英语听力精选进阶版 14238

（单词翻译）

Twitter helps non-Arabic speakers

Summary

5 July 2013

Twitter has launched a translation tool to help non-Arabic speakers understand what's going on in Egypt. It automatically translates messages posted by leading figures in the protests into the reader's own language. 

Reporter:

Mark Gregory

Report

Many of the major players in the political turmoil¹ that's engulfed² 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 ousted³ 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".