A good test of machine translation is to translate and then translate
back to the original language. This can also be highly amusing.
Rev. Stewart Marshall wrote:
Betty translation sites lack the human factor.
I recently did a English to German translation for a prayer. The
result was acceptable but not great.
I also had my mother translate it for me. They were different.
One of things that the translation cannot do it substitute idiom and
phrasing for things like this.
It may be an exact translation, but it does not sound right to the
person of that language as they would not say it correctly.
Example. English - Shut the window please. German - Bitte schleissen
dem fenster.
That is a correct translation however a German would never say it that
way.
Correct German translation - Macht die fenster zu bitte. Make the
window too please! Sounds awful in English but it is a proper
translation again.
All languages have their idiomatic phrases that are part of learning
that language and makes you speak more like a native.
Stewart
At 10:48 PM 12/6/2009, you wrote:
I had a guest from Thailand staying with us last week. Her English is
very good, but there are many words she doesn't know. I asked her if
she wanted pistachio ice cream for dessert. Then I went to Google's
language tools and translated it into Thai and showed it to her. She
laughed. It was "pistachio" spelled phonetically using the Thai
alphabet. We looked for a photograph that she recognized, the she
told me that in Thai [translated again] it's called a "smiling nut".
I can forgive its mistakes in Thai, but it really should translate
Spanish <--> English better than it does. Surprisingly the Greek <-->
English is better. It's also handy in translating Russian, since I
don't have the alphabet memorized well enough to use a dictionary.
Betty
Rev. Stewart A. Marshall
mailto:[email protected]
Prince of Peace www.princeofpeaceozark.org
Ozark, AL SL 82
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