Lincolnshire County Councilhas
automated the translation of islocal government
websitefrom English into nine other
languages.
Lincolnshire is a largely agricultural county that has many
European workers on its farms and in its factories.
Peter Barton, the council's head of web and information
services, said manual translation would have been too slow and
expensive.
He said
Systran software enabled residents to forget they were viewing
an English website because the translation happened dynamically and
automatically in the background.
"Translating just 10% of the content would have cost about
£100,000 a year and would be have been undynamic and not that
helpful," Barton added.
As the council's website content is updated in English, it is
translated automatically into French, German, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Mandarin, Chinese, Russian and Polish.
The council is now planning to use the Systran software to
translate its audio-streaming service to provide content to
visually impaired citizens.