Dec
11
Lost in translation: Why online translators generally suck
When I was planning this blog, I knew from the start that I wanted it to be bilingual. For me it didn’t feel right to do a blog targeted at helping people learn more about the Spanish language and then write everything in English. Although I knew it would wind up being more work, I believed it would be worth the blood, sweat and tears. Well, is it? The jury’s still out. Check back with me in six months. 
In any case, today I read something over at slow Spain that reminded me why accuracy in language is important in the blogsphere.
Recently I came across the following paragraph in another blog that uses Google’s automatic translator. The original text was written in Spanish, but look what happened when the paragraph went through Google’s translation blender.
Penélope Cruz does not have the so long eyelashes: Slight surprise we have taken…It was already hour to be putting hand to the deceptive publicity, that seems to me censurable much more that other questions.
Say what? Huh? If I hadn’t seen the original text in Spanish, I would’ve had zero idea what the paragraph was about. Look, I know that writing a blog or having a web site in one language is hard enough but it seems to me that if you’re going to offer automated online translations better make sure those translations are rock solid or don’t offer them at all.
Do you need help translating short phrases? Or do you need to double check the translation of idiomatic expressions or colloquial expressions from English to Spanish? Visit the Spanish-English forum over at Word Reference.com. There’s always somebody available and ready to lend a helping hand. And if you’ve got a longer project, drop Chris over at slow Spain an email. Both he and his wife Ana do professional translation of texts written in Spanish, English and Catalan.
Photo: “The Confusion is Mutual” by Rentahamster. Used under Creative Commons License via Flickr.
Hi Eleena,
It seems that you made the right decision in being bilingual according to the study by Forrester Research quoted on Web Worker Daily here:
(and many thanks for the plug)
Chris,
Thanks for the link to the Forrester piece. I feel like there’s so much conflicting info out there. The Hispanic market and the potential is so huge, particularly in the U.S., I guess there is room for multiple perspectives and interpretations of the market. But here’s a fact that Forrester Research doesn’t mention, at least not in that posting…..Only about 5% of the world’s web pages are in Spanish. That compares to 45% for English. Also, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, fluency and preference in using English at home increases significantly among the children and grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. That’s why I think it’s too easy an assumption for Forrester to say that because there are 40+million Hispanics in the U.S. that automatically means that the majority of them are going to be seeking out Spanish content on the web. Not necessarily.
Thank you for steering me to the Forrester report because this is a topic I’m very interested in.