A bit of Catch 22: 02 (Google translate)

 

Some of my students have gone to google translate for decoding Chinese text, or for translating English text (in their own heads, say) into Chinese (for them to send out as messages, e.g.).  That’s how I come to learn of the mistakes in the translations. 

    Question is:  how are the students supposed to know that there are mistakes and where (/ which ones) they are? 

    The fact that they’d gone to google translate in the first place must mean that they didn’t know what the source text (e.g., Chinese text) is saying, or that they didn’t know how to render the English message in their heads into Chinese for sending out.  

    However, they will have to be good enough in both languages to detect the level of accuracy in the resultant translation.  And if they’re good enough in both languages, why then go to google translate? 

    This is, of course, a simplistic perspective just for the purpose of the focus of this blog (which is on the Catch 22 element of the exercise).  I have used it myself to test it out, or to help me out when I’m stuck for the right word / translation for something I’m working on, especially as a translator.

    I’m not discrediting google translate at all here, just toying with the Catch 22 element in this exercise.  It is a very useful tool a lot of the time, but the user needs to be of a certain level of proficiency in both source and target languages to know if the google translate version is right / good enough.  The user will at least need a high’ish level of proficiency for this, which would therefore exclude anyone of intermediate level and below, perhaps.  

    Still better than nothing?  Or is it potentially serious to end up with bad or, worse, wrong translations?  I have in mind translations that could give offence or result in disasters.

    One example of the potentially disastrous outcome of a wrong translation:

    A German friend on the Japanese degree course at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) in the 80s was asked to take over a summer job at a car factory in Luton, translating manuals, published in Japanese, containing technical terms used in the automobile industry.

    Being meticulous and sharp-minded, also well read and knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects, he spotted the English translation of a chemical that goes into car engines, which he felt was not right, so he went to the original Japanese text.  

    Sure enough, he found that the person who’d done that translation had picked the first of two similar-looking items on the list in the dictionary, without checking out the significance in the difference.  The Japanese language has long and short vowels.  That first translator had not only picked the wrong one but, worse, one that would blow the engine up.