A network of language teachers & classes that offer free translations into their language. To translate a paper from English into Russian, you'd pass it to an English class in Russia. (It's more fun and more challenging than schoolbooks.)-- jutta, Sep 27 1997 English As She Is Spoke http://www.everythi...%20she%20is%20spokeThe results of a sufficiently long chain of translations may be comparable to this masterwork. [acb, Sep 27 1997] Somewhat baked https://lang-8.com/A new language learning platform where native speakers correct what you write. [LoriZ, Nov 02 2018] This could give interesting results, if more than one step was required. Say, for instance, that you wanted to translate Moldavian into Singhalese, but, alas, there are no Moldavian classes in Sri Lanka.
But wait! There is a Moldavian class in Chiba, a Japanese class in Karachi, and an Urdu class in Colomba. By a sequence of translations, the job is done.
All that remains is to translate the result v back into Moldavian, laugh hilariously at the result.-- Mickey the Fish, Aug 15 2000 A majestic idea, but I cannot grasp the goal of it. Is the goal to get a free translation? Is the goal to provide an activiity to others?-- Vance, Jan 29 2001 Both.-- jutta, Jan 29 2001 This would work great with a system of micro-payments. I'm sure serious students of languages would love to get paid for some work while they are learning, while people who want papers translated would be glad to pay a couple of bucks for a translation. Quality, of course, could be a problem.-- lee, Jan 29 2001 Well, I can already tell where the annotations on this idea are going to go. Assuming that people don't have to jump through multiple translation hoops this would be a great use of P2P technology. I think this idea should be taken seriously.-- dgeiser13, Apr 17 2001 just off to look up 'but'-- po, Dec 28 2001 "My nipples explode with delight!" (from Monty Python foreign phrasebook skit)-- snarfyguy, Dec 28 2001 "I will not buy this record, it is scratched."
[po] but, n.m.: goal, aim, purpose
[UnaBubba] I smell a fish in your translation.-- cp, Dec 29 2001 Baked: Duolingo. (At least, this was the original concept of Duolingo. I don't know if it has worked this way since its early days.)-- notexactly, Nov 01 2018 random, halfbakery