воскресенье, 17 мая 2020 г.

Are Online French Translators Trustworthy

How reliable are computers at translating French? Should you be using Google Translate to complete your French homework? Can you trust a computer to translate your business correspondence or should you hire a translator? The reality is that, while translating software is helpful, it is not perfect and should not replace learning any new language yourself. If you rely on machine translation to switch between French and English (and vice versa), you may find yourself at the losing end of a conversation. What is Machine Translation? Machine translation refers to any kind of automatic translation, including translation software, hand-held translators, and online translators. While machine translation is an interesting concept and considerably cheaper and faster than professional translators, the reality is that machine translation is extremely poor in quality. Why Cant Computers Translate Languages Properly? Language is simply too complicated for machines. While a computer may be programmed with a database of words, it is impossible for it  to understand all of the vocabulary, grammar, context, and nuances in the source and target languages. Technology is improving, but the fact is that machine translation will never offer more than a general idea about what a text says. When it comes to translation, a machine simply cannot take the place of a human. Are Online Translators More Trouble Than Theyre Worth? Whether or not online translators like Google Translate, Babylon, and Reverso  are useful is going to depend on your purpose. If you need to quickly translate a single French word into English, youll probably be okay. Similarly, simple, common phrases may translate well, but you must be wary. For instance, typing the sentence I went up the hill into Reverso produces Je suis montà © la colline. In the reverse translation, Reversos English result is I rose the hill. While the concept is there and a human could figure out that you probably went up the hill rather than lifted the hill, it wasnt perfect. However, can you use an online translator to recall that chat is French for cat and that chat noir means a black cat? Absolutely, simple vocabulary is easy for the computer, but sentence structure and nuance require human logic. To put this plainly: Should you be completing your French homework with  Google Translate? No, thats cheating, first of all. Secondly, your French teacher will suspect where your answer came from.Adults hoping to impress a French business associate  should also put a real effort into learning the language. Even if you mess up, they will appreciate that you took the time to try rather than send entire emails translated by Google. If its really important, hire a translator. Online translators, which can be used to translate web pages, emails, or a pasted-in block of text,  can be useful. If you need to access a website written in French, turn on the translator to get a basic idea of what was written. However, you should not assume that the translation is a direct quote or completely accurate. You will need to read between the lines on any machine translation. Use it for guidance and basic comprehension, but little else. Remember, also, that translation - whether by human or computer - is an inexact science and that there are always numerous acceptable possibilities. When Machine Translation Goes Wrong How accurate (or inaccurate) are computers at translating?  To demonstrate some of the problems inherent in machine translation, lets look at how three sentences fared in five online translators. In order to check the accuracy, each translation is run back through the same translator (reverse translation is a common verification technique of professional translators). There is also a human translation of each sentence for comparison. Sentence 1:  I love you very much, honey. This is a very simple sentence - beginning students could translate it with little difficulty. Online Translator Translation Reverse Translation Babylon Je taime beaucoup, miel. I love you much, honey. Reverso Je vous aime beaucoup, le miel. I like very much you, the honey. FreeTranslation Je vous aime beaucoup, le miel. I like you a lot, the honey. Google Translate Je taime beaucoup, le miel.* I love you very much, honey. Bing Je taime beaucoup, miel. I love you, honey. What went wrong? All of the  automatic translators took the word honey literally and used miel  rather than the intended  term of endearment.Three translators  compounded the error by adding the  definite article. The same three translated  you as  vous, which doesnt make much sense, given the meaning of the sentence.Bing lost  beaucoup  in its reverse translation, but Reverso did a particularly bad job - the word order is atrocious. Human Translation:  Je taime beaucoup, mon chà ©ri. Sentence 2:  How many times did he tell you to write it? Lets see if a  subordinate clause  causes any trouble. Online Translator Translation Reverse Translation Babylon Combien de fois vous a-t-il dit de lui crire? How much time does it have says you to write to him? Reverso Combien de fois vous a-t-il dit de lcrire ? How many times did he tell you to write it? FreeTranslation Combien de fois a-t-il dit que vous crivez il? How many times he says that you write it? Google Translate Combien de fois a-t-il de vous dire lcrire?* How many times did he tell you to write? Bing Combien de fois il vous a-t-il dit lcrire ? How many times he has told you to write it? What went wrong? Babylon inexplicably decided that it was an  indirect object, rather than the  direct object  that it is, which completely changed the meaning. In its reverse translation, it mistakenly translated the  passà © composà ©s auxiliary verb and main verb separately.Google added the  preposition  de, which makes it sound like how many times does he have to tell you to write it. In its reverse translation, it lost the direct object.FreeTranslation and Bing did even worse, with grammatically incorrect French translations. Reversos translation and reverse translation are both excellent. Human Translation:  Combien de fois est-ce quil ta dit de là ©crire  ?  or  Combien de fois ta-t-il dit de là ©crire  ? Sentence 3:  Every summer, I drive up to the lake house and cruise around with my friends. A longer and more complicated sentence. Online Translator Translation Reverse Translation Babylon Chaque t, je conduis la maison et la croisire de lac autour avec mes amis. Each summer, I lead to the house and to the cruising of lake around with my friends. Reverso Chaque t, je conduis(roule) jusqu la maison de lac et la croisire autour avec mes amis. Every summer, I lead(drive) (run)((drive)) up to the house of lake and the cruise all around with my friends. FreeTranslation Chaque t, je conduis jusqu la maison de lac et jusqu la croisire environ avec mes amis. Every summer, I drive to the house lake and to the cruise about with my friends. Google Translate Chaque t, je conduis la maison et le lac autour de croisire avec mes amis.* Every summer, I drive at home and around the lake cruise with my friends. Bing Tous les ts, jai avancer jusqu la maison du lac et croisire autour avec mes amis. Every summer, I proceed to the home of the Lake and cruise around with my friends. What went wrong? All five translators were fooled by the phrasal verb cruise around and all but Google by drive up - they translated the verb and preposition separately.The pairing house and cruise caused problems as well. It seems that the translators could not figure out that cruise was a verb rather than a noun in this instance.In its reverse, Google was fooled by  et,  thinking that I drive to the house and to the lake are separate actions.Less shocking but still incorrect, is the  translation of drive as  conduire  - the latter is a  transitive verb, but drive is used here  intransitively. Bing chose  avancer, which is not only the wrong verb  but in an impossible conjugation; it should just be  javance.And whats up with capital L with Lake in Bings reverse translation? Human Translation:  Chaque à ©tà ©, je vais en voiture à   la maison de lac et je roule avec mes amis. Common Problems in Machine Translation Though a small sample, the above translations offer a pretty good idea of the problems inherent in machine translation. While  online translators can give you some idea about the meaning of a sentence, their numerous flaws make it impossible for them to ever replace professional translators. If youre just after the gist and dont mind decoding the results, you can probably get by with an online translator. But if you need a translation that you can count on, hire a translator. What you lose in money youll more than make up for in professionalism, accuracy, and dependability.

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