Actually, these translations by Google mean nothing, because the machine doing these translations does not know grammar of the language. Grammar in Lithuanian is so important, that even single word can have different meaning depending on grammar. For example: a sentence "Šiandien švenčiame Lietuvos tūkstantmetį. Didžiuojamės savo istorija, tautai ir valstybei nusipelniusiais žmonėmis, paveldu." is translated as "Today we celebrate the millennium of Lithuania. We are proud of their history, the nation and the state deserve the people, heritage." Should be: "Today we celebrate the millennium of Lithuania. We are proud of our history, the nation and the state meritorious people, heritage." Not very big difference, right? Now let's translate it back: is "Today we celebrate the millennium of Lithuania. We are proud of their history, the nation and the state deserve the people, heritage." translation "Šiandien švenčia ir Lietuva tūkstantmetį. Mes didžiuojamės savo istorija, tauta ir valstybe nusipelno žmonių, paveldas." No one in Lithuania could understand such sentence, because it's only a set of different words without grammar. Ok, now let's translate correct English sentence. The result is: "Šiandien švenčia ir Lietuva tūkstantmetį. Mes didžiuojamės savo istorija, tautos ir valstybės nusipelnę žmonės, paveldas." Now, let's take a look to all three sentences, starting from correct one:
Šiandien švenčiame Lietuvos tūkstantmetį. Didžiuojamės savo istorija, tautai ir valstybei nusipelniusiais žmonėmis, paveldu. Šiandien švenčia ir Lietuva tūkstantmetį. Mes didžiuojamės savo istorija, tauta ir valstybe nusipelno žmonių, paveldas. Šiandien švenčia ir Lietuva tūkstantmetį. Mes didžiuojamės savo istorija, tautos ir valstybės nusipelnę žmonės, paveldas. See the difference? And such difference is changing meaning of a sentence. I, as Lithuanian, can correct such translation (after thinking a bit on the words "nusipelno žmonių" and "nusipelnę žmonės"), but if one doesn't speak Lithuanian? For such using of Lithuanian language there are penalties to 1500 LTL (about 600 USD) in Administrative Offenses Code of Lithuania. Here I've taken as example two simple sentences. Now imagine a complex ones. Today I was searching for the rules of one popular game. Accidentally my browser was turned to translate texts automatically. Wat I saw, I could not to understand nothing. These rules was only many Lithuanian words without any meaning. And yes, that hurts not only me. There are thousands who could say the same. Only Lithuanians are such closed inside nation. They will keep silence, until things are not related to them personally. But if one will ask them to sign a petition, for example, they will. One more thing. In my first post I didn't deny the using of the service regarding Lithuanian translations, I was asking to suspend using it UNTIL BETTER TECHNOLOGIES WILL BE FOUND. I can contribute with pleasure, and many of us can. And we are contributing, just the service started too early. There MUST to be more work to be done before using service. I hope, that Google officials will read this somehow and sometime. Lithuanians will never even try to stop progress, only such progress must be of good quality, not poor. On Mar 11, 4:01 pm, Harald Korneliussen wrote: > On Mar 11, 1:21 pm, Gintaras Goðtautas wrote: > > > > > Dear all, > > > Lithuanian language is very old and very complex. There are many, many > > forms, which one can use talking about one and only thing. Lithuanian > > grammar is even more difficult, where one verb can have many forms, > > depending of sentence where it is used. Thus, reading Google > > translated texts, one can't understand nothing, because these are only > > collection of different words, meaning nothing. > > This language is so complex, that even local citizens often makes > > mistakes talking to each other. So, I think there is no artificial > > intelligence so far, that could clearly translate Lithuanian. And > > thus, I think this language should be removed from Google translation > > service until better auto-translation solutions. So far such > > translations are hurting me and many more Lithuanians as it hurts our > > very old, unique and beautiful language. > > And from me personally: if Google translation service was a human, by > > our law it should pay penalties every day for such using of our > > language. > > Another Google Translate user here. > > Remember that the Lithuanian option is not just for you. It is also > for people wanting to get an idea what's in Lithuanian blogs, > newspapers etc. The translation is not the best Google Translate has > to offer, but it's far better than nothing. Untranslated Lithuanian > might as well be Chinese for me. > Your language can not possibly be hurt by anything Google does to it. > Whether you are hurt depends on you, but I maintain it is very silly > to be offended by poor machine translations. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "General" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-translate-general?hl=en.
