1)Why are the translations provided hardly more understandable than the foreign language they are translations of? Here is an example of a so-called translation from french: “‘I was high with my Germaine sister’ it was however four years old more than him and was to involve it in its plays of small girl…” This is one of the more lucid examples and means that the subject, Raymond Roussel, a writer, had a sister named Germaine who was four years older than he and that he put her in his plays when she was a small girl, I guess. The quotation, evidently from Roussel himself about being high with his sister is opaque, but one of many examples of the hilarity provided by these translations. 2) Are these “translations” done by some automatic computer or something? If so, somebody needs to get some money back. 3)Isn’t it illegal to claim that something is a translation when it isn’t?
Translation algorithms are brutally difficult, owing to the the unpredictable and constantly shifting eccentricities of language. Idioms, metaphors, irregular constructions, homonyms, connotations, and so many other factors, while greatly enriching language, require that humans, who have an understanding of language that machines cannot emulate, translate all but the most trivial texts. Language is an excellent example of how F.A. Hayek’s Theory of Spontaneous Order works.
I have only used Altavista, and only once(with the exception of doing it just to see the funny translations). I had to do a project about Chlamydia for one of my courses, and found the Planned Parenthood site, with all the info I needed. Even though I know English, translating things back to Spanish takes me some time, and considering how long the page was, I decided to try Altavista. It was the funniest mistranslations I have read!!!
Back to the question. From what I noticed, they usually translate word by word, and just have one meaning per word. They do not study the structure and meaning of the sentence. That gives way to the funny translation you got. It only works if the word has only ONE equivalent word in the other language…and even then, they can screw up.
You really shouldn’t judge a translation program by its worst example. Here’s a translation of an article from espndeportes, orginally in Spanish, translated by machine to English:
Griffey is better, but still it does not play The gardener of the Red ones, who withdrew a muscle in the left thigh in the season of training, had good results in force tests which the last week was put under
CHICAGO – the leader of the Red ones of Cincinnati, Bob Boone, said to be glad that Ken Griffey is optimistic from which will be able to return to play within two weeks, but it will not seat to wait for it. In carried out interview Tuesday with the chain of cable-cTv ESPN, the gardener said that it hoped to return within two weeks. " I do not doubt it. I do not wait for ", said it to Boone Wednesday. " They are things that are not known. " it is possible to be arrived at the 80 percent (from recovery), but how long will take him to reach that other 20 percent " Griffey has not been able to play like titling in which it soon goes of the season of the undergone tear the 26 of March. It batted of 12-0 like emergent batter until the injury worsened and the 29 of injured April happened to the list of.
Some of the baseball lingo threw it off (gardener should be outfielder; Red ones=Reds; leader=manager), and the Spanish 3rd person present singular tense of a verb is the same for “he” or “it,” hence the computer’s estimation of Griffey as an inanimate object. Some of the word order and grammar is messed up (especially the last part of the last sentence), but anyone can figure out what the article is really saying. Nothing you’d use for a professional translation, but if you desperately need a foreign text translated, this works pretty well, especially considering that it’s free and takes only a few seconds.