Non-human translation not quite up to snuff yet.
If you are even vaguely familiar with another language, and you are feeling bored and depressed, a visit to an automatic translation site such as Babel Fish might give you a giggle or two.
One article in GMA News, writes that in a Malaysian Defense Ministry publication, “‘pakaian yang menjolok mata,’ which means ‘revealing clothes’ in Bahasa Malaysia, was translated as ‘clothes that poke eye.’ Another case involved ‘collared shirts and tight Malay civet berbutang three,’ translated from ‘berkolar baju Melayu cekak musang berbutang tiga.’ Still another was the brief summary of the ministry’s history on the website: ‘After the withdrawal of British army, the Malaysian Government take drastic measures to increase the level of any national security threat.'” Needless to say, the Ministry went back to some manual intervention to clarify.
Just for fun, I went to the website of the French newspaper Le Monde and took a random bit of text, “Ce ‘plan de transformation’ prévoit 1 milliard d’euros d’économies sur 3 ans. Les salaires et les embauches sont gelés jusqu’en 2013,” which, to me, means (more or less – this is an amateur translation) “This plan for reform projects 1 billion euros in savings over three years. A wage and hiring freeze will be in effect until 2013.”
Babel translated it thusly, “This ‘ plan of transformation’ 1 billion d’ envisages; euros d’ economies over 3 years. The wages and the recruitings are cold jusqu’ in 2013.”
Sigh. I guess we’d better stick to our French classes, and our Malaysian classes.
Imagine if you were, say, a diplomat or a lawyer, depending on automatic translation to give you the sense of your proposed treaty or contract!
Exercise: For teachers of second languages, the students could replicate my exercise of grabbing some random bit of language from the second language and asking Babel Fish or another translation service to translate it. Students could help each other translate the grabbed language and compare it with Babel Fish’s version. The results will be self-explanatory. The class discussion to follow would be up to you – it could go in so many directions….
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