Postby DerekB » Wed Oct 22, 2014 3:17 pm
The article, especially the second example, shows the familiar problem of automated translation attempts where word-by-word dictionary lookups are used. More modern translation tools try to work on phrase or word-group matching and are often more successful because of it.
I am reminded of the hilarity arising from a restaurant menu which had been "translated" from German to English, clearly using some sort of translation program (or "app" for anyone under 25). What had clearly happened was that the original text had been "translated" once and then the result, clearly not yet good enough, had been put through the same process a second time.
The giveaway to this diagnosis was the frequency of "anus" in the final "English" result, a word rarely found in real English menus. The first run had, acceptably, translated "nach" (here meaning "in the style of") to "after". The second run had found "after" and assumed "After" and therefore an anatomical German word meaning "anus".
I have a copy of the complete menu somewhere but it is not to hand at the moment.