La traducción de letras de canciones en la web de aficionados Lyrics Translate.com

This paper aims to describe a sample of community translation: the web site Lyrics Translate.com, which offers translation for lyrics. Community translation consists of the translation of a large volume of content due to the collaboration of a group of amateur translators in Internet and it is characterized by the lack of a professional who guarantees the quality of the final product. The power and reach of amateur translation is surprising. The willingness of translators to work on a project without direct financial compensation is a widespread reality. Translators are motivated by recognition from the community, a sense of accomplishment that comes from improving as a translator and from enjoyment of the material they’re translating. Using French translations into Spanish language from the web site Lyrics Translate.com, we analyze their performance and the way in which users accomplish the task of translation. With this purpose, we will address some questions such as who are the translators, why they do that, the working languages and, specially, the quality of the translated material. Little attention has been paid to this newborn phenomenon of web sites offering translations carried out by amateur translators. However, these virtual communities around translation are widely spread in the cyberspace and, what is more, these new translating practices have already become a challenge for the future of translation professional work.