Gazette:News:Machine translation, the ridiculousness is also free of charge

The Quality at the Best Price




La Gazette






The Defence Ministry had relied on the free online Google Translate for the English version of its official website, which resulted in the many mistakes found on the site.

He admitted that the inaccurate translations had caused much embarrassment to the ministry.

It was recently reported in The Star that amusing translations of the staff dress code on the ministry's official website were being shared on social networking websites.


The Star.


'Eye-poking clothes' and 'Tight Malay civets'

It cited one case where "pakaian yang menjolok mata," which means revealing clothes in Bahasa Malaysia, was translated as “clothes that poke eye.”

Another case involved “collared shirts and tight Malay civet berbutang three,” translated from "berkolar baju Melayu cekak musang berbutang tiga."


GMA


Snickering Malaysians passed the bungled translations around via social networking sites. The passages have since been removed from the ministry's website.

"We have corrected the mistakes and translations are no longer done that way. It is now done manually," Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told The Star daily.

Malaysia's national language is Malay but English is taught in schools from the early grades and official matters are often conducted in a mixture of both languages.

Many Malaysians speak both languages fluently but there has been growing public hand-wringing over a perceived recent decline in English levels and the potential for that to harm the country's competitiveness.

AFP


Presscut 2012-01-10


Views

Terra

Experienced professional translators - Guarantee of quality - Express service - Best price - FREE customized quote by e-mail in 2 to 12 hours.

>>>quote