Saturday, June 03, 2006

Computers are set to take over the world, but not quite yet.


I came across a translation site for Greek/English, and vice versa, so I decided to try it out, using a story from in.gr

"Της εξωτερικής πολιτικής που ακολουθεί η κυβέρνηση υπεραμύνθηκε την Παρασκευή στη Βουλή η Ντόρα Μπακογιάννη, απαντώντας σε επίκαιρη ερώτηση του τέως προέδρου του ΣΥΝ Νίκου Κωνσταντόπουλου. «Δεν εγκαταλείφθηκε το Ελσίνκι» τόνισε η υπουργός Εξωτερικών, εξηγώντας ότι το 2004 δεν υπήρχε επαρκής προετοιμασία για μια προσφυγή στη Χάγη." (see here for the rest of the story.)

Here is the machine translation;

"The exterior policy that follows the government [yperamynthike] Friday in the Parliament [Ntora] [Mpakogianni], answering in topical question of his former chairman SYN Nikos [Konstantopoyloy]. “Was not abandoned Helsinki” stressed the minister of Abroads, explaining that in 2004 did not exist sufficient preparation for a resort in Hagen."

I don't see any professional translators losing sleep over this, to tell you the truth. Whilst the meaning in English is pretty clear to anyone who knows Greek, I suspect it means absolutely nothing to anyone else. Still, if you want to write some Yoda - style dialogue for you next sci-fi magnum opus then it could prove useful.

Anyway, here's my translation, let's see if I can't do a better job.

"Dora Bakoyianni continued to defend the government's foreign policy in parliament on Friday. In answer to a timely question put by the ex-Synapismos president, Nikos Konstantopoulos, the foreign minister stressed that Helsinki (agreement) has not been abandoned and went onto explain that the 2004 appeal to the Hague had not been adequately prepared."

Why not check out the translation site for yourself and tell me if it works better with other languages.

And teachers worry that computers are going to replace them in their jobs. Well, no time soon, judging from this. LOL

2 comments:

melusina said...

At the very least it is entertaining. I guess it works in a jam, and if you have some idea what the subject is you can retool the translation to make sense.

teacher dude said...

I guess so, but the translation is so garbled that it's easier to translate from the original than try to figure out what this means.

Still, great for Yoda speak!!!