I heard about this translation site called "Cucumis" a long time ago. I recently received an email from someone in Cuba. Although I could understand it I felt there were a couple subtleties I was missing, but couldn't remember what that damn site was. I googled and googled and couldn't find it.
Google Translate butchered it by the way: "Hello friends I hope esten either, here all or, that so cold the cuentanos something, we had a client to vancouver by many days, good we wished much luck and successes him..."
The other ones weren't very good either. The email was far too casual and slangy. Even I did I better job than Google Translate with my limited Spanish training.
Eventually I found Cucumis' website by searching Techcrunch for anything translation-related. I found it, so techcrunch must have been where I saw it originally. The way cucumis works is this: you earn points for translating things for other people, and in exchange you can spend those points by asking others to translate things for you. Within an hour someone had translated the Spanish into perfect English: "I hope you are okay, everybody here is okay, how is the cold weather? Tell us the news. We had a client from Vancouver for many days. Well we wish you good luck and success..." Notice how the meaning of the last sentence is totally different, which is one of the things I wasn't sure about in my own translation.
In an effort to return the favour and earn back the points that were deducted from my profile for having my friend's email translated, I searched for any translation requests from French->English but didn't find any. Cucumis is a France-based site so that might explain why. Among the languages they support? Klingon. No High Elvish though.
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