| Страниц в теме: < [1 2 3] | Any solution for Chinglish? Автор темы: José Henrique Lamensdorf
|
|---|
Laurent KRAULAND (X) 
Франция
Local time: 12:59
французский => немецкий
+ ...
| Yes, wishful thinking... | Aug 13, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
This does not mean, however, that some versions of Chinglish, which might be pidgin, should not be taken seriously as a language. There are various types of pidgin, so this would be really a simplistic approach to ignore them. Some texts might be total rubbish, others may not.
And the only solution to the nonsensical variety of Chinglish would be: get rid of Machine Translation, give the translations to highly qualified individuals -- not necessarily native speakers of English, but specialists in the field the translation is related to, with a high degree of linguistic education and high proficiency in English, and have the final version proofread, by someone who knows their job.
Yes, but this is wishful thinking.
We all know perfectly well that too many companies are subject to the Mahler syndrome, shouting "Too expensive!" even before they receive any quote for a translation.
| | | | | Well they have no say, Laurent, | Aug 13, 2012 |
if they can't afford it.
| | | | Ty Kendall
Великобритания
Local time: 11:59
иврит => английский
| Yes it is interlanguage | Aug 13, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
This does not mean, however, that some versions of Chinglish, which might be pidgin, should not be taken seriously as a language. There are various types of pidgin, so this would be really a simplistic approach to ignore them. Some texts might be total rubbish, others may not.
And the only solution to the nonsensical variety of Chinglish would be: get rid of Machine Translation, give the translations to highly qualified individuals -- not necessarily native speakers of English, but specialists in the field the translation is related to, with a high degree of linguistic education and high proficiency in English, and have the final version proofread, by someone who knows their job.
It is the incomplete output of learners of English. As Wikipedia puts it:
"Not all simplified or "broken" forms of a language are pidgins.
| | | | | What do you have in mind Ty -- pidgin or | Aug 13, 2012 |
some nonsensical varieties of Chinglish? Pidgin is not an interlanguage. It is a language of its own -- although simplified, and just vehicular. Nonsensical translations do not belong to the realm of interlanguage either -- they are pure nonsense.
| | |
|
|
|
| Some conclusions | Aug 13, 2012 |
We must be able to differentiate Jigsaw-MT output from plain bad human translations from Far Eastern languages. "Chinglish" does not necessarily imply from Chinese, yet "Japanglish" is unheard of, and "Thaiglish" sounds meaningless.
Bad human translation is often characterized by the lack of vocabulary. Sometimes it's legit. I was told that in Romanian it was okay to borrow words from French when a word did not exist (really - not that the speaker was unaware of it). Likewise, I ask... See more We must be able to differentiate Jigsaw-MT output from plain bad human translations from Far Eastern languages. "Chinglish" does not necessarily imply from Chinese, yet "Japanglish" is unheard of, and "Thaiglish" sounds meaningless.
Bad human translation is often characterized by the lack of vocabulary. Sometimes it's legit. I was told that in Romanian it was okay to borrow words from French when a word did not exist (really - not that the speaker was unaware of it). Likewise, I asked a friend, in PT, what was the word in Japanese for "caminhão" (= truck), and she said I should know it from EN, something that sounded to me like "torakko", so it had been "legally" imported.
So what's lack of vocabulary? I was talking in PT about audio equipment with a Japanese colleague. He knew the word for "treble" in PT, "agudos", so he used it. However the PT word for "bass" (= "graves") eluded him. Knowing that I speak EN, he used "dooroomoo" (= drums), so he got his idea across. However if he used this for the instruments assignment in a musical ensemble, it would be hard to know who would be playing the drums and who would play the bass.
The f-word is useful as a tool to spot MT. As Ambrose pointed out, it may be the translation of any from several CN meanings (the same simplified ideogram in different contexts, I guess). Every language has its euphemisms for sexual intercourse. In PT-BR, one of them is "eat" (= "comer"), as used in the title of a recent movie. In English, two of them are "screw" and "bang". Bottom line is that if applied in reverse gear, we - translators - upon reading that someone "f***-ed the door" would be in a quandary between that person being a carpenter or an individual leaving a place in anger.
Though silly, this example clearly illustrates the problem we face with Chinglish.
If it were possible to build univocal MT for ideogram-usng languages, i.e. if MBT (machine back-translation) accurately rendered the original text, a solution would be to reverse the initial MT, and use it again for another language. Though the outcome would be somewhat like my Peeler example here, no human translator would be paid - hence liable - for that nonsense.
As the cost of living - hence translation rates - are lower in the Far East, this might justify a campaign to make corporations there aware of the business risks underlying the use of MT from their languages. Savings are unlikely to be worth it. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Neil Coffey
Великобритания
Local time: 11:59
французский => английский
+ ...
| One reason for the gibberish | Aug 13, 2012 |
One difficulty of a language like Chinese for MT is that word boundaries aren't generally inserted, so that alongisde the translation process itself, actually determining what the original words are to be translated is not 100% reliable.
Now of course, statistical processes do allow words to be separated. For instance, if I write "theseats", we can determine that statistically, I probably am more likely to have intended "the seats" than "these ats". But you can see that we can't det... See more One difficulty of a language like Chinese for MT is that word boundaries aren't generally inserted, so that alongisde the translation process itself, actually determining what the original words are to be translated is not 100% reliable.
Now of course, statistical processes do allow words to be separated. For instance, if I write "theseats", we can determine that statistically, I probably am more likely to have intended "the seats" than "these ats". But you can see that we can't determine this with 100% certainty, and when you multiply this level of uncertainty across all of the potential word boundaries of an entire text, then occasionally, complete gobbledygook will be created simply because the original sentence that the system thought it needed to translate was gobbledygook from the outset.
I don't just know how frequently this is a source of error compared to other sources of translation error, but I think it is a significant factor because when word boundary determination does fail, it can fail catastrophically. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Hi, Neil. the same happens, maybe to a lesser extent, with other languages | Aug 13, 2012 |
It is not just Chinese that cannot be properly translated through any MT -- it happens with all languages. The result might be less shocking when you perform translation of closer related languages, but it is still gibberish. MT cannot make intelligent decisions about word choice, structure, or other sociolinguistic background issues.
| | | | Neil Coffey
Великобритания
Local time: 11:59
французский => английский
+ ...
Hi Lilian,
I'm fully aware of how MT works in general. (I'm actually a professional programmer myself, and in fact I've written on the subject, you may like to see here, for example: http://ezinearticles.com/?Machine-Translation---How-it-Works,-What-Users-Expect,-and-What-They-Get&id=2323365 )
My point ... See more Hi Lilian,
I'm fully aware of how MT works in general. (I'm actually a professional programmer myself, and in fact I've written on the subject, you may like to see here, for example: http://ezinearticles.com/?Machine-Translation---How-it-Works,-What-Users-Expect,-and-What-They-Get&id=2323365 )
My point is that in ADDITION to all of the other potential problems of Machine Translation, a language such as Chinese faces the added hurdle of word boundary location.
And I suspect-- though confess this is more based on informal observation than actual data-- that the potential errors due to incorrect word boundaries may on average be even more catastrophic than common errors found in Machine Translation of, say, common "Western" pairs such as between Romance languages and English.
Neil ▲ Collapse
| | |
|
|
|
| Thank you, Neil. Quite an interesting article. | Aug 13, 2012 |
Yes, I agree. MT is better than nothing when you urgently want to know what something is vaguely about -- something like a newspaper article on a subject you are interested in, but unfortunately you don't know the language. In some extreme situations as well -- especially to find out some basic phrases. I think the electronic phrase books are really nice.
| | | | | Страниц в теме: < [1 2 3] | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Any solution for Chinglish? | CafeTran Espresso | You've never met a CAT tool this clever!
Translate faster & easier, using a sophisticated CAT tool built by a translator / developer.
Accept jobs from clients who use Trados, MemoQ, Wordfast & major CAT tools.
Download and start using CafeTran Espresso -- for free
Buy now! » |
| | Protemos translation business management system | Create your account in minutes, and start working! 3-month trial for agencies, and free for freelancers!
The system lets you keep client/vendor database, with contacts and rates, manage projects and assign jobs to vendors, issue invoices, track payments, store and manage project files, generate business reports on turnover profit per client/manager etc.
More info » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
Translation news
