Immersion difficult to use

[Jaclyn_Leanne]

After using the Duolingo lessons/"tree" and hearing about the option to actually practice translating I was excited to start translating! Then I visited the immersion section. Basically there are a bunch of pages that have already been translated, and I can only participate by voting up or down existing translations. This is pointless for me as I would like to actually LEARN a language and PRACTICE it. Seriously, I am a beginning french student, do you really think I am going to be able to CORRECT someone else's translation? They all look perfect to me. I think the fact that you can only correct others' translations will repel most students away from this feature.
Until this section improves I'll just translate wikipedia articles that interest me into a notebook and compare them to the already translated page on wikipedia!

[aelfwyne]

I agree. As is, the translation feature is pretty useless. One issue is that even when you DO correct translations to something more natural sounding, someone else comes along and changes it to something awkward anyway. So what's the point of editing other's translations?

I think it would work much better if everyone was given the text blind, without the ability to see others' translations. Those do no good anyway. See what you can muddle through, and maybe make a translation of your own. After submitting your COMPLETED translation, then maybe you can be shown the contributions of other translators and rate them.

[Benjamin.M.]

Yes I agree 10%. This is actually how it used to be, and I have no idea who came up with this terrible idea to the "new setup"

[jrikhal]

You can upload articles (if they are coprighted, you need the autorization of the author to put them here). So you can add an article then translate it. You'll be the first one. Then people will correct it if needed.

Just, if you upload Wikipedia articles, please don't put some that already have a Wikipedia page in the language to which you're translating to (well it's my opinion, since the goal announced is to translate the internet, it doesn't make a lot of sense to redo the work), except if the Wikipedia page in the language to which you're translating to is really poor.

[jrikhal]

@Jaclyn_Leanne : here some articles to translate to French with still untranslated sentences:
http://www.duolingo.com/translation/4edc440d9e411e15e7c0e20f9ff62edc
http://www.duolingo.com/translation/9d1e97bd725a34c6df3136eac1988c1a
http://www.duolingo.com/translation/f7e3925fa383010b5fe7fa29544bf544
http://www.duolingo.com/translation/f691c512e3867ea58f227a34ffdf8d40
http://www.duolingo.com/translation/ae822ac09f97ce88026abdfe2f23507d
http://www.duolingo.com/translation/36cced6cadd9329b78076e8fc9d53157

[Jaclyn_Leanne]

Thanks! That's good to know actually, I may just post my own as it seems to be hit or miss with the pages that are already uploaded. I can't seem to find any that have not been translated into french already, but maybe I just don't know where to look.

[anomalocaris]

Try playing around with the checkboxes on the sidebar--you can just check the one that says "needs to be translated." You'll still run into articles that have only 1 sentence untranslated down at the bottom, but at least you won't have to wade through all the finished articles, as well.

[jrikhal]

Well it seems to have some little bug because I always have some articles with only "check/validation/'Looks good/wrong'" to do when I check only the "needs to be translated" checkboxe.

[anomalocaris]

Yeah, this section still needs tons of work. :/

[Phoener]

Perfectly stated. I went to the "translation" page to practice, not to look at some one else's ideas. I am very disappointed that I cannot translate it myself. Certainly, if someone wants to look at it later, feel free to give me constructive criticism, but I'm simply not interested in someone else's translation unless I'm stuck with my own.