The South Bend Voice is pleased to announce South Bend Voice en español, a new translation feature for our Spanish-speaking community members.
There is a thriving Latino community in South Bend. Latin American immigrants are one of the fastest-growing demographics in the region, contributing not only to the local economy but also making South Bend a more diverse and culturally vibrant city.
But when it comes to media consumption, the Spanish-speaking community has few options in South Bend. That changes today.
As a website dedicated to inclusiveness and community building, it has long been our goal to expand the reach of our content to the Spanish-speaking community. Simply put, we want residents who have limited English comprehension to have access to the same information as native-English speakers living in South Bend. This is our way of welcoming Spanish-speaking immigrants to South Bend and providing valuable information to the entire community.
So how do you access South Bend Voice en español? If you are on a desktop computer or tablet, you will notice an “English” and “Español” option on the left sidebar. This enables you to switch back and forth between languages. If you are accessing our website from a cellphone, the language options are at the bottom of the page.
The default language for the site is still English, but this new feature allows users to unobtrusively translate our content to Spanish without needing to leave the site or use a third-party translation tool. The content is translated instantly thanks to the power of Google Translate. If you wish to return to English, just click “English.” You may need to refresh the page if there are any issues re-loading the content.
We admit that automated translations are an imperfect solution. Machine translations are not 100% accurate, but we do believe that this tool is better than nothing at all. While we would love to offer a translation from an actual person, doing so would be well beyond our financial means at this time. If the site continues to grow and the feature proves popular enough, we may pursue translations from bilingual translators in the future.
In the meantime, this is a bridge that we intend to build to close an information gap in our community. We hope that you find this tool useful and help spread the news!
