得令！变身牛人的节奏！-致Google等在线翻译软件商的公开信 （英中）

You Are Good, But You Need To Be Better! 干得不错，但还得加把劲!

- An open letter to Google Translate and others, the challenges the Online Translate Services are facing

The increasingly turning to the Internet of our life increases daily the language translation demands. Those translators or interpreters whose education concentrated on nothing more than single language can rarely satisfy people, which forced people to look for online translation services, software whose function should not limit to being dictionaries.

As a demanding multiple-language user mostly in Chinese, English and French, I applauded the work done by Google translate services, 查查在线词典 and Linguee, but each of you is far from my expectation, which I believe is the bottom-line for demands in the future.

In this article, I use a video found in YouTube to show some challenges that the online translation services are facing and who may help you as a rainmaker.

I applauded secondly the videos presented by TED on its YouTube channel about the speech given by Mr. Andrew Solomon because of the well-done subtitles in many languages: English, Chinese (simplified and traditional) ,French, etc.

The video is entitled “Love, No Matter What” of which the link is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EVEmZ2c_es

I took the beginning part of this video as an example to explain the first and major challenge Google is facing:

Original text in English: Even in purely non-religious terms, homosexuality represents a misuse of the sexual faculty. It is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality-a pitiable flight from life. As such, it deserves no compassion, it deserves no treatment as minority martyrdom, and it deserves not to be deemed anything but a pernicious sickness.”  That’s from Time magazine in 1996, when I was three years old.

Chinese subtitle: “就算抛开宗教信仰的因素，同性恋也是性滥交的代名词。 它是可悲的、此等的、一种现实的替代品，是人生中一段令人遗憾的旅程。因此，同性恋不值得同情、也不值得治疗，因为只有少数人为此受难，同性恋只值得视为一种有害的疾病。”上述的话选自1966年发行的《时代》杂志，那时我只有三岁。

Google translation: 即使在纯粹的非宗教术语，代表同性恋的性教师的滥用。这是一个可怜的小二流代替现实，一个从生活可怜的航班。因此，它不值得同情，值得不治疗作为少数牺牲，值得不认为是什么，但一个致命的病。“这是从时代杂志在1996年，当我是三岁。

As I said, the above-mentioned Chinese subtitle is good, but not good enough, for example: “a misuse of the sexual faculty” should have been translated to“性器官的误用”，given the context of “purely non-religious terms”, the word 滥交 was obviously very judgmental and biased and therefore did not respect Mr. Solomon’s intention. Chinese speakers will no doubt find that the Google translation is funny enough which is unfortunately the best auto-translation tool I can find so far. The reason I sometimes use查查在线词典and Linguee is because their relevant texts provided in the target-language, which allow users to choose the most accurate translation in each case. As such, the big challenge for Google is to build relevant texts searching databases in order to avoid such word-copy mistakes. Both 查查在线词典 and Linguee are leaders in this aspect.

Here is my translation for the above text: “即便是在纯粹的、非宗教层面，同性恋也被解释成’性器官的误用’，是真正意义人生的悲催二级替代品（悲催的二货人生，现实的水货版-“网络语版”）-逃离现实之旅。因此，它不值得同情，又因为它所代表的少数人殉教情结，所以也不必享有礼遇，除了被当做一种致命疾病，它一无是处。”

In this specific example, my suggestion for Google is to build relevant texts databases with some high-quality translation work or original texts, once the search engine finds mass matches in one text, it can present it to user as a Bingo result.

Another challenge for Google translation services is more like a bug. The pictures below show that the same expression “they lacked hearing” with and without context came with different translations. Contrary to popular belief, it was the one with context wrong:

See? In the first one with context, the translation was “他们缺乏听证会” whereas the independent expression “they lacked hearing ” got an accurate translation “他们缺乏听力”. Mr. Google Translator, any explanation?  

To build an effective database for online or real-time translation purpose, you need to find people with multiple-intelligence, from Sciences to Arts(especially in laws), from Chinese to English and French, with experience in IT, in laws and in translation. Who will it be?

I am heading to a splendid future anyway and the question for you is simple: with you, or not.

Visit my blogs and find more:

http://blog.wenxuecity.com/myblog/67231/all.html

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/articlelist_5280604986_0_1.html

and more……

 

律政混混-《魁北克新公司法》中法英三语对照及麻辣诠释第一人！吾心自有光明月，千古团圆水无缺！

E-mail: [e-mail]