Announcing the results of TWB’s Arabic translation contest!

TWB News
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Happy International Arabic Language Day! We are grateful to have so many Arabic speakers in our community, and we couldn’t do the work that we do without you!

Thank you to the many people who participated in the Arabic translation contest!

We received over 300 submissions and many good entries. We were glad to see some familiar names, as well as translators who have just started their TWB experience. There were many submissions that received high scores and deserved to win. :clap: Well done, everyone!

We are now ready and excited to announce the winners and honorable mentions, based on the reviews of our community members and our TWB Arabic specialists @Muhannad, @Aya.Alrifai, and @Thalia. The two winners have been contacted by email to claim their prize :gift:

:1st_place_medal: 1st place: @Kholood Mshawih got the highest score: 22.75 out of 25! :trophy: This is what our specialists said:

The translator took their time adding diacritics to almost every letter. This really showed that they are taking the contest very seriously. The translation was very accurate, yet it didn’t feel like it was a translation, and they followed our style guide.
The only problem with this translation is that they translated “chatbot” as “chat”, which could have been done better.

And this is Kholood’s translation:

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:2nd_place_medal: 2nd place: @Manal_Khaled got the second-highest score: 22.25 out of 25! :clap:

They have a nice and unique style that is a breath of fresh air. What this submission could have done better is to avoid making “chatbots” just a transliteration in the subheading, which sounds off compared to the rest of the translation.

And this is Manal’s translation:

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Congratulations also to:
:medal_sports: Israa Abdelfatah @israaabdelfatah588
:medal_sports: Zeinab Ribai
:medal_sports: Lama Bou Rached @Lama.Bourached
:medal_sports: Aliaa Nada @Aliaa1
:medal_sports: Angie Halloum @Angie1
:medal_sports: Nader Badran
:medal_sports: Yosra Gharbi @Yosra_Gharbi

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Congratulations to all the winners :tada::tada: Well done :clap: Thank you @TWB and all the team for making this happen. Your work ethic is outstanding and extremely helpful to many.

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I am very thankful for this contest, this great experience and this amazing opportunity.
I really appreciate efforts of TWB. It was a very beneficial week and exciting challenge which gave me more energy💪 and enthusiasm.
Many thanks for recording webinars. They were very beneficial for me. I attend them alone because of electricity problems in Syria.
I really enjoyed being part of this contest and proud to be a translator with TWB.
Again thank you and congratulations​:tada::tada: to all participants.

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Congratulations to all the participants and the winners! :tada: :tada: :tada: :tada: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes:I have no doubt that they all did their best and there were many good translations! I’m sure it was a good chance to discover their skills! I see most of you are promising translators! All the best!

Thanks for all TWB team for their great efforts and for all the participants for their time and participation! :green_heart:

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Congratulations @Kholood & @Yosra_Gharbi ! :tada: :tada: :tada: All the best in the coming! :green_heart: :green_heart:

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:tada: :tada: My warmest congratulations to all those who have participated and won in this year’s Arabic translation competition. :tada: :tada:

:star2: And huge thanks to TWB :sparkles: and all the great staff :bouquet: for making this magnificent initiative come true. :star_struck: :star_struck:

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Thanks ambra, and TWB specially the Arabic team and all Arabic community members for this great contest :star_struck: many Congratulations for the two winners @Kholood & @Manal_Khaled you both deserve this :partying_face: :partying_face: yeahy, and for all fellows who gain the honorable mentions like myself you did a great job too :clap: good for you and for us all :dizzy: :dizzy:.
For more great work and challanges for us all to come, thanks TWB :handshake:

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Congratulations to the winners! :star_struck::star_struck:

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Congratulations :confetti_ball: :clap: :bouquet:

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Thank you TWB Team for this wonderful experience :sparkles:.

And congratulations to all the participants! :tada: :tada:

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Congratulations to all the winners of the contest!

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Congratulations to the winners and all participants. Many thanks to the TWB team. Well, since there are positive responses regarding this and previous contests, I am wondering if it is possible to organize frequent contests (every month or every two months …) to allow more practice and more visibility.

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@ambra Thank you for announcing the results, and congratulation to the winners.

Excuse me, and with no offence, I don’t agree with such results. I have made a comparison between my translation and the translation of the first winner and have found, with the ultimate honesty, that my translation is better than her, at all levels, I can easily show you with proof the errors of accuracy and fluency of the first and second translation samples.

If the samples were really reviewed by high-qualified reviewers, the results would absolutely be different.

Again, congratulation to the winners, and hard luck to others.

Find out again @Muhannad, @Aya.Alrifai, and @Thalia my translation in the following:

تُعَد منظمة “مترجمون بلا حدود” (TWB) مجتمعًا عالميًا من اللغويين الذين يساعدون غيرهم في تقديم المعلومات والحصول عليها مهما كانت لغاتهم.

غالبًا ما يفتقر الأشخاص الذين يتحدثون لغات مهمشة إلى المعلومات الهامة بلغاتهم، ولهذا يُنفق مجتمعنا الذي يضم أزيد على 60000 لغوي من أوقاتهم ومهاراتهم لترجمة المعلومات الهامة لملايين الأشخاص حول العالم؛ فيظفر الجميع بالمعلومات التي يريدونها ويحتاجون إليها.

يقول المدير الميداني لمنظمة “أطباء بلا حدود”:

“إنه لأمر مدهش وملهم ومريح للغاية أن ترى الناس يُنفقون من أوقاتهم ومهاراتهم للدفاع عن مبادئ العمل وأفكار المساعدة الإنسانية”.

نقص المعلومات المترجمة

تقِلّ غالبًا قدرة المتحدثين باللغات المهمشة على الوصول إلى المعلومات التي يريدونها ويحتاجون إليها بلغات يفهمونها، فقد لا يسعهم العثور على المعلومات بشأن الصحة أو التعلم أو المعلومات التي يعرفون بها حقوقهم.

ولعل المنظمات غير الربحية والمنظمات العالمية الأخرى تفتقر إلى الخبرة أو التمويل اللازم للتواصل مع الأشخاص الذين يتحدثون بهذه اللغات، وقد تواجه صعوبة في العثور على مترجمين يشتغلون بهذه اللغات أو ربما تحاول الاعتماد على موظفي الترجمة المحليين، وهو ما يفضي إلى الحطّ من مصداقية المعلومات وإثقال كواهل الموظَّفين.

إن الحاجة تدعو لخلق رابط بين المترجمين المحترفين والمنظمات الإنسانية وغير الربحية في العالم بأسره، وهنا يأتي دور “مترجمون بلا حدود”.

مجتمع عالمي من اللغويين

يتبرّع مجتمع اللغويين لدينا بما يفوق 20 مليون كلمة سنويًا؛ فهم يترجمون المعلومات للمنظمات في جميع أنحاء العالم ويشتغلون بما يزيد على 200 لغة، من الأمهرية إلى لغة الزولو.

نخطط لتحقيق النمو المتواصل والدعم المستمر لمجتمع اللغويين لدينا؛ فنحن قيد بناء مجتمعات من المترجمين المنشغلين باللغات الهامة وتدعيم نمو اللغويين الجدد مهنيًا ومجموعاتهم المهنية، كما أننا بصدد تعزيز التكنولوجيا اللغوية لدينا وتحسين منصتنا ودمج تكنولوجيا لغوية جديدة لمنح مجتمعنا الأدوات التي يحتاج إليها للنجاح، وإننا نعكف باستمرار على إنشاء شراكات مع المنظمات غير الربحية في العالَم برمته من أجل ربط اللغويين ومهاراتهم بالأشخاص المحتاجين إلى المعلومات.

روبوتات الدردشة في المنظمة

يستحق كل شخص المعلومات التي يريدها ويحتاج إليها، في الوقت الذي يريدها وبلغته التي يتكلمها، وتُعَد تقنية روبوت الدردشة متعدد اللغات طريقة مبتكرة لتحقيق هذه الرؤية.

روبوت الدردشة برنامج حاسوبي يحاكي المحادثات البشرية في تطبيقات المراسلة وأجهزتها، إذ يُبرمَج للرد الآني على أسئلة المستخدمين حول موضوع معين، وتنشئ المنظمة روبوتات الدردشة باستخدام ما يُعرَف بمعالجة اللغات الطبيعية التي تسمح للمستخدمين بطرح الأسئلة بكلمات من لغاتهم وتلقي الإجابات ذات الصلة باللغات عينها، ولهم أن ينقلوا محتوى الوسائط المتعددة بغرض التفاعل مع الأشخاص ذوي المستويات المتدنية من القراءة والكتابة.

@Dalia1

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Thank you all for your nice messages. @NAJIB indeed this experience was very encouraging and we will definitely organize more in the future. It also requires a lot of work and management from our side, and I am not sure it’s something we can replicate every month :slight_smile:

@Lamine thank you for your feedback. We all agree that your translation is very good indeed. The winning entries were reviewed by the community and by the three in-house reviewers, who are fully qualified to review them. We know that they are not perfect translations and the comments we posted together with the winning entries are proof of that, however, those were two of the entries that received the highest scores from both the community and the in-house reviewers. As I said, we received many entries and of course, it is difficult for us to choose the winners, but we took all measures to keep this fair and transparent for all participants.

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@ambra From my perspective, reviewing such translations by translators who have participated in the contest is a big mistake, it’s well known that most volunteer translators are not qualified to do so. It’s noteworthy to think about creating a body of highly-qualified reviewers who are dedicated to review translations. Volunteer translators won’t do so with a fair manner.

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Hi @Lamine,

I didn’t have a look to the source to tell which translation is the best! But I’m sure that there were many good translations and it’s very hard to choose between good translations! In general, I know that your translation level is very good because I have reviewed some tasks for you! So, just enjoy the experience and keep your great work up! All the best! :slight_smile:

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Thanks @Dalia1 for your sweet words, find out in the following the source text in case you are still interested:

Translators without Borders (TWB) is a global community of linguists helping everyone give and receive information, no matter what language they speak.

People who speak marginalized languages often lack critical information in their language. Our community of over 60,000 linguists donate their time and skills to translate critical information for millions of people around the world, so everyone has the information they need and want.

“It is both amazing and also very comforting and inspiring to see people donate their time and skills to defend the principles of action and the ideas of humanitarian assistance.”

Field Manager for Doctors without Borders

The lack of translated information

Speakers of marginalized languages are often less able to access information that they need and want in a language they understand. They may not be able to find information about health, learning, or their rights.

Nonprofits and other global organizations may lack the expertise or funding to communicate with people who speak these languages. They may struggle to find translators working in these languages, or try to rely on local staff members for translation, leading to less credible information, and overworked staff.

There is a need to match humanitarian and nonprofit organizations with professional translators all over the world. That’s where Translators without Borders comes in.

A global community of linguists

Our community of linguists donates over 20 million words per year. They translate information for organizations all over the world, working in over 200 languages — from Amharic to Zulu.

We plan to continue growing and supporting our community of linguists. We’re building communities of translators in critical languages, supporting new linguists in their professional growth and network. We’re enhancing our language technology, improving our platform and incorporating new language technology to give our community the tools they need to succeed. And we’re continuing to partner with nonprofit organizations all over the world to connect linguists and their skills with people in need of information.

TWB Chatbots

Everyone deserves the information they need and want, when they want it, in their own language. Multilingual chatbot technology represents an innovative way to accomplish this vision.

A chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversations on messaging apps and devices. They are programmed to respond in realtime to users’ questions about a given topic. TWB is building chatbots using Natural Language Processing that allows users to ask questions in their own words and receive relevant answers in the same language. They can also relay multimedia content to engage with people with lower literacy levels.

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Hi Lamine,

As Ambra kindly mentioned, we really believe that your translation is very good and creative, but as you may know, we received a considerable number of good translations that it was not easy to decide which ones are the best, for this reason, we nominated the winners considering both our reviews and the peers’. If we had the capacity, we would love to feature all these great submissions we received :orange_heart:

However, the purpose of the contest and the Arabic Language Week in general was not to decide who are our best translators (we already know that many participants have amazing translation skills before the contest took place!), but it was to have the chance for us as Arabic-speaking community members to interact, compete, and learn together! :star2:

And this is not the end; we’re working on new ways to feature our outstanding community members, who knows if you’re next one to receive our future rewards :smiley:

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Thank you @Aya.Alrifai for your sweet words.

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Congrats to all winners.

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