BBC Learning English
Words in the News

Twitter helps non-Arabic speakers

5 July 2013

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Words in the News

© British Broadcasting Corporation 2013

Page 1 of 2

bbclearningenglish.com

The social media site Twitter has launched a translation tool to help non-Arabic speakers

understand what's going on in Egypt. It automatically translates messages posted in

Arabic on Twitter by leading figures in the protests into the reader's own language.

Mark Gregory reports for the BBC:

Many of the major players in the political turmoil that's engulfed Egypt in recent days

have large followings on Twitter. But for the most part, unsurprisingly, they post their

messages in Arabic.

Now Twitter has launched a service that aims to spread their words to a wider

international audience. It's using a translation tool provided through Microsoft's Bing

search engine to convert Arabic messages into other languages. This meant, for

example, that non-Egyptians had instant access to messages put on Twitter by former

president Mohammed Morsi as he was ousted from power by the army.

Non-Egyptians can also follow the Twitter musings of other significant players such as

Mohammed ElBaradei, the ex-UN atomic energy agency chief.

But Twitter admits its translations are not always 100% accurate. For example, the

English version of the last tweet posted by former President Morsi ended with a word

starting with the letters d-a-k-h-l-i-h-o-a, which neither made any sense nor appeared in

any dictionary. Twitter describes its translation service as an "experiment".

Words in the News

© British Broadcasting Corporation 2013

Page 2 of 2

bbclearningenglish.com

Vocabulary and definitions

turmoil

confusion and disorder

engulfed

taken over or surrounded

to convert

to change (in this case – to translate)

instant access

immediate and unrestricted ability to see or use

something (in this case - Twitter messages)

ousted

forced out (from power)

musings

thoughts

significant players

important people/leaders who are influencing events

accurate

exact and without mistakes

experiment

a test to see how well something works

Read and listen to the story and the vocabulary online:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2013/07/130705_witn_egypt.shtml

Related story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23179269