How does this or this kind of errors occur? According to Inside Google Translate, Google Translate "looks for patterns in hundreds of millions of documents to help decide on the best translation for you". Let's check those "millions of documents" for this particular idiom. Search for
"有情人终成眷属" "money talks"
quotation marks included, and the result is 31300 hits as of this writing. Most indeed bear titles associating the Chinese idiom with "money talks". But some are apparently talking about Google Translate's mistake. So to be fair, we need to filter them out. Try this search
"有情人终成眷属" "money talks" -google -"谷歌"
Again, quotation marks included. The result is 26400 hits. The first hit
- Album : Money talks
- Chinese : 有情人终成眷属 (You Qing Ren Zhong Cheng Juan Zhu)
- Artist : Zheng Yuan (郑源 Zheng Yuan)
- Release Date : 1/18/2006
6 comments:
"有情人终成眷属" is now translated to "Married lovers" on Google Translate, much more correct than before.
Interesting. Did your post have something to do with Google's correction?
Well, mine is only one of the many postings on the newsgroup dedicated to Google Translate, and was not the first, to point out this error. People report all kinds of laughable mistakes, including translating one country's name to a different one.
Tried a few other free online translators for "有情人终成眷属". Got more laugh.
* www.microsofttranslator.com (a.k.a translator.live.com):
"Translation
Lovers end up apart
Dictionary
The lovers finally got married.; All shall be well, Jack shall have Jill."
The result is in two parts. The Translation part is exactly the opposite: Lovers do not get married. Don't you think so? The Dictionary part, however, is excellent, even with a perfectly matched Jack and Jill idiom.
* babelfish.yahoo.com:
"The feeling emotion person becomes the family member finally"
The subject is wrong.
* www.freetranslation.com:
"Lover 终 into military dependents' 属"
Not sure how "military" is involved. This site has some web programming issues.
* www.appliedlanguage.com/free_translation.shtml:
"Married lovers"
Stealing Google Translator's result? This site has some web programming issues.
Informative, thanks!
HAHA, so funny.
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