MACHINE TRANSLATIONS

[JAL]

There are presently three basic programs for translating Chinese to English.

Unfortunately none of them have reached a state of accuracy or reliability.

Some of our Chinese friends write their posts in Chinese and then use machine translation to convert to English. Then the English is posted on this forum. Several members have commented that some Chinese members post incomprehensible messages.

In the spirit of friendship and cooperation for mutual benefit I offer this suggestion:

Before posting the English translation on this forum, translate the English back into Chinese by the same machine and see how incomprehensible the Chinese has become.

Then think twice before embarrassing yourself by posting the incomprehensible English translation.

[goosemoose6]

This is what Google Translate does with your post:

目前有三种翻译汉语译成英语的基本方案。

不幸的是，他们都没有达到国家的准确性和可靠性。

我们中的一些朋友写在自己的岗位中，然后用机器翻译转换为英语。然后，英语是这个论坛上发布。几位成员都表示有些不可思议的消息后中方成员。

在友谊的精神和互利合作提供此我建议：

在此之前发布论坛的英文翻译，翻译成中文由同一台机器英国回来，看看如何在中国已成为不可理解的。

然后，三思而后尴尬张贴自己的理解英语翻译。

And then what Google Translate does with its own translation:

There are three kinds of Chinese to English translation of the basic program.

Unfortunately, they do not meet the state's accuracy and reliability.

Some of us have friends write in their posts, and then use the machine translation into English.Then, English is posted on this forum. Several members have expressed some incredible Chinese members of the news.

In the spirit of friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation in this I suggest:

Prior to this release forum in English translation, translated into Chinese by the British to come back the same machine to see how China has become incomprehensible.

Then, think twice before posting their own understanding of awkward English translation.


***

I read through it myself and it makes sense for the most part, though it gets fuzzy in some sections... any thoughts from the locals?

Otherwise, I think it's reasonable to expect people to- if they decide to post in a second language- go through the extra effort to understand what they're saying before hitting "Submit."

[ZhouPhoenix]

I like this part:

Prior to this release forum in English translation, translated into Chinese by the British to come back the same machine to see how China has become incomprehensible.

Damn British! 1997 all over again...

[Lemming]

It gets better if you repeat the process a few times:

Prior to this, the Forum published the English translation, translated into Chinese in the same plane to fly back to England to see if China has become incomprehensible.

At least by this point we were on our way home...

It is a serious point though, but I strongly suspect that in some cases machine translation would be better than manual translation. There are definitely people who would benefit from double checking what they do write by writing what they think they've already written again, but in their native language and then using Google to translate it.

Machine translations still aren't to be trusted but they can be worth a quick look for people who's English is fairly poor.

I can cope with people making mistakes (even I make typing mistakes sometimes ) but some posts are almost impossible to comprehend - and they're not always from Chinese people either...

[JAL]

In the spirit of friendship and cooperation for mutual benefit may I suggest that WE stop enabling our Chinese friends who use machine translation by ignoring the poor English posts. WE are making them cripples, dependent on and addicted to machine translations. They will never make any effort to improve their English unless we point out, in a friendly way, that they need to wean off of machine translations and put out the effort to improve their English.

If they are really our friends, don't we owe them this much?

[HangzhouAdam]

While we're at it, let's just ban computers and go back to the abacus

[Little Wolf]

HZ Adam: Good idea. I'll do just fine. People might have to actually get off their ass and do something.

[HangzhouAdam]

...says the guy who has created at least 4 different hangzhouexpat user names in the last year

[Little Wolf]

HZ Adam: That is not entirely accurate. It's 3 names over a several year period. And for odd reasons. I'd never use a dual-identity.(Dual aliases are chickensh1t) But if you want to take some cheap shots at me, let's play football, b1tch. If you want to compare resumes of abilities that don't require a computer or mobile phone, I'll smoke most people. I never even checked an e-mail until my arrival in China and still hunt and peck type with 1 finger.(My middle finger) Somehow, I missed out on this whole technology craze as I was busy sliding down big waves, bailing out of planes at 14,000 ft., building and riding motorcycles, getting laid and a ton of other stuff along with being in construction all my life, building things with my bare hands. I have the cheapest laptop from BuyNow which I enjoy doing really basic stuff and check this website sometimes. If it were to get dropped or stolen it wouldn't be so bad. I'm sure I could find other things to do.

[goosemoose6]

In the spirit of friendship and cooperation for mutual benefit may I suggest that WE stop enabling our Chinese friends who use machine translation by ignoring the poor English posts. WE are making them cripples, dependent on and addicted to machine translations. They will never make any effort to improve their English unless we point out, in a friendly way, that they need to wean off of machine translations and put out the effort to improve their English.

If they are really our friends, don't we owe them this much?

I suggest you reach out to our Chinese friends, if not with a suggestion on how to edit what they've written, at least with a pointer that what they've written is incomprehensible. That's more "friendly" than ignoring them and will certainly do more in the long run for their English communication skills. No one should rely on electronic translation services to translate entire messages, but these tools can be very handy and reliable when used with some effort and in combination with other translation services. This website is a favorite of mine, and I often use to double-check Google Translate results: http://www.nciku.com/

It's your personal choice whether you choose to ignore or respond to a nonsensical post, but if we "owe" them anything, I believe it's the effort made to try and understand what they are trying to communicate.