No Substitute for Study
Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 5:07PM | Yumeji Although I rely on Google as my primary search engine and source of street maps, I have yet to succumb entirely to the plethora of apps the company offers. Resistance may be futile, but I’ll continue with it for now. As such, I remain largely ignorant of many of the tools developed by Google.
While doing some “research” into an izakaya I visited recently I came upon a review site, containing an article written in Japanese, that had a little “Google Translate” button. Curious to see how well the app would translate the article, I clicked the button to be confronted by this;
I visited there was something else to do work for lunch in Shibuya. 5 degrees minutes walk from Shibuya Station, fish in the mountains Masu Ban Palace Pavilion (Tsu’s imperial Gyo) is. Here, Miyazaki cuisine restaurant, lunch is lunch “cold soup”, “barbarian” Chicken Mountain “fish” There are three single meal. The six-store counter seats (about), Table 5, Taku (about) Ue, and (when I went) in the space in the room decorated with autumn leaves, and further narrow confined space (which, because of this object, the air feels to narrow …) Meals are “cold soup” Shinya £ 1200 order, the young “barbarian chicken] £ 1000 order. The amount of the common side dish chicken barbarian is no difference. “ Cold soup “and” barbarian “is the difference between soup the “cold soup” hot or “soup” is the only difference between houses. Summer “cold soup” good. The winter, “barbarian” Chicken soup is better for a warm meal. This shop is very narrow elevator hall 3F is a state of 5.6 people on a waiting ambulance. On the other hand if you go to lunch early hours and one-time or close to good.
Clearly Google Translate has its limitations. That said, it does make some sense. At least up until states of 5.6 people and ambulances at any rate.
Wikipedia explains,
Google Translate is based upon an approach called statistical machine translation, and more specifically, on research by Franz-Joseph Och...
Google used United Nations' (UN) documents to provide the linguistic data from which statistical models are developed to translate between languages. Apparently, Google Translate fairs better when faced with official UN languages, and stumbles somewhat when dealing with non-UN languages, such as German and Japanese.
My first encounter with Google Translate was certainly amusing, and indeed interesting, but mainly served to remind that there is (as of yet) still no real substitute for good old-fashioned study when it comes to languages.
Reader Comments (8)
Our Man finds that alcohol, in moderate to large amounts, is a great substitute to language study. Just so you know. :-)
Excellent advice.
Google Translate has some really amusing outcomes, especially when translating from Japanese, it would seem. I've had some pretty amusing outcomes, and some disturbing ones too!
As for the tools that Google offers: I'd say there's a 'miasma' rather than a 'plethora', i.e. most of them are not that helpful in their application, so you're not missing out on a great deal.
@Ryan - Really? Disturbing outcomes? Would be interested to read those!
Your site is looking rather shiny by the way. You do the design work yourself?
My understanding on translation is that it is art and not technology. Therefore, forever mankind won't be able to be satisfied with machine translation. Culture behind language is most difficult to learn. One of my jobs is translation in fact, and everyday through the translation, I find something new. It is an endless journey for me. By the way, if you like Kyushu Shochu, we can get to Kingyo at Okachimachi togeterh. The shop owner is a high school classmate of mine from Sasebo, Nagasaki-ken. We are buddies.
@xinlong89 - I agree with you. There is an art to producing really good quality translation. An ability to appreciate the nuances of cultures and languages so as to recreate no only the literal, word for word, meaning of the original but also its feel and emotive quality is essential.
Yes, I think at some point a visit to Kingyo would be a splendid idea. Many thanks for the invitation.
Hello Dave, Kingyo, which is a Kyushu Shochu izakaya, is stated at the autthor URL. One of these days, let't get together at this place.
@xinlong89 - Looks good. Thanks for the link. Certainly, we should meet there sometime soon. I'll look forward to speaking with you. I'm especially interested to talk about the idea of a Japanese "civil war."