Something Fishy About BabelFish Machine Translation

Machine translations can be quite a hoot. Unless you are depending on them in business. "Misled ladies and horsemen of marketing:" began the advice in the BabelFish translation (to English) of a blog post -- written in Spanish -- by Andrés Bianciotto, manager of Area6, Mexico, tracking back from his blog, Verborragia, to my post on the Chevy Apprentice make-your-own-commercial contest.

Here (he he) is the BabelFish translation:

"Chevrolet sent to a campaign to the style "publicity 2.0" where it published a series of elements in line (music, sequences of video, images, etc) so that any person could compose an announcement on the new Chevy Tahoe and gain a battery of prizes.

It is good, if this became or, Chevrolet could learn much of how their clients (or any individual interested in taking control of the prizes) saw and expressed the characteristics of the product. The bad thing, is that people are producing SO opposite announcements, that now in GM they cry and they erase them.

Confused ladies and horsemen of marketing and publicity of GM: one is not "to leave network it forms the message, which later we appropriated ourselves", is to make a product or to offer a service f*&#*g amazing.

Thus yes one leaves people it designs the announcements. While that does not happen, they make an announcement, they buy TV and magazines, and they drill the "message" to people in the head by force of repetitions, not of dialogue."

Got that confused ladies and horsemen?

Then I went to SRF Global Translations (for whom I write a blog about business ethics) and asked them for a nuanced translation by a literate human.

Here's the SRF Global professional translation of the post:.(The original, in Spanish, is below.)

Chevrolet launched a campaign in the style of "Web 2.0", by publishing a series of items online (music, video clips, images), so that anyone could compose a commercial on the new Chevy Tahoe and have a chance of winning from a large pool of prizes.

Well, had this been done properly, Chevrolet could have learned a lot about how its clients (or anyone interested in getting a prize) see and feel about the features of their product.

The problem is that people are coming up with commercials SO hostile, that now people in GM are crying over the feedback and deleting it.

Chevrolet sent to a campaign to the style "publicity 2,0" where it published a series of elements in line (music, sequences of video, images, etc) so that any person could compose an announcement on the new Chevy Tahoe and gain a battery of prizes. It is good, if this became or, Chevrolet could learn much of how their clients (or any individual interested in taking control of the prizes) saw and expressed the characteristics of the product. The bad thing, is that people are producing SO opposite announcements, that now in GM they cry and they erase them. Confused ladies and horsemen of marketing and publicity of GM: one is not "to leave network it forms the message, which later we appropriated ourselves", is to make a product or to offer a service f*&# amazing. Thus yes one leaves people it designs the announcements. While that does not happen, they make an announcement, they buy TV and magazines, and they drill the "message" to people in the head by force of repetitions, not of dialogue."

"The purpose of machine translation is to let people who do not speak the source language get a quick idea about the contents of the text. The results are often funny, because the machine cannot properly construe the metaphoric and idiomatic uses of words, and comes up with silly mistakes.

"Damas y caballeros", for example, is a very common Spanish expression for "ladies and gentlemen"; the Babelfish machine here translates "caballeros" as "horsemen" and the result is funny, because the text is obviously not targeted at horsemen.

The Spanish "pila de premios" is rendered as "battery of prizes", because "pila" also translates as "battery", and the machine often picks the most probable of the various meanings of a word. Babelfish is a free translation program, so one cannot expect much from it. As a rule of thumb, free translation programs should only be used as a preliminary tool, before having the texts translated by human beings.

Here's Bianciotto's original post, in Spanish:

Chevrolet lanzó una campaña al estilo "publicidad 2.0" donde publicó en línea una serie de elementos (música, secuencias de video, imágenes, etc) para que cualquier persona pudiera componer un anuncio sobre la nueva Chevy Tahoe y ganar una pila de premios.

Está bueno, si esto se hacía bien, Chevrolet podría aprender mucho de cómo sus clientes (o cualquier individuo interesado en hacerse con los premios) veían y expresaban las características del producto.

Lo malo, es que la gente está produciendo anuncios TAN contrarios, que ahora en GM lloran y los borran.

Despistadas damas y caballeros de marketing y publicidad de GM: no se trata de "dejar que la red forme el mensaje, del que después nos adueñamos", se trata de hacer un producto u ofrecer un servicio f*&#ing amazing. Así sí uno deja que la gente diseñe los anuncios.

Mientras eso no ocurra, hagan un anuncio, compren TV y revistas, y taladren el "mensaje" a la gente en la cabeza a fuerza de repeticiones, no de diálogo.

If you "ladies and horsemen of marketing" find BabelFish confusing, email or call SRF Global Translations at 212. 391.7528 for a professional translation. Your reputation could depend on it. :>)

Hi B.L. I'm Barbara, Andres' fiancee. I'm editor at a big mexican business magazine and I use translation services daily.

I'd love to get a quote for english-spanish translations from your pals at SRF. Do they charge by word, page, characters, gross weight?

"Ladies and horsemen of marketing" sounds really funny, but we must be aware of the fact that almost every word in natural languages has several meanings (and usually the most frequent words are the most polysemic). For example, the first word "damas" will be translated by another translation system as "checkers" but everywhere by reason of its general sense the machine translation is at least 60-80 percent understandable. If we seek to obtain a 100 per cent quality of translation done by a machine, we need a machine able to think like a human. And meanwhile, let's render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, I mean that human translation and machine translation capacities and purposes are different by definition, and it's essential to make an adequate choice between them in each specific case.

I will be excited to see when some well-priced, professional blog post/press release human translation services appear on the market... what to me is presently a very under-serviced area.

And the SEO in the space is pathetic!!!

see SRF Global Translations http://ethicscrisis.com/srf_global_translations/translation_services/

Not cheap, but fair, and guaranteed to be accurate, nuanced, and done by literate humans

BabelFish is quite good automated translation services comparing with the others. As for me, I use it sometimes.