Recently I was alerted to an entry at Search Engine Journal telling of the addition of web page translation tools at Ask Jeeves. I decided to check it out for myself. The results are mixed. Fortunately, they are also very humorous. Let's have a look.
The example given at Search Engine Journal is the page of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. Ask Jeeves offers to "Translate this page" with just the click of a button. So I clicked. I offer excerpts here for your amusement:
- "With all problems before which we stand at present."
- "Because Germany of full chances is." [Aha! Yoda is hiding in Germany!]
- "I know that many of you just think." [Fortunately, some Germans also do.]
- "If we surprise ourselves with what is possible and what we can do!"
To be fair, the machine translation takes a German web page that you can't understand, unless you read German, and makes it mostly intelligible. But don't rely on this translation tool to produce quotable text, and do expect it to provide many laughs.
One more fun mis-translation: I looked deeper into the Ask Jeeves results and asked for a translation of an article about Merkel from the prominent German newspaper Die Welt. According the to automated translation, Die Welt asked Merkel during an interview, "Does the union think in this debate again to the inside unity? Say wha'?!
Clicking on the "This page was translated automatically from German" takes the reader to the Ask Jeeves Machine Translation FAQ page. It says, among other things, that the service is now available from German, French, and Spanish. I ran a search for Evo Morales, the new and controversial president-elect of Bolivia, and I found no "Translate this page" link by any of the Spanish-language results. The Ask Jeeves page explains that they only offer the service when they have a "high degree of confidence". That seems to be almost never, when coming from Spanish.
One FAQ regards (the poor) translation quality. Ask Jeeves replies: "Translating languages is a very complex task, and today's most sophisticated technology doesn't match the skill of a professional translator. That's because accurate translation requires an understanding of context, as well as an understanding of the structure and rules of a language." Amen and hallelujah! When machines can understand context, I'll be the first to applaud. Meanwhile, why do this?
They close their FAQ page with an unintended slap at the German chancellor by saying: "The automatic translation works best when the text you wish to translate uses proper grammar."
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