Automated Language Translation Can Yield Humorous Results

translateservererror.jpg

No advertisement for a (human-powered) translation service could possibly do a better job than this image of a sign in China that was produced even though, apparently, the automated translation service used failed epically. For those in China who do not speak English, making an error like this is entirely feasible. After all, if the tables were turned, would an\ English speaking person with no knowledge of Chinese language be able to discern the difference between one hieroglyphic-like Chinese symbol over another?

by Steve Hall    Jul-10-08   Click to Comment   
Topic: Bad, Outdoor, Tools   

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Comments



Comments

obviously not. just look at all those ridiculous tattoos that don't say what the person believes it says. walk around a city one day with a friend who speaks japanese or chinese. you'll be entertained for hours.

Posted by: Riot on July 10, 2008 10:39 AM

Oh yeah... Automated or not, tons of fun can be had with text-sourced machine translation for example, whereas even more fun will be had the more audio-sourced machine translation evolves as well.

Not that same-language audio interpretation alone doesn't still have a long way to go. Were that not the case, it would be getting used at institutional levels well beyond customer service automation. For now, even sophisticated systems might easily mistake a phrase like "annual household income" for "annual asshole income".

Posted by: bl.asphemo.us on July 10, 2008 1:59 PM

That is a funny picture. The Automated translation error is an epic fail but surely this could have been checked? You are right, it would be the same if the tables were turned. It just goes to show how far we are away from perfecting Automated Language Translation.

Posted by: Site Translator on June 6, 2009 7:17 AM