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Iversen’s Multiconfused Log (see p.1!) | ||
Tags: Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Tupiniquim Senior Member Brazil Joined 6089 days ago 184 posts - 217 votes  Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, Russian | Message 1217 of 3959 10 August 2009 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
SP: Siempre que leo el log de Iversen tengo deseo de estudiar mas lenguas, mas lenguas! Espero tener tiempo para eso (estudiar el Sueco y el Español), pero tengo que retomar mis estudios en la universidad la próxima semana - y ellos nada tienen que ver con lenguas. Edited by Tupiniquim on 10 August 2009 at 7:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6709 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 1218 of 3959 10 August 2009 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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POR: Quando eu vejo um texto num idioma estranho e exótico, eu penso primeiramente que poderia ser divertido também saber ele. Mas o meu próximo pensamento é que eu não tenho tempo para isto. Toda pessoa tem que combater o seu "Wanderlust", más nem toda pode faze-lo.
-------- I'm worried if this log induces people to give up the fight against their "Wanderlust" - though I'm aware that it is easier said than done. Edited by Iversen on 11 August 2009 at 12:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tupiniquim Senior Member Brazil Joined 6089 days ago 184 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, Russian | Message 1219 of 3959 10 August 2009 at 11:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
POR: Não se preocupe, este não é um caso de wanderlust, já vinha considerando a idéia de me familiarizar mais com o idioma Espanhol há algum tempo. Convenhamos, não é o mesmo que estudar Polonês ou Lituano, que me fascinam, mas que demandariam muito mais trabalho. E sobre a indução de wanderlust nas demais pessoas, bom, isso poderia acontecer por diversos outros meios dependendo de quão suscetíveis elas estejam. Então não acho que seja motivo para "culpar-se" por isso. Edited by Tupiniquim on 10 August 2009 at 11:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6709 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 1220 of 3959 11 August 2009 at 12:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have done some work for my travel club this evening, but in between I have also had time to do something about a few of my languages, - though it is too late to go into details now. However I would like to mention that I have had problems finding true bilingual texts in Serbian, so instead I have used Google translate to help me. And no, I don't trust these translations, but normally I can see if something is terribly wrong. And sometimes the terribly wrong things are actually quite funny. For instance I wanted to read some popular science, so I gave Google the word "Mars" to play with. And as usual I ended up at Wikipedia. It seems that the Serbian Wikipedia can be read both in Cyrillic and in Roman, - actually I'm a little surprised that there is so much Serbian written in Roman letters, - I was convinced that everything marked as Serbian and coming from the .sr-area would be written in Cyrillic, but no. However I stick to my decision only to read texts written in Cyrillic, even though I have to look the words up in an old Serbocroat dictionary with Roman letters.
Let me give just one example of funny translations (Serbian*, Google-Danish*, hyperliteral English translation of Google-Danish and suspected real meaning): (* authentic text) Лендер по именy Бигл 2 је отказао приликом спyштања y фебруарy 2004. Långiver navn Bigl 2 er annulleret i løbet af tilbagetog i februar 2004 Loan-giver name Bigl 2 is annulled in-Thecourse-of retreat in February 2004 Lander(module) by-the-name-of Beagle 2 was lost accidentally during descent in February 2004 OK, one more: Hа половима температура зими не прелази 160°К (-153°С) ... Sex temperaturen om vinteren ikke overstiger 160°K (-153°C) The Sex temperature in winter (does) not exceed 160°K (-153°C) At the poles the temperature in winter doesn't get higher than 160° Kelvin (-153° Celcius) Brrr, it must be cold to be an amourous Martian! Edited by Iversen on 12 August 2009 at 2:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5853 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 1221 of 3959 11 August 2009 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As I see it the hyperliteral translation of Google Danish is not very accurate. "Loan-giver", "Bigl" and "retreat" sound strange. This shows the low quality of the Google translation Serbian-Danish.
Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 11 August 2009 at 1:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6709 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 1222 of 3959 11 August 2009 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There is no question that the quality is low, but how on Earth (or Mars) does the translator get those ideas? - that's the big question.
I am not a bit surprised about the "Bigl", - you can't expect that a translator program knows all proper names in the universe ... yet (though if any company can do it that it must be Google). The "lender" is somewhat more problematic: the program knows the word "lender" from English and assumes that it is the same word in Serbian. But the writing here is deceptive, - the proper English word is "lander", not "lender". I have no idea whether the erroneous spelling "lender" is going to be the standard one in Serbian, but the author of this article has certainly done what he could to make it happen. The second example is more complicated. Without a pile of thick dictionaries I can't be too explicite about this, but my guess is that this is a two-stop error. The word половима* (Polovima) is one of the many forms of a substantive "пол" which can mean either "(geographical) pole" or "(wooden) pole" or "gender". So my guess is that the translator program has associated половима with this last meaning, and from there it has come to think about sex. In fact this could be seen as an example of a very humanlike behaviour. (it could also be a form of an adjective *полови, but I can't find that on the online dictionaries, which are the only ones I can access from here, - "polar" is translated as поларни) Edited by Iversen on 11 August 2009 at 4:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5853 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 1223 of 3959 11 August 2009 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It seems to go wrong with the manchine translations, if a word like "polowima" has serveral meanings. Then the machine has no clue to decide which meaning is more likely, whereas the human brain can make a logical conclusion regarding the context. This is one essential point, where machines still fail.
Fasulye 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5930 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 1224 of 3959 11 August 2009 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Google Translate is an interesting idea, but it doesn't always work well. I've used it for Spanish and Finnish occasionally; sometimes the Spanish-English translations are ok, but the Finnish-English translations are often mangled beyond recognition.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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