Women Learning Thai… and some men too ;-)

17 Responses to “ The Google Translate Challenge ”

1. 
   Khlong Cowboy Jul 23rd, 2009 at 8:00 pm

   Shouldn’t ‘pig’ in Thai be หมู not หมุ? Or is หมุ a correct alternative? สุกร is correct for ’swine’.

2. 
   Jeff Gray Jul 23rd, 2009 at 8:25 pm

   That’s brilliant! As much fun as Engrish.com! I love “you are lying dead” :-)

   Hmm, has a way to go, doesn’t it?

   You have quoted my reference to Wikipedia correctly. But I would point out that Google Translate isn’t as easily corrupted by malicious or incompetent entries. The statistical model looks at patterns from multiple sources. So it needs a big volume of English to Thai professionally translated text to feed it’s statistical brain.

   This will be fun to see…

3. 
   Catherine Jul 23rd, 2009 at 9:18 pm

   Some were so funny, I had to check them twice just to be sure :-)

   What was noticeable is that with Thai2English.com, you are given choices. For instance, with หน้า.

   หน้า / nâa
   [ N ] face ;
   [ PREP ] in front of ; front
   [ ADJ ] next ; following
   [ CLAS ] page ;
   [ N ] season ;
   [ N ] surface ; side
   [ ADJ ] top ;

   But Google Translate makes this decision for us. In this case, they chose page (a classifier).

   ฉัน ไม่ อยาก เห็น หน้า ของ คุณ อีก แล้ว
   I do not want to see your page again.

   Which should be…

   I do not want to see your face again.

   But if you are given a choice, you can correct something this simple by using common sense. Others, of course, will be harder. Especially when you have more than one word to fuss about.

   I agree. Google Translate should not be easy to corrupt but I just didn’t want anyone to make it an issue. And since it did not mean that much more work (just hiding one set) I went with it.

4. 
   Catherine Jul 23rd, 2009 at 9:24 pm

   ‘Shouldn’t ‘pig’ in Thai be หมู not หมุ?’

   Let me ask Aaron as I do know pig to be หมู.

5. 
   Catherine Jul 23rd, 2009 at 9:40 pm

   This is fun. Google Translate converts ระวัง มี ไข้ หวัด หมู into ‘Look feverish cold pork’.

6. 
   Jon Jul 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 pm

   I agree with หมู – the ู is a longer sound (like the ‘oo’ in Rooney) where as ุ is shorter, like a ‘u’.

   Catherine, did you get clarification?

7. 
   Catherine Jul 23rd, 2009 at 11:04 pm

   Hi Jon, not yet. With Thai script being so teensy, it is easy to miss a typo.

   I have a larger code to make the Thai larger, but I cannot use it with the rollovers.

   And of course, on browsers we can always use keyboard shortcuts such as command + for Mac and such. I just didn’t think to check.

8. 
   Catherine Wentworth Jul 24th, 2009 at 10:08 am

   Bangkok Bugle is doing a similar comparison. Seems a new Thai mag is using Google Translate for their English version, with the expected results.

   NEW MAGAZINE: POOR USE OF ENGLISH

   Scroll down to the comments where the Thai has been added.

   To see for yourself, cut and paste the Thai into Google Translate.

   And enjoy… ;-)

9. 
   Catherine Wentworth Jul 26th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

   Mashable has another post on Google Translate: HOW TO: Translate Your Tweets

   So now we have even more ways to mess up in Thai :-D

   But twitrans looks promising – ‘Translate Your Tweets to Any Language by Human Translators’.

10. 
    Aaron Handel Jul 26th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    Yes, ‘pig’ is หมู not หมุ. It was a typographical error. I have corrected it in my twitter feed at http://twittercom/Thai_Language

11. 
    Jeff Gray Jul 28th, 2009 at 11:22 am

    Forgive me for being off topic, but it made my day.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/27/sarah-palin-vs-that-crazy_n_245779.html

    These two make speeches that are so bizarre, I suspect they have passed them though Google Translate via Chinese to Thai & back to English ;-)

    It’s even more disturbing to think they are both serious…

12. 
    Catherine Wentworth Jul 29th, 2009 at 8:32 am

    This is actually getting interesting as human translators are stepping up along with Google Translate – Best Translation Plugins for WordPress.

13. 
    Catherine Wentworth Jul 29th, 2009 at 8:35 am

    Jeff – Sarah Palin is such a… Ughhhh! I agree, those do come across as GT’s… She is totally disturbing and her latest appearences in the news makes me wonder just why so many people are behind her.

14. 
    pgarcia Aug 4th, 2009 at 10:43 pm

    I use the translator all the time and I think it does a great job. It may not offer an exact translation but it allows me to reach my final goal ( and the final goal in almost any communication): to understand and be understood.

15. 
    Andy Aug 14th, 2009 at 7:22 pm

    Using Google translate to get a quick overview on the titles of announcements in the Royal Gazette, the following brilliant piece of mistranslation has to be shared:

    เทศบัญญัติเทศบาลตำบลโป่ง เรื่อง การควบคุมกิจการที่เป็นอันตรายต่อสุขภาพ

    Local government ordinance on the control of the nipple is a threat to health.

    It should however be something like

    Municipal law of subdistrict municipality Pong on the control of businesses harmful to the health

16. 
    Catherine Aug 15th, 2009 at 4:50 pm

    Andy, That is so priceless! We’ll have to start a file for Google Translate snafus.

17. 
    Alex Aug 28th, 2009 at 3:41 am

    I agree with pgarcia. It doesn’t translate 100% correctly all the time, although it does do a good job – especially if one wants to translate a short excerpt of a document or something.

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