Google translate songs?

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We all know about the bad press that Google translate receives when it comes to language translation. Obviously these awkward translations that Google translate produces are no match when compared to translation services carried out by human translators at professional translation agencies.

But regardless the discussion of whether machine translation software’s like Google translate will ever be taking over professional human translators remains a hotly debated topic, and of course with all the advancements in technology within the past couple of years and all the different applications and gizmos who is to say that the day when machine trumps man in the translation fields is not closer than you think?

Imagine the world in just a few years where you could be getting your Portuguese translation services from a machine or even further down the line when you can receive localisation services from a robot!

Of course this is just an exaggeration, but we are not truly sure of what the effects or what role these new machine translations will have on the translation and interpreting industry but one thing is for sure they are not good now and we should still make fun of them whilst we have the chance.

This is exactly what television host and comedian Jimmy Fallon decided to do when he dedicated a segment of his popular late night talk show ‘The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon’ or ‘At night show stars Fallon Jimmy’ to which Fallon describes is the shows name once it has been translated through Google into Hungarian and back into English.

The skit itself is named ‘Google translate songs’ and uses the same rules with three songs  being translated into Hungarian and back into English and the twice Google translated lyrics had to be sung by show guest and Actress Anne Hathaway and Fallon himself backed up with live music from the soulful hip-hop band, The Roots.

The songs included Hathaway singing The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” which is translated hilariously to “My front is not felt”, whilst Fallon took on the new translated version of the old Gloria Gaynor classic “I will survive” which is now “I will be punctual” and finally the pair came together for a duet of Pink and Nate Ruess’ “Just Give Me a Reason” which became a nonsensical “Only tell me grounds.”

Have look at the full video below and tell us what you think.

2 more reasons to visit Zambia this year (Part 2)

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In our last post about 2 reasons to visit Zambia this year we touched on several points on what makes Zambia attractive to tourists including the famous Victoria Falls located in Livingstone, as well as the experience of coming in contact with the different cultures also known as tribes and the different languages spoken which is a fascinating real life experience for language lovers, translators and linguists.

In this post we will highlight two more reasons to visit Zambia this year.

Wildlife at its best

One of the best places to visit Zambia for wildlife is the South Luangwa National Park. Located in eastern Zambia the South Luangwa National Park is only 1hr 10minuts flight away from the capital city of Lusaka. You can travel by plane from Lusaka via Proflight for around $325 return. Several travel agents are able to organise flights and transfers to and from the various lodges located at the national park. Simply doing a Google search will show you results and reviews of different agents and also offer tips before you book. A good start is the Zambia Tourism website.

Sitting on 9050 km sq square miles this vast space is filled with rich wildlife that animal lovers would die for. Wildlife such as hippo can be seen in the Luangwa River, zebra can be viewed at close distance and beautiful antelopes can be seen whilst visiting the park.  The likes of elephant’s and giraffe are also familiar occupants of the national park.

Other National Parks where the beauty of wildlife can be experienced include; Kafue National Park and Lower Zambezi National Park and the previously discussed Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park.

Zambian weather and the best time to visit

When it comes to choosing the best time of year to visit Zambia it simply comes down to what you would like to do whilst you are there. If your interests are mainly visiting the Victoria Falls it is best to visit during the rainy season when the waterfalls are at their peak. The rains are at their peak during December, January, February and March.

June, July and august have cooler nights with June being considered ‘winter’ although average temperatures are usually around 10 degrees Celsius and maybe cooler in the night.

The hottest months to visit are September and October where temperatures can reach between 31 – 40 degrees Celsius.

Regardless of when you choose to visit there will be plenty of activities to do. Places like Siavonga offer comfort and luxury for holidaymakers. Although Zambia is landlocked this town is off the shore of Lake Kariba giving a beach like holiday feel.

The basics of greeting people in the local language

Although English is the official language and former colonial language which is used in schools and government several indigenous languages are commonly used on an everyday basis. See below how to greet and respond in two of the most spoken languages in mainland Zambia

English to Bemba translation

How are you? – Mulishani or Shani (adding the “Muli” adds respect to the greeting it is often used when speaking to people older than you)

I’m fine thanks and you? – Wino Shani (to which the other will respond with “Wino” pronounced as we-no).

English to Nyanja translation

How are you? – Mulibwanji

I’m fine thanks and you? – Bwino Bwanji (To which the other will respond with “Bwino”).

Where have you been or would like to visit in Zambia? Share your thoughts below.

Is this the most translated book ever?

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The old classic “Le Petit Prince” or “The Little Prince” in English has recently received translation services which marks a special landmark for the old novella. You see Le Petit Prince has long been one of the most translated books in the world and with this latest translation into Hassanya, a local variety of Maghrebi Arabic spoken by an estimated 3 million people in Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Mali, Niger, Senegal  and Western Sahara. It is particular fascinating because this now means that Le Petit Prince is now the most translated book ever, excluding religious books of course.

The old tale was originally written in 1943 by French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who himself an interesting man was born to an aristocratic Catholic family in Lyon in 1900; he was also a poet, journalist and pioneering aviator. The translation of his most famous story into Hassanya and therefore the 300th language translation of the book have a big significance as the Hassanya language is spoken in the area of Cap Juby, Southern Morocco which is in fact where Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was working as Aéropostale station manager. Whilst flying one day he crashed in the Libyan Desert, somehow he and his navigator André Prévot had managed to survive for 4 days on just rations which eventually inspired him to write the setting of Le Petit Prince in.

Le Petit Prince has been a major success with a very positive retail translation all over the world and as well as now being the most translated non-religious book of all time with 300 translations receiving the likes of Abkhaz to Portuguese translation services, the Saint-Exupéry classic is also one of the bestselling books of all time, with an estimated 140 million copies sold around the world and nearly 2 million still being sold annually.

2 reasons to visit Zambia this year

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Zambia a country landlocked in the southern region of Africa is home to many different cultures, fascinating nature and wildlife and also great weather. With each season boasting its own adventures Zambia is definitely a traveller’s perfect destination to explore. With an estimated 17 million residents this beautiful country has plenty of land to go with modern cities like the capital Lusaka offering all your latest entertainment spots such as cinemas, restaurants and theme parks to your more rural areas offering amazing views of nature and wildlife including the Zambezi River and South Luangwa National Park, Zambia is definitely a place you will like to relive over a over again once you have been.   

So what is it that attracts people to this land locked country? Well asides from the friendliness of the local people who welcome people from foreign countries with open arms there is a lot more than meets the average eye.

Victoria Falls + Animal Parks

Undoubtedly one of the biggest tourist attractions in Zambia is the Victoria Falls which lie between the borders of Zambia-Zimbabwe and are commonly described as one of the 7 wonders of the world. These 355 ft waterfalls are located on the Zambezi River, Africa’s 4th longest river after the Nile, Congo and Niger rivers. The source of the Zambezi River is located in Mwinilunga District of Zambia and flows through 6 other countries before it ends in the Indian Ocean.

Image by: Harvey Barrison (Flickr)

The Victoria Falls are locally known as Mosi-oa-Tunya which when using a translation service into English reads “The Smoke That Thunders”. The original name is derived from the Lozi language of Zambia. Victoria Falls was named after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom after Scottish Missionary David Livingstone became the first European to visit the falls. The town in which the Victoria Falls lies was also named Livingstone.

Whist in Livingstone there are plenty of activities to do although just visiting the falls is breathtaking enough. For the thrill seekers you can actually bungee jump close to the falls. You can also walk across the Victoria Falls Bridge to catch some amazing views of the falls. In addition the Mosi-ao-Tunya National Park is home to wildlife such as Zebras, Giffaffes, Crocodiles and Buffalos to name a few.

Image by: Walter Schärer (Flickr)

The best time to experience the falls is during rainy season which normally falls between late November to April.

Culture & Languages

Zambia is home to around 72 languages and dialects each with its unique use of words. Although English is the main language spoke and taught in schools the main local languages spoken are Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga and Lozi. Many of these languages are known as tribes. For foreign travellers you will not need to worry too much about translation services as many Zambians do speak or understand fluent English so there won’t be a need for professional Bemba translation services or Nyanja translation services however if you do visit rural areas for example filming documentaries or need legal translation services then the use of a professional translation agency may need to come into play.   

There are many more reasons to visit Zambia including the tasty food, lovely weather and wildlife which we will discuss in our next post about Zambia.  For now Stay tuned and “Tukamonana Limbi” (Bemba translation of ‘see you later’)!

Google’s translation services

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In a previous post we brought you the news that human translations trumped machine and artificial intelligence (AI) assisted translations in the translation showdown to end all showdowns, hosted in Korea a couple weeks back. And with all the talk about the ever increasing technological sophistication of AI assisted translations and machine translations and the countless topics of discussions of what effect it will have on translation services and the industry as whole as we know it.

Many have envisioned a future where computers completely replace real human translators, leaving human translators obsolete with only the major professional translation agencies seeing a positive financial translation, others have claimed that machine translations will never be able to match the level of human translators due to the complexities and feeling for the languages that a machine just would not be able to create. Whilst some imagining that rather than humans and computers  competing, there is a thought that maybe machine translators can be used by human translators to make their jobs easier as they have for a number of years now.

One thing is for sure, whatever argument you agree with, machine and AI assisted translations do exist and will be getting better. The majority of the opinion is that machine translations are nothing but basic translations with many grammatical errors, whilst good for one or two lines to get a basic understanding, but when a paragraph is put into a machine translation software, all hell breaks loose.

In a story originally reported by long running Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in a reaction to Google’s announcement that as part of the language list that their Google’s neural machine translators (NMT) already worked within, they were adding Arabic and Hebrew to the list; two much more testing languages to translate. So Haaretz decided to test just how good Google’s NMT Arabic and Hebrew translation services were using a passage of a Hebrew written article to be translated into English. The results? Not so good. They commented on the fact that the overall translation was “adequate” with some sentences being acceptable whilst others lost meaning altogether.

You can read the whole story here:  http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.781219

Should you ever use machine translation?

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A topic of debate amongst many linguists especially those performing translation services is whether you should use machine translation software to convert text from one language to another. We have discussed earlier some of the implications of using machine translation services in different situations and there is no black and white answer as to whether or not to use this as it all depends on the situation and what you need the translation for.

Take for example you are out and about on holiday in China and need to order food at a local market where the owner only speaks and understands Mandarin. In such a situation because of the informal scenario you are found in surely using translation software such as Google translate to perform the Mandarin translation should do the job? Although as several tests have shown that machine translation is not always accurate and usually translates word for word and is not yet able to digest the feel of the conversation as well as a human being would, it’s worth a try to see what you actually receive after making your order.

On the other hand there are times when a translation is required for professional use usually via legal translation services such as birth certificate translation or marriage certificate translation. In such instances it is imperative to use a qualified translator to perform the translation as this will have a big impact on the decision made by the intended party that requires seeing such documents for various purposes. Another time when the use of professional translation services is imperative is when you require your website translated from one language to another. Yes there are tools online where automated translations of your web text can be done at the click of a button, however you will find that the literal translation of text does not always make sense leaving your website visitors to perceive your business as unprofessional and you may lose out on potential clients because of it.

As much as it is easy to use machine translation one has to assess the situation as to how important getting an accurate translation will be to you. If the answer is yes you are better off finding a qualified native translator or a translation agency to manage the translation process for you.

Image by: Tinou Baou on Flickr

Google’s back in China (well sort of)

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Good news if you are living in mainland China, from last Wednesday US internet giants Google have made a new version of their translation app available to Chinese users without use of virtual private networks (VPN’s). Now this might not seem like massive news to us in the western world because of how easily accessible Google’s translation app is to us so essentially if we ever needed some basic translation services it was always one click away.

But you see in China it has been a different story because back in 2010 Google had to remove their search engine (www.google.cn) and direct all searches to their Hong Kong website (www.google.hk) because of disagreements about censorship as a result from the Chinese-based hacking and cyberattacks on Google. Although Google translate has been available on the Google webite for Chinese users for years, this is the first since the ban on Google that the Chinese have been able to access Google’s ‘fast translation services’ without having to use VPN software’s to bypass China’s censorship firewalls.

Google had this to say on their blog post. “Today we’re releasing version 5.8 of the Google Translate apps for Android and iOS, adding instant visual translation between English and Korean, as well as an improved experience for users in China.” This indicates that Google might be willing to make some big improvements on their relationship with China, which makes sense since China has now the biggest population of mobile users in the world at an estimated 700 million.

But when asked to explain why they have all of a sudden made this app accessible to Chinese users, a Google spokesperson declined to comment on the situation. Although most of Google’s services have been blocked in China, most notably their search engine, Google have been able to keep themselves in the Chinese zeitgeist by aiding Chinese companies operate in foreign territories with services such as localisation services and Mandarin translation services.

But all in all the release of Google’ translation app is definitely a step in the right direction for Google-China relations and with something such as an app offering a less controversial first step as it contains less sensitive information than other Google products due to the lack of data collected.

What are your thoughts on this move by Google?