Many lovers of foreign performers often have no idea what the lyrics are about. Many justify their ignorance by the fact that on the Internet it is not always easy to find a translation of the work of one or another singer or group. This problem is easily solved by a project called Lingvo Laboratory "Amalgama" - a site that erases the boundaries between languages.
Surely many have heard this name from their friends more than once. But what is Amalgam? Place of experiments on the texts of your favorite artists?
And really, what?
The Amalgama Linguistic Laboratory, or Amalgama-lab, is a project that appeared in 2005 under the supervision of two philologists and one programmer and was originally conceived as a translation agency and a place where people could teach each other foreign languages remotely. Gradually, the specialization of this site narrowed to a collection of lyrics translated from English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and other languages.
The website of the Amalgam linguistic project contains a wide variety of performers of all time. Here you can find both rap compositions and lyrical ballads - the masters working on the texts will understand any complex expression. If you answer the question of what it is, “Amalgam” can be called a good help to any music lover, because their motto - “We blur the boundaries between languages” - are not empty words, confirmed by hundreds of different translations.
Laboratory benefits
The main advantage of the Amalgam laboratory is the collection of many songs by a wide variety of artists. Also, the great advantage of the site is convenient navigation. You can search by track name, artist, alphabetically (this option first displays a list of artists, and then all available translations of their songs). In addition, there are some more amenities:
- You can customize the page with the lyrics. The translation will be shown line by line, in parallel with the original or alternately - first, for example, English, and then Russian.
- Some songs have several arrangements. Often you can even find poetic translations, which is very convenient for musicians who record covers (fan-made performances of copyright songs) in Russian.
- It is not necessary to copy the text of the translated song; the Amalgama laboratory has a special function for automatic printing.
Resource shortcomings
The main disadvantage of the laboratory is the lack of convenient sorting - some site users believe that it would be nice to introduce differentiation of songs by album and year of release. But there are other opponents of this resource. They believe that Amalgam is a place you should not trust. Many have often found errors in the lyrics, but a very important point appears here. Each user can upload their translation to the resource, and here no one is safe from mistakes, even the most experienced master of his craft.
How to upload my translation to the site?
First of all, the translations that appear on the site are performed by experienced translators, but, as mentioned above, an ordinary user who does not have a linguistic education can also participate in filling out the resource. Moreover, after publication, the author automatically becomes a participant in monthly contests with guaranteed prizes - a variety of gadgets, such as smart watches or headphones.
Uploading your translation is very simple, you don’t even have to register. For publication, you just need to fill out a special form directly on the site. The work itself must meet elementary requirements: uniqueness and correct design. That is, even the most beautiful poetic arrangement will be rejected if it contains spelling or punctuation errors or if it has already been published somewhere. All received texts undergo a rigorous check for compliance with the rules, so work on the translation must be taken very carefully and seriously.
Analogs of Amalgam
There are many different resources on the network with similar topics, where translations of different quality are published, but there are no analogues to this yet. In addition to the usual collection with lyrics, this is also a whole linguistic “Amalgama” community, which not only works together on content, but also actively helps each other. For example, on the forum you can easily find experienced specialists who are ready to offer their help in learning a foreign language, you can ask users about a particular problem and find a solution together. The project is developing very fast and will soon supersede all other Runet resources of this orientation.
So what is it, Amalgam? This is a huge archive of translations of songs into Russian. And although far from every artist has all of his texts translated, administrators and users of the project are actively working on these gaps. Well-motivated translators are constantly ready to work on any songs, which is why you can always find the current version of the translation here.