Quick programming note: Sharp-eyed readers may have recently noticed the word “ESPAÑOL” pop up above the text of our blog posts a couple of minutes after they are published. 

It looks like this:

That isn’t just a word. It’s a link. If you see it there now, between the headline and the text of this post, give it a click. I’ll wait.

Boom! You’re now reading me in Spanish. Pretty cool, eh?

We recently noticed that ChatGPT has become good enough — and quick enough, and cheap enough — to render our stories in very good Spanish. It understands context and idiomatic expressions far better than previous versions of machine translation could.

Will there be bugs? Probably. Will the translation be worse than I imagine it to be? Possible. Even as I type this I wonder what it’s going to do with “Boom!” and whether or not it will understand what the word “post” in “text of this post” is supposed to mean. 

But whether or not, it’s at the very least a half-assed solution for people who prefer to read their local news in Spanish. We hope you find it useful. Feedback welcome.

How will it render “half-assed,” I wonder?