matgb: (Webstuff)
Mat Bowles ([personal profile] matgb) wrote2007-09-24 09:51 pm

Olympic medal in robot translations?

Hmm. Prague is bidding for the 2016 olympics, apparently. That might be a good thing, although if so I'll jump it up the list of places to visit because prices'll go up if they get it. But, um, from what appears to be their official website.
Prague 2016? Beatiful Games! | Olympic Prague:
Has if have offer Prague and vicariously and Czech republic prospect of success in competition offers big world’s
metropolis, must Prague use his unique eye-appeal and get different draft games to the beautiful cities.
Now me, I've alway sthought you should translate into your native language, not out of it, especially for official or promotional documents. Appears the good people of Prague disagree.

The Register has more

[identity profile] burkesworks.livejournal.com 2007-09-24 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
I do hope they're whirled peas that they refer to. May I suggest a slightly updated version of this (http://craphound.com/images/goatseolympics.jpg) as their Olympic logo - after all it's no worse than the purple and yellow abomination that London is using.

[identity profile] karohemd.livejournal.com 2007-09-24 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh dear. I just take it as another proof that my job isn't in danger of being replaced by a computer for a while yet. There are some reasonably decent professional systems (i.e. not babelfish etc.) now that make a reasonable hack if fed a decent glossary and they can learn but the output still needs to be proofread by humans because getting the right context translation of words is still mostly hit and miss. Even boring, formulaeic technical manuals are still a struggle, and standard language texts (newspaper articles etc.) are still almost impossible to get right and literature is completely out of reach.

Prague has been on my list for a long time. Shame, really, as it's just a few hours drive from my hometown but I never made it over after the iron curtain came down and then I moved over here. Now it's almost too touristy and overrun by stupid people to be enticing.

[identity profile] raksaksa.livejournal.com 2007-09-24 10:32 pm (UTC)(link)
There are some half-decent MT systems on the market, but they cost a lot of money...probably about the same amount of money as we've wasted on the abomination that is our 2012 logo.

I almost cried when I read this, though. It looks as though some work experience student has been using the free online version of Babelfish (one of the worst when I did my Machine Assisted Translation module for my degree) at the last moment.

It has "See me" stamped in big red letters on it whenever I look at it from now on...