playing with the Google online translator

Mary made a comment on my recent post about the Frying Dragon mistranslation from Chinese. She mentioned a game on the Australian music quiz television program, Spicks and Specks. In the game the lyrics of a song are translated into Japanese using an online web program. Then they're translated back into English and the players have to work out what song it was.

I couldn't resist trying it out, of course. I thought I'd try Hindi.

Here's my song:

If you're happy and you know it,
clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know it,
clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know it,
Then you'd really
better show it,
If you're happy and you know it,
clap your hands.

And here's what I got:

अगर आप खुश हैं और आप इसे जानते हैं,
अपने हाथ ताली.
अगर आप खुश हैं और आप इसे जानते हैं,
अपने हाथ ताली.
अगर आप खुश हैं और आप इसे जानते हैं,
तो क्या तुम सच में चाहते हैं
बेहतर यह दिखाने के लिए,
अगर आप खुश हैं और आप इसे जानते हैं,
अपने हाथ ताली.

Okay, now to translate it back to English:

If you are happy and you know it,
Clap your hands.
If you are happy and you know it,
Clap your hands.
If you are happy and you know it,
If you really want
Better to show it,
If you are happy and you know it,
Clap your hands.

Hey, pretty good!

So, let's try Chinese:

如果你感到快樂，你知道它，
拍拍你的手。
如果你感到快樂，你知道它，
拍拍你的手。
如果你感到快樂，你知道它，
然後你真想
更好地表現出來，
如果你感到快樂，你知道它，
拍拍你的手。

And back to English:

If you feel happy, you know it,
Clap your hands.
If you feel happy, you know it,
Clap your hands.
If you feel happy, you know it,
Then you really want to
Better performance out
If you feel happy, you know it,
Clap your hands.

I wonder why Hindi came out so much closer to the original?

Okay, can't resist trying Japanese:

あなたは満足している場合はそれを知って、
あなたの手をたたく。
あなたは満足している場合はそれを知って、
あなたの手をたたく。
あなたは満足している場合はそれを知って、
次に、あなたが本当にしたい
より、それを示す
あなたは満足している場合はそれを知って、
あなたの手をたたく。

And, back to English:

If you know it is satisfied,
Clap your hands.
If you know it is satisfied,
Clap your hands.
If you know it is satisfied,
Then you really want
More, it shows
If you know it is satisfied,
Clap your hands.

Oh, I must stop! It would be too, too easy to get addicted to this game. I wonder why the imperative verb comes out okay in every translation. Must think about it...

Can't resist one more - Basque, a language that is very different from other European languages.

zu zoriontsu bazara eta badakizu,
clap eskuak.
zu zoriontsu bazara eta badakizu,
clap eskuak.
zu zoriontsu bazara eta badakizu,
Ondoren, benetan zenuke
hobeto erakusten du,
zu zoriontsu bazara eta badakizu,
clap eskuak.

And back to English:

If you're happy and you know,
clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know,
clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know,
Then, you really
more shows
If you're happy and you know,
clap your hands.


MUST make myself stop! But I wonder whether a German-English one would be virtually perfect, given that the two languages are so similar. Or, maybe, Dutch-English...

飞龙 and the frying dragon lock

Why is it SO amusing when we read a translation from Chinese that involves the letter 'R' instead of 'L'?



I bought a lock recently, and I'll freely admit I purchased it only because the name on the box made me feel happy.Frying dragon. I had visions of a cute little children's story about a lonely dragon who succeeds in becoming Mr Popularity by frying up foods for the local villagers who haven't invented fire yet.

Or a dragon who doesn't like raw food and invents a method of heating up a giant pan so he can fry up a giant hamburger.

Or...

The possibilities are endless.

A search of the internet actually finds sites called Frying Dragon, but I hesitate to put links here as they seem to be unusual sites.

A Chinese colleague translated the paper insert in the box, and told me the fifth and sixth characters in the last line (飞龙) say flying dragon in English.



What a pity the company didn't check the work of their translator. On the other hand, their amusing mistranslation has resulted in one more sale. I don't need this lock. But I bought it.

The question of translating brand names between two such different languages and cultures presents its own problems - I read with great interest an article on this topic.

One mistranslated word can make a big difference

There's a story making the rounds of the internet, reporting that a tourism advertising campaign for the city of Riga in Latvia accidentally printed the wrong captions on posters. Instead of saying Riga City: easy to go, hard to leave, it said Riga City: easy to go, hard to live.

A rather bad mistake!

Here are pictures of the posters. Some seem to have the correct word.

Given that more are correct than incorrect, I suppose it was a mistake at the printers, rather than at the translation level.

It's all too easy to criticise translations into English, but I can't be too smug if they've taken the trouble to learn my language and I don't know one word of theirs.

I couldn't say the promotion would encourage me to include Riga on my next travel itinerary, because I dislike the puffy heart-thing that appears in the photos, and the fact that Riga is Birthplace of Christmas tree. Now for 499 years is totally uninteresting in terms of tourism. (And that piece of clumsy English does seem to be the responsibility of a translator.)

All this reminds me of the possibly apocryphal story that Mitsubishi accidentally named one of their car models the Starion, intending it to be the Stallion.

Snopes.com has an interesting discussion of this and other possible translation disasters in relation to automobiles. (Surely it can't be true that Mitsubishi had a car called The Lettuce!)

The Northern Echo features a discussion of the pitfalls of naming a vehicle that will be sold all around the word.