria for being chosen for a transcribe/translate job aren’t clear, but the videos I found that do have them were mostly interviews, such as the one listed. And not all of the interviewees are as intelligent as the guy in that video, believe me – some of them are of the type that gave Youtube its reputation as the “black hole” of internet time wasting. So, if you want your inspiring Israeli story to be seen and read without Hebrew being a barrier to the viewer, check out dotSUB, a site that makes transcription and translation as easy as feasibly possible. Using dotSUB’s convenient tools, you can quickly and easily enter the transcribed text in your language, and then do the same for the translation. You can them download the finished product and upload it to Youtube, confident that you’ve got a first-class translation, all laid out with properly placed captions – ready to win the hearts and minds of the people “out there.”

Related articles

• Google Translate Conversation Mode (searchengineland.com)
• Google Can Translate Poetry (googletutor.com)
• How Google Translate Works (mt-soft.com.ar)
• dotSUB: Spread your message into other languages (socialmedia.biz)

Various ideas have been proposed throughout the generations in order to “westernize” Hebrew; for example, dropping the right to left Hebrew alphabet and writing “Hebrew” in latin letters. While most Israelis will tell you they are proud of their heritage – and their language – many will also tick off stories about how Hebrew has made doing businesses or briding cultural gaps more difficult.

What Israelis don’t realize is that the use of a “backwater” language, spoken by no one but themselves and a few million Jews outside the country, has been a boon – and has saved them from one of the great banes of modern western life, the plague known as “outsourcing.” This is mostly an American issue, but a recent face to face (or rather, phone voice to phone voice) encounter with the outsourcing monster on a recent trip to the U.S. made me realize just how lucky we are, conducting most business on the phone in Hebrew, with people who have likely faced the same things you have, and who understand what it means when the service you rely on is broken.

On my visit, I dealt with two separate instances of what I call “outsourcing telephone tag” – calling an 800 number (a free U.S. call) for service, only to be connected to service people in faraway places like India, Mexico, and even Ireland. Unless you’ve had to deal with a major service crisis – like in the case of the situation my hosts found themselves in of having a “broken internet” – you don’t realize just how service standards have fallen, ever since the jobs involving helping people fix things over the phone have moved abroad. Yes, it saves companies money, but it’s hell on the customers.

“So what,” you may ask. The people on the phone are just order takers who are reading a script, and they’re limited in what they can help you with (in one case, trying to restore a broken internet connection from Verizon, that help was mostly limited to “did you unplug the modem and wait 30 seconds”). Back in the days when 800 number phone service people were natives, they were also reading scripts. Is there any difference? Yes; the whole tone of the conversation, the agility with which the service person recommends solutions, and the willingness to help are far different when you are dealing with someone who can identify with you, as opposed to someone who cannot.

Not that I don’t think Indians, Mexicans, or the Irish can be empathetic, sympathetic, or willing to help. But especially in the case of countries like India and Mexico, it’s hard to expect the service people to understand what you’re going through, when they have their own problems – far more serious ones. When you have a problem that needs fixing, you expect that the “voice on the phone” to have a modicum of empathy for your situation. The likelihood of that happening is far lower when the person you’re speaking to lives in a tougher, less economically successful society.

It’s difficult enough to get your countrymen, who have “been there” and realize what’s at stake, to understand just how important a service issue is to you. How much more difficult – if not impossible – is it to get a resident of India or Mexico to understand your angst, when they earn maybe a tenth of what you do and has much more important things to worry about than whether you’re going to be able to connect to your online video chat?

As a “computer expert” (whatever that is), my parents, with whom I recently spent some time, asked me to help them fix their DSL connection, which had mysteriously gone down a couple of days before I showed up. Since I was relying on that connection to do some work while abroad, I, too, was very interested in getting it to work. After 15 minutes of checking, it was clear to me that the problem was the DSL service provider’s (Verizon). And of course I called the service number – day after day – with each person giving me the same advice, even though I made it clear that I had already taken all those steps before calling for the first time.

The calls to the 800 number all wound up in India (I asked), and when they couldn’t help, I was transferred to the “technical department” (in Mexico, also confirmed by the service person). Here I got at least some sympathy (because Mexico is closer to the U.S.?), but no help. Only after copious amounts of yelling, screaming, wheedling, begging, and crying, was I transferred (after six days of calls!) to a U.S. service center – at which point the problem was solved within 12 hours of their taking the case. Why? Because the person I spoke to at the U.S. center knew whom to call and what strings to pull to finally get the local office to fix the problem (G-d bless you Sheila from Verizon, wherever you are!). The second problem (also involving lots of wasted time and Indian 800 number phone answerers)  is another tale of phone tag woe, too detailed to go into. Suffice to say I do not recommend using Tracfone if you are in need of a pay as you go phone while visiting the U.S.

Like I said, this can’t happen in Israel. Yes, we may have surly service people and grumpy operators, but at least you can get through to them. And despite all the surliness and grumpiness, I have never had to go a week without an internet connection here. Bezeq, I will never complain about your service again!

It doesn’t always work out that way. Even speakers of Esperanto, that world language unifier, are known to have differing, irreconcilable opinions at times. Esperanto, by the way, is alive and well, with as many as a million people worldwide speaking it. There’s even a site where you can learn it online (for free): http://en.lernu.net/, with lessons, forums, books, stories and even jokes in Esperanto. Interestingly, the site makes a point of saying that “people of many different ages and cultures use this website. Therefore, we ask that you always be tolerant and polite in your communications with other lernu! users.” And if the enlightened Esperanto folk can’t get along, what choice do the rest of us Neanderthals have? Not much, I guess. But it’s still a good idea to get a to know what the other guy – or the other side – is saying.

Any Israeli has got to wonder what they’re saying in Arabic. For many Israelis, anything in Arabic – in voice or in print – sounds threatening. We think that “they’re” always plotting against us, and that everything written in Arabic newspapers is an accusation against us, or even a blood libel. It just looks and sounds so – well, alien!

Given the political situation, it’s understandable why many Israelis (and Westerners, for that matter) would feel this way. And there’s no question that lots of what is written about Israel and Jews in Arabic newspapers, magazines and web sites is less than complimentary, shall we say. But we’re not always on the front pages of their publications – and they have plenty of beefs with others or among themselves that have nothing to do with us. And the entire idea of labeling a large group of hundreds of millions of people as “they” or “them” is ridiculous, anyway. There are hundreds or thousands of subgroups and subcultures among every large (and not so large) group – and the Arabs and/or Muslims are no different. To us, they seem a large, mostly unified mass, with their chief preoccupation the destruction of Israel and/or Western culture that threatens their way of life. Would we still feel that way if we could actually read what they wrote for “internal consumption” – or if we could communicate to them in their own language?

Maybe; my job is to ask the big questions, not answer them! The only way to find out is to actually read what they say in the Arab press and on Arabic language forums and web sites. No doubt you have read newspaper stories in local papers quoting from this London-based Arabic daily or that Jordanian or Egyptian semi-official weekly. While once you had to know a language well in order to understand pieces in such publications, the Internet today offers several options to enable you to understand those stories, using translation services by Microsoft, Google and others.

There Google goes again, opening up the world’s information sources to the common person. If you’ve never given Google’s translation engine a whirl, you must check it out. Some non-English language pages you come across on Google searches have a link that says “translate this page;” this is where they do it. The Google engine can translate to or from 25 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Finnish, and some “easier” ones, like Spanish and Italian, too (no Hebrew, though). You can paste text into the page’s translation box (it will even try to figure out what the language is if you aren’t sure) and display it in a language you can understand. Or, you can type in a URL, and the page will come up with its contents translated!

You might not always get proper sentence structure or grammar, although the translations into English do come out quite readable, from the pages in Arabic and Chinese that I converted. If you really do want to check out the Arabic press, you can use this site, which has links to Arabic language publications throughout the world (including the ones in the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia). I decided to check out an article at random from an Arabic language publication in Jaffa, called Al-Sabar. Putting the link into the Google engine, I got a reasonably understandable translation of the article – which turned out to be about the ongoing feud between Daniel Friedman and Aharon Barak, translated from a piece by an Israeli writer!

There are also several applications that make use of the Google engine to provide translations. One of the best I’ve come across is the Translate.net application, a free download that you use as your desktop translator based on not only the Google engine, but over two dozen other online translation services as well. The program will automatically choose the service, depending on what you’re translating; you tell it the subject matter of the translation – business, science, law, banking, etc. – and Translate.net finds the the right service with the right words for you.

Also highly recommended is FoxLingo, downloaded over a million times already (three times by me!). This one (for Firefox users only, so far) makes use of 35 online translators – it handles Hebrew as well – and lets you choose between the translations services, automatically translating a page upon request when you surf to it. FoxLingo lets you make some interesting comparisons, like which service – Google’s or Microsoft’s Live Translation – is more understandable. All of the 41 “foreign” languages handled by FoxLingo can be translated into English, and many of the key languages for Israelis interested in regional events – Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Russian, as well as Japanese, Korean, Ukranian, and most Western European languages can be translated in Hebrew as well. There are even applications now that will automatically translate SMS messages between writers of different languages: You write to them in English, and they see it in Spanish! Check out http://www.speaklike.com and http://home.transclick.com/ for some examples.

We’re not professional translators here – although if you were, you could go to http://www.proz.com/ and sign up to do some professional translations for a fee (or get someone to do some professional translating for you) – but that’s a story for another day. The translations offered by the free online services and applications (both Translate.net and FoxLingo are free) aren’t perfect, but they’re enough to give you a good understanding of what your neighbors are reading. What we’ll find when we figure out what they’re reading is something else.