In my previous post I included an example to what kinds of mistakes may come up when we use translation software, or machine translation. A problem for the translator is that without using a software, translation is more difficult and time-consuming, whereas some clients expressly warn the potential translators of their originals against using machine translation. Of course, they have a reason: a lot of self-proclaimed ‘translators’ possibly use GoogleTranslate and submit their cheap work as a copy of the result there.

By showing the results provided by a professional translation software, I would like to warn anyone and everyone who uses this or other software means to carefully go through their result received from the software and weed out silly mistakes before they submit anything to a client.

First, let us see the original sentence again:

“On behalf of the EWC Mr. Born requested XXX management to provide full openness, to correct the current situation urgently and to keep the EWC informed.”

Let me show you first again what kind of a Hungarian answer the program provided me with. I believe you will agree (if you understand some Hungarian) that this is a hilarious solution for my investment in buying the software:

“Az Úr nevében született EWC kért az XXX a teljes körű nyilvánosság, az aktuális helyzet és sürgősen tájékoztatni az EWC.”

Let us see now some other languages for the sake of people from all over the world. I’d like to start with the German version because it may serve as a counter-example to the Hungarian one: because German is similar to English, the translation of the same sentence may provide a much better result. Here it is:

“Im Namen des Betriebsrats Herr geboren hat XXX-Management um eine vollständige Offenheit, Korrekturen an der aktuellen Situation dringend geboten und die EAK informiert.”

Once again, it is obvious that the software is at least guilty of not being able to differentiate between names and ordinary words despite the fact that they have Mr (or Ms, of Mrs) before them and are spelt with a capital. Too bad.

Here comes the Spanish (international) version (the program could differentiate among Latin-American, Argentine, Salvadoran, or many other versions of Spanish), for the sake of people from Latin-America or the Philippines:

“En nombre del Comité el Sr. Nacido pidió XXX management para proporcionar una completa transparencia, para corregir la situación actual con urgencia y para mantener el CER.”

As I speak Dutch and sometimes also translate from it, I’m interested how the program handles this language (not the Belgian version):

“Namens de EAC Mr. Geboren gevraagd XXX management om volledige openheid, om de huidige situatie dringend en houd de EAC geïnformeerd.”

It is clear that the name is considered to be a name, but is still translated (in the Hungarian version, sometimes this also led to exceptionally hillarious distortions of other names, sometimes in several words), however, here the infinitives of purpose are neglected save for the insertion of ‘om’, but without following verbs, just like in the Hungarian version. Nice.

Now let’s see the French version (France):

“Au nom de l’EWC M. né prié XXX gestion de lui fournir une totale transparence, de corriger la situation actuelle d’urgence et de garder le CED a informé.”

Looks a lot better with the verbs and all. Perhaps it may be similar with Italian, so I don’t look into that. Let us see the Russian solution instead:

“От имени EWC г-н родился просил управления XXX для обеспечения полной открытости, для текущей ситуации и в срочном порядке информировать EWC.”

And for the sake of one sixth of the world, let’s look into Chinese (simplified, PRC):

“代表先生的出生的EWC要求XXX管理层提供全面公开,以纠正当前紧急情况并随时向EWC通报情况。”

Actually, EWC and the very well-known company name in Latin letters doesn’t look very Chinese, I don’t believe there isn’t a proper set of characters for those – they have characters for everything, even for ‘Karakószörcsög’, if I search carefully enough. But for fun, I’ve put this sentence into GoogleTranslate to see what I get back for English:

“On behalf of Mr. XXX born EWC requires management to provide full disclosure to rectify the current emergency situation and to keep informed EWC.”

Only the urgency is forgotten, and the names are jumbled a bit. Other than that, English seems to be a lot closer to Chinese than Hungarian. But from all the above, my warning that use of softwares depend heavily on the pairs of languages required seems to be relevant.

Well, this is it about translation softwares now. I’m really looking forward to your opinion, people.

by P. S.