The Spanish version literally talks about taking you out of somewhere (like a cupboard), if you have nothing (no possessions for example). Check out this English-Spanish translation: Google Translate, in this case, choose the wrong alternative and made the Russian version particularly odd.Įven common pairs still create issues for Google Translate for some very basic plays on words. The word “döne” in Turkish translates as “return to” so it’s turned back into Russian as the meat returns. It uses common language pairs, so when languages are not paired directly in Google, they will often go through another language, like English. The reason for this blunder is actually because of how Google Translate works. In the Russian example here, the translation comes out as “the meat returns” and you can see if perfectly, if you pop It back into Google Translate: Some errors even make us laugh and countries who notice them don’t hesitate in sharing them on social media, like this one in Johan’s presentation: It’s still not perfect, but no one will deny that it is a useful tool to detect which language is being used, or to get a basic message across, albeit with some errors. It’s clear that there have been some great improvements in Google Translate from the days when I first used it and it is continuing to improve. What Johan Vanderwalle said in Slovenia, and what my own experiences say, will show you why human input in this work cannot be replaced now or even in the near future.
Google Translate is often held up as an option to carry out that work. It’s imperative that we get over messages to various markets in their different languages. I am therefore sensitive to how these things apply to our business. Many of our clients rely on us for support and advice on social media management across different linguistic and cultural markets. Particularly the part of Johan’s presentation that talked about Google Translate and how it manages changes from one language to another. But the presentation had wider implications for me in my work. This has been a time-honoured tradition to use for language learning. So, is the art of human language translation and localisation all but dead? How simple is a plug and play option to save money on translation and localisation?Īt the Polyglot Conference in Ljubljana this year, we heard from Johan Vandervalle, Professor at Ghent University, who was presenting on how to use and create parallel texts, where the same information is given in two languages. Even our Facebook timeline can be automatically translated for ease.
Mostly, these new options are based on common technology we use already, like Google Translate. Social media adverts litter our screens with demonstrations of automatic translations, and BabelFish audio translators are like something out of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. We hear a lot about how using translation tools to carry out tasks more quickly and cheaply is the way to go.
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