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You know, Spanish is relatively simple language, and Google Translate is quite good at English->Spanish translation.

Proposal: Stack Overflow in Spanish

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    As a side-note, you get 5 votes for every proposal that you follow. Proposals won't go anywhere unless people vote for the example questions, so vote away! There's no point in saving votes, might as well use 'em.
    – GorrillaMcD
    Oct 22, 2012 at 21:31

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Trust me, as an english speaker who learned the hard-way, don't trust google translate! :s

It is ok for a one word translation, such as "shoes" from english to spanish. But, phrases almost always translate incorrectly and sometimes even single words have problems.

For a test, translate this message into spanish. Then, copy the spanish back in and translate it to english. You'll see what I mean. Machine translation is good as a last-resort, but it's not there yet for any other use.

Edit: I didn't realize it, but you may have thought that SO in Spanish is going to be a direct translation of SO in English. That question was posed about the French SO as well. Here's a quote from the answer to that question by @jachguate:

The French StackOverflow proposal, like others, is not to translate StackOverflow content to other languages, it is a StackOverflow like –same topic– site for non-English speakers, in this case French.

So, we're wanting the content to be original. Some people may use google translate to ask/answer a question, but I'd hope the majority of people are Spanish-speaking producing original questions/answers.

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    You're right that people will largely be able to understand you. I imagine that it will be treated much the same way that SO in English does now, being welcoming to non-english speakers and asking for clarification when needed. However, for the site to be a solid reference of Questions and Answers, it needs to also be easily readable in Spanish, and that means that the majority of Q&A should be either original spanish or at least human translated.
    – GorrillaMcD
    Oct 23, 2012 at 15:29
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    So I just did my own test (copy message into translate and again back to english). Jaja, it translated it pretty good. However, for more complicated examples it does not translate well, but does get the point across most of the time.
    – GorrillaMcD
    Oct 23, 2012 at 15:39
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I agree the Google translate is very good, but as a first thing, this proposal is NOT a effort to translate what is in Stack Overflow in English, or in any other site.

The proposal is about creating a StackOverflow sister (or daughter) site, a place where people can come to ask their own questions and where a group of experts are willing to answer, all this in Spanish.

A common misunderstandings I found here is

  • some people thinks it will steal users from the English StackOverflow.
  • some people thinks it is a translate site
  • some people thinks you have to know English to be an expert in Computer Programming
  • some people thinks all the world works in English and all the people have to speak English

For me, none of those are true, because.

  • The vast majority of people who knows English that well to write questions and answers in that language will go to the much more crowded site, which happens to be StackOverflow in English. There are more chances to get an expert answer, and much more rewards in terms of reputation earned (because of the increased traffic, which implies a great number of views and more votes).
  • We don't need to translate the site. Google translator is there. But, really... take a good technical content and try to translate it! great chance to get nosense.
  • There are a lot of people who doesn't speak English that well, at all levels from beginners/hobbyists to experts. I'm from Latin America, I'm here, I know the terrain and I know this site will be a successful one, with no hurt for StackOverflow. Just take a look at some active Spanish programmers sites.
  • There hare a lot of people that don't want to learn English, or just don't care, or maybe they prefer to write in their mother tongue. Matter of taste to me.
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    A couple of toughts: for sure the hard part of the development is to add support for multi-language itself to the sites and not just the words translation. Second, I'm sure the quality of the automatic translation for all the small pieces that compose the site will result (very) poor. But we are here, the interested communities, and we also speak this rare languages very well. Try asking the community to help to translate!
    – jachguate
    Oct 24, 2012 at 12:22
  • @JakeBadlands: First of all, I'm not a downvoter. I think the issue with your question is that isn't clear about what are you talking about, and one tends to think you're talking about content, not the UI. Second, I'm a big user of Google Translate. It saved my ass in multiple occasions. I'm also a technical reader/writer, translator of technical books and trust me, the technical stuff in Google Translate is poor if you compare to the high quality you need in a site like StackOverflow (or a book). I use it as a last resort and many times I have to figure out how to say it in natural Spanish.
    – jachguate
    Oct 31, 2012 at 13:32
  • so, I'm not really with you in the idea of using Google Translate as part of this project. I think you got some downvotes due the lack of clarity of your question and I encourage you to edit and improve it. Maybe it motivate them to come back and change their minds.
    – jachguate
    Oct 31, 2012 at 13:37
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    Just for the record, by now there's no way to translate de UI of any StackExchange sites. This site, if succeeds, will be in English with questions and answers in Spanish.
    – JoulSauron
    Nov 1, 2012 at 0:08