China aiming to eradicate translation fails

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We have all seen or heard of the dodgy translations (not carried out by professional translation agencies) that have been written up on signs, information boards and even advertisements from big businesses across China. You see China can often be a tricky place for English speakers whether you are a business trying to enter the market or just a tourist looking to get around. In fact we even dedicated a whole blog article about how big companies from the west such as Nike, Dior and Burberry; to name a few have gotten things so wrong in China with these retail translation fails.

As well as on the flipside how ‘DIY’ Chinese translation services carried out by Chinese locals can sometimes lead to confusion, frustration or humour amongst English speaking travellers. One time leading to a very heated argument between a shopkeeper and a customer over a “free tea” sign.

Well these tales of confusion and comedy might soon be a thing of the past according to authorities in China. The authorities in China announced that a new national standard of English translation will come into place from December that will affect 13 public domains such as financial, transport, medical and the entertainment areas according to the People’s Daily newspaper, China’s state newspaper. The aim is to implement proper localisation services which would spell the end of poor English translations that are too literal and riddled with grammatical errors on signs such as ‘Please do not feed the fish with your private’ or ‘Racist Park’.

This type of Mandarin to English translation is known as ‘Chinglish’ and is somewhat of an embarrassment within China as children are given English lessons early on. The newspaper goes on to say that the new English translations do “not contain content that damages the images of China or other countries”. So if you are out in China towards the end of the year, be sure to be on the lookout for such changes and let us know the worst ever translated sign you have ever seen.

This new app helps you verify your Google translation is accurate

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Most of us at some point have attempted to use language translation apps like Google Translate to assist us with conveying our message from one language to another, whether at work dealing with a client who does not speak or understand our language or perhaps when on holiday trying to communicate with the locals when hand gestures fail! The go to for fast instant translation services is usually through a quick Google search where you are able to translate your text or speech into more than 100 languages at the click of a button.

Now many Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted software such as Google Translate which we have previously discussed lacks human touch and thus lacks nuance especially when you are trying to translate a complex message. As a result the meaning behind what you are trying to say gets lost in translation which can prove to be a non-starter and even costly especially when in professional settings like business meetings. This is where the benefits to you for using a professional translation agency to help you with your language translation needs comes into effect.

Now on the other hand not everyone requires professional translation services and a new app called Boomerang has taken on a task to correct inaccurate Google translations. The app which was developed by Ishmael Shabazz and Heidi Helen Pilypas is designed to help you verify that what you are trying to say in another language actually makes sense before presenting it to the intended party. This works where the app translates your source language to your target language and then translates the content back to the original source language allowing you to make sense of it before you send it out. The app which is currently on the iOS platform translates your text using Google Translate then translates it back to you to ensure that your message reads as you want it to in another language. The app currently translates in 104 different languages.

The Boomerang app is free to download but as with many apps these days has ad’s. For a subscription of $1.99 however you are able to utilise the app ad free according to The Verge.

Although this app appears to be basic it could help prevent the most of awkward situations like what was demonstrated on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon where actress Ana Hathaway sang songs translated through Google translate into another language then back to the original language which although created some good comedy for TV could have been disastrous had that been a serious setting.

Although many new creative apps seam to edge closer and closer to eliminating the need for human translation services it seems a long way ahead before the need for professional translators will be a thing of the past. Businesses and individuals who require their translation to be the most accurate still need a qualified translator to translate or interpret their message as accurate as can be.

Why many African languages may become extinct

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When it comes to discussing Africa and its role in the world there are many topics which are up for debate and despite being the second most populous continent with around 1.2 billion occupants and over 2000 languages spoken, it seems as though African languages are never at the forefront when it comes to global discussions on this topic. In spite of being hailed as the origin of human kind it is sometimes perplexing as to how such a culturally diverse, natural resource rich continent is often overlooked.

We previously talked about which languages in Britain would pay the most and found that on average the best paid jobs were those which required candidates to speak a second language with the top language being Mandarin. Evidence of this was highlighted based on a search of how many job opportunities were available online via jobsites. There are many reasons for this some of which can be attributed to China’s economic growth one being its shift to becoming a global force to be reckoned with over the last few decades. With China’s GDP ranked second on a global scale behind the US it is no wonder why many people are deciding to learn Chinese more specifically Mandarin which is China’s most widely spoken language which has also fuelled the need for Mandarin translation services for businesses looking to trade effectively with China.

Now back to the point about African languages one of the major reasons why African languages are not at the forefront of discussions could be put down to the fact that many African countries still use their colonial languages as their first language and these languages are also used as the official language by their governments and education. This is evident in countries like Nigeria arguable one of Africa’s richest nations and one of the most traded with western nation’s especially exporting oil which is one of its major resources. Nigeria adapted its colonial British language of English as its official language. Countries like Angola which was colonised by the Portuguese also adapted the language as the official language of the nation. This being the case many local languages although spoken by large numbers of the population, many of them cannot read or write in their native tongue despite being able to do so in their colonial languages.

This has become even more of a concern as more and more people travel across the world and settle down in different parts of the world where their local language becomes less and less relevant as they often communicate with their children in the native tongue of the country they are living in. You will find this is the case with many first and second generation immigrants in the UK who will communicate with their children in English instead of their mother tongue and thus eliminating the development of their native language. This is not only the case with migrants there are many native Africans within the African continent who cannot understand or speak their own mother tongue but are highly fluent in English. With that being said is there any hope to save African languages for generations to come?

What are your thoughts?

Image by: Paul Birnie

The awkward translations of the French election

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As the nation of France has been continuingly gripped by the race for the French presidency, the fate of their countries political affairs and futures are at stake. With the first round of voting, which was held on 23rd April 2017 indicating no majority winner the two most voted for candidates, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will face off in a run-off election this week on Sunday 7th May 2017 to decide who will become the next French president. Now the slogans of each political party is usual something that sends a clear strong message across to the public that embodies the whole ethos of the party in a short phrase so least to say they are pretty important, but how much meaning do they lose once translation services are used to make it legible in another language?

In an article originally reported by international new network FRANCE24 they take a look at how each of the potential French president’s slogans and party names translate from French to English. They started with the most awkward English translation, that of the far-leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.  Mélenchon’s campaign was named “La France Insoumise” which makes complete sense in French but in English has been awkwardly translated to “Unsubmissive France” by FRANCE24 journalist Florence Villeminot, although the author of the article Christine Buckley noted that another of their journalist suggested the phrase to be translated to “Indomitable France” whilst others like Politico have used “France Untamed”, The New York Times went with “France Unbowed” and “Rebellious France.” This just goes to show that there are many different ways that words can be translated and even the best French translation services can be in disagreement of a translation.

The rest of the campaigns translation into English were more or less straight forward with the conservative François Fillon slogan being “Le courage de la verité” which translates to “The Courage of Truth” and Buckley commented on the fact that ironically the truth part was not so accurate as he had been plagued with scandals so the slogan was swiftly changed to “Une volonté pour la France” or “Willpower for France”. To which political activists then changed to “Un vol pour la France” which actually means “Theft for France,” due to the scandal involving Fillon. Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon’s slogan read “Faire battre le Cœur de la France” which translated well into English, “Make France’s Heart Beat Again.

Of the two remaining candidates left running for the presidency, far right’s Marine Le Pen’s campaign slogan is simply “Au Nom du Peuple !” which means “In the Name of the People!” in English. Her opposition on the other hand centrist Emmanuel Macron’s “En Marche” campaign was meant to translate to “Onward!”, but like most translations this was up for debate with some English language-based media outlets using the terms “Forward” or “On Our Way”. Saying this political translations are not unlike marketing or retail translation services as many political parties just like businesses will have a slogan to sum up what they are about or represent and these phrases can easily be misconstrued  when being translated into other languages and essentially lose their impact or their meaning altogether.

Let us know your thoughts.

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

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?

How idioms translate hilariously into English

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Languages are very complex and interesting ways to communicate from one person to another. The way in which some languages are expressed are more creative than others, without these sometimes utterly bizarre differences between languages there would be absolutely no need for things such as translation services.

These services that are provided by a professional translation agency and professional translators help us comprehend and translate one language to another for individual or professional use. You could also obtain basic translations from machine translation software’s such as Google translate although not the greatest tool. One thing that machine translation would definitely be no help for is idioms of different languages.

These certain quirky sayings can easily be misconstrued when translated unless they are carried out by a native of course. For example from an infographic created by Citybase apartments, take the German phrase ‘Leben wie die Made im Speck’ without some type of German translation services or native to help, you will get the literal English translation of ‘to live like a maggot in bacon’! Now to us that makes no sense because through simple translation the phrase has lost its meaning, the true meaning of this German idiom is ‘to live luxuriously.’

Another perfect example of idioms lost in English translation is that of the Italian phrase ‘un cane in chiesa’ which if you were to use translation software the literal English translation would produce a phrase of ‘A dog in a church’ which would mean absolutely nothing, but if you were to use Italian translation services by native translators they would tell you what the idiom actually means ‘An unwanted guest’.

It is not just limited to the German and Italian languages, all languages have phrases and idioms that will have bizarre and hilarious translations including English, imagine what the Romanian translation of ‘Like water off a duck’s back’ will be like. Thanks to Citybase apartments here is a list of 21 idioms translated into English to comedic effect.

Idioms

Lost In Translation: 21 Idioms Which Literally Make No Sense When Translated – An infographic by the team at Citybase Apartments

 

 

How ‘fake’ translation services got this man in deep trouble

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Translation services can come in all forms, it could be professional translations carried out by professional translators and interpreters and they could be specifically catered towards businesses for anything from tourism to retail translation services. Or individuals perhaps looking for quick translations that can be done through software’s which include the likes of Google translate. Translation services also cover a wide range of languages from around the world even lesser known languages up to more broadly spoken languages like English, Spanish, Mandarin, French and German translation services.

However whether you are using professional Mandarin translation services for legal documents or are just trying to get an Italian translation for something like “Where are the toilets?” One thing is for sure, they better be spot on! As one Tanzanian tourist guide found out.

A Tanzanian tourist guide who goes by the name of Saimon Sirikwa and works at one of the ten natural travel wonders of the world, the Northern Tanzanian Serengeti National Park was arrested and charged with breaching Tanzania’s cybercrime laws by producing what they are calling a ‘fake translation’ of a tourists words from English into Swahili in a video he uploaded onto his Facebook page. Here is what was said in the video:

Tourist: “Hi. My visit to Tanzania has been beautiful, gorgeous. The people are fabulously wonderful and friendly. Greetings are always jambo (“Hello” in Swahili). Happy to be here. The land is beautiful, beautiful. The animals are wonderful.”

Tour guide (translating into Swahili): “You Tanzanians complain/cry a lot about hunger. Every day you cry about hunger when you have flowers at home. Why don’t you boil the flowers and drink them. It is not good to cry/complain about hunger.”

Tourist: “The variety of animals and people you see is incredible, unlike anywhere else. It is just fabulous.”

Tour guide: “You are asking your president to cook for you. Do you think your president is a cook? Can you get busy, even boil your clothing and eat.”

Tourist: “It will be an experience to savour for all of your life. It is fantastic and beautiful and incredible and just unremarkable.”

Tour guide: “Get busy in every corner of the country. The president can’t leave State House to cook for you. You have to cook for yourselves.”

Despite Mr Sirikwa, who is known to be a comedian where he has been seen to regularly post comedy videos on his Facebook page, posting a second video with the tourist from the original video explaining it was all a joke and his love for his country as well as apologising to anyone offended. 

He was still accused of putting the Tanzanian tourism in a ‘bad light’ according to the police. With the regional police commander telling the BBC there was sufficient evidence to back up these claims that Mr Sirikwa had breached the legislation. The cybercrime law which was introduced in 2015 had been deemed to give the police “too much power” by politicians and activists alike. According to the BBC some correspondents noted that Mr Sirikwa’s joke translation was not unlike the words uttered by Tanzanian President John Magufuli when he told people at a rally to stop complaining about hunger.

So you can make your own mind up about that one. Let us know your thoughts.

And the winner is: A translation battle

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Previously we brought you a story that should put to bed (for the time being at least) who is more superior when it comes to translation services, man or machine? The showdown that was organised by the International Interpretation Translation Association in conjunction with Sejong Cyber University in order to get a real feel of how machine translations are when compared to traditional human translators. With all the advancements in translation technology of the past year alone such as the neural machine translation or NMT which self learns from over a million examples of over 100 languages and allows for a more holistic translation of sentences rather than word by word so would be perfect for those seeking say Portuguese translation services for non-professional reasons.

Just a reminder the human translators were represented by four professional translators who were pitted against three artificial intelligent (AI) machine translators which consisted of the western world behemoth Google translate from Google Inc. based in the USA, the self-learning hybrid translation software Systran machine translator from Systran International and Naver’s Papago from Naver Inc. which is Korea’s leading internet provider. All seven competitors were given 50 minutes to translate two random English articles into Korean and then two Korean articles to translate into English.

So standing in the red corner, they have been walking this Earth for roughly 200,000 years, they have risen to the top of the food chain, countless languages spoken and an unknown amount created; we have the Human “Homo sapiens” Translators! (CHEERS) And in the blue corner we have the younger, faster, and created by humans but maybe better than humans; Machine “Robot” Translators! (Boo’s obviously.) LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLEEEE!!!! Of course that’s not really how it happened but that’s how we like to think it might have happened.

It was tense, it was difficult, it was one hell of a battle, after all the pride of all translators and professional translation agencies and humans everywhere was on the line. But just as the bookies predicted the fan favourites, and still the champions of the translation world, the Humans did in fact come out on top. With the professional translators delivering the knockout blows by scoring an average out of 30, a massive 25 on the scorecard whilst the AI/machine translators scoring only between 10 and 15 for Korean translation services.

But man’s triumph over machine may not last so long, with more advancement the gap will surely be closing, with the NMT progressing and learning more it is only a matter of time before the machines take over hopefully not any time soon.

The ultimate translation showdown is here

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As one of the most talked about topics in the language translation and interpreting community, this issue of human translators versus machine translators is still a very undecided issue with some claiming that with all the advancements in technology giving machines the capabilities to translate from language to language without human interaction, that machine translations are the way to go. Whereas others are adamant that computers will not be able to reach the levels of human translators any time soon. If machines were to overtake human translators, what would this mean for the professional translation agency whose businesses are based on providing professional translation services? Or even worse what will happen to all the translators whose livelihoods are at stake?

Well thankfully for the moment at least it is not something we have to really worry about, it is not more than a hot debate in this present time because in truth although machine translations have advanced a great deal in the past couple of years thanks to the development of NMY (“neural machine translation.”), it’s fair to say machines are still somewhat lagging behind their human counterparts. This is because the sheer complexity of languages and even though machines can translate words and sentences in a select number of languages, it is not fluent yet and grammatical errors still occur as well as not taking issues such as localisation services into account, maybe one day it will be the norm but that is for the future.

To prove who is on top at the moment Korea’s International Interpretation Translation Association along with Sejong Cyber University are holding a competition pitting a professional human translator from Ewha Woman’s University against three machine translators in the shape of Naver’s Papago (a Korean translation app specialising in English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese), Systran’s machine translation solution (a self-learning hybrid translation software) and Google translate (probably the best known free translation software in the western world).

The big translation showdown will commence on Tuesday 21st February 2017 on the Sejong Cyber University website. Each contender will be given the task to translate two random English articles into Korean and two Korean articles into English with a time limit of 30 minutes per paragraph. The human translator for now is considered as the favourite but in the future machines and AI translations will become more and more prevalent, for example who wouldn’t want their Romanian translation services carried out in a matter of minutes and at a fraction of the cost? But hopefully like any industry the translation agencies and translators can find a way to adapt and live side by side with machine translations.

Why your business needs interpreting services

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In a modern world where the internet is making everything smaller as the days go by; making things like being able to communicate with loved ones or extended family from the other side of the world less of a hassle than going next door to talk to your neighbour, being able to have the ability to learn more things than you’ll ever learn in school or university, making things like a trip to the shops a thing of the past thanks to online shopping, but most importantly the internet has enabled small businesses to be able to compete with much larger businesses due to global accessibility.

Businesses can now be run from your bedroom by just one person alone. The rise of the small business has been possible because the internet has allowed them to do so. Many people are profiting off of buying and selling, creating apps, small scale retailing, translation services, investing in stocks to name a few and as a result are earning thousands if not millions of pounds with teams of less than 5 in some cases.

But with the massive rise of small businesses being set up every day most do not make it past the first year whether its due to poor planning, underestimating the financial translation and cost of running the business, how many customer numbers will be achieved or simply overestimating the success of the business and making a loss.

There is however one way that could skyrocket a business’s success and that is through the means of global marketing. Today businesses are able to have virtual offices anywhere in the world in order to gain a foothold in foreign markets. But virtual offices are not enough to help a business work and this is where translation and interpreting services can help. We have previously discussed how translation services can have a big impact on how your business is run but interpreting services could also have a major impact on your businesses’ success.

Imagine you are just about to put the finishing touches to a project for a new and potentially game changing client for your business that is the result of months of work and charming, and all you have to do is do is have a face-to-face interview with the director to seal the deal but there’s a problem your potential new clients director is from Israel and speaks mostly in Hebrew what do you do? Luckily for you, you have already been using professional Hebrew translation services from a professional translation agency and with this in mind you hire an esteemed Hebrew interpreter to mediate between English and Hebrew thus finalising the contract and boosting your businesses international standing.

This is just one way interpreting services can be used for your business. It is not only a fast translation service but it also gives your business a voice in another language.

When a lack of translation services sparked an outrage

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This recent story is a one that highlights perfectly the need for professional translation services and localisation services when you are not familiar with the native language of the country you are operating in. Without the use of some sort of translation service, mistakes are likely to be made and it could result in having a comical effect like seen here, causing misunderstandings much like our previous reported story or even worse cause offence. Sadly the latter is exactly what happened to this restaurant owner in South Carolina, USA.

With all the issues and outrage surrounding immigration and migrants in the midst of Donald Trump’s presidential reign of the US, restaurant owner Sook “Sue” Shin unbeknownst to her had somehow managed to get herself and her restaurant involved into these political debates. Sue was just on the lookout for some new employees of the restaurant when she claims she came across a “help wanted” sign on eBay little did she know that this same sign would later make her restaurant go viral and not for any good reasons.

You see the help wanted sign she purchased had the phrase printed underneath “Minorities need not apply” in plain English along with a Spanish translation. With echoes of President Trump’s election campaign as you could imagine this didn’t go down well with the locals as one customer took a photo of the sign and posted it on Facebook, which of course sparked a massive backlash from the locals to ‘boycott’ the restaurant along with the apparently ‘racist’ owners.

But Sue quickly moved to take down the signs and put up a note to apologise wholeheartedly for any offence caused. Sue a Japanese native explained that English is not her first language, nor her husbands who is Korean and that she did not fully understand what the message had meant. This was further backed up by Melonie Henderson, an employee of two years who said “They thought it meant minors, not minorities,” she than went on to stress that Sue herself is a minority as well as the employees who work there.

Sue had also had to change her voicemail message to explain the situation and again apologise since they were getting abusive phone calls throughout the day. Despite Sue’s best efforts at reconciliation one regular customer of African-American ethnicity explained she was not comfortable eating at the restaurant after this incident. But it now seems that business has been getting back to normal as most customers have acknowledged this simple misunderstanding.

A simple misunderstanding it may be but due to the current political climate along with the migrant scepticism, you can’t help but think this could have all been avoided through a simple translation service. This incident could have major ramifications for the restaurants future due to an innocent mistake on something as menial as a help wanted sign. Or maybe not, but one thing is for sure if you are not fluent in the native language, seek professional services whether it is English, French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese translation services. Let this be a lesson to all businesses around the world.

How to utilise translation services in 2017

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By now it can be assumed that we are all pretty much settled into the New Year and back on the grind whether that is in employment or self-employment. A new year for many symbolises a new beginning, a time to leave all the negative happenings of the previous year and embark on new journeys to achieve set goals. If you haven’t set your new year’s goals by now well you know where the pen and paper is.

When it comes to doing business in 2017 one thing you must avoid is to limit your possibilities. Now more than ever is the time to maybe take that leap of faith and invest into reaching global markets. Perhaps it is something that has been weighing on your mind for a while and you just haven’t got round to doing it. Once you have sorted out the logistics as to how you can deliver your product or service on a global scale your next step should be the utilisation of professional translation services.

Using translation services can be a huge benefit to your company and separate you you’re your competition. After all, research has found that despite English being the most popular language in the western business world as we previously discussed many countries prefer and do business in their native mother tongue.

When targeting countries like Germany you would see major differences in terms of your marketing by utilising a German translation service for your website translation you could see a dramatic increase on traffic from Germany. If you aim to reach the South American market, Brazil to be specific a Brazilian Portuguese translation would be highly advantageous for your business.

When it comes to using translation services the most common objectives are the usually “oh it’s too expensive I’ll just use Google translate”. Well try and send a proposal to a potential new client in China using Google machine Chinese translation service and see what happens. We don’t really advise you do that. In all fairness Google translate has its benefits and can be used in many instances to get quick translations of text to have an understanding of what is being said.

However technology has not quite yet replaced the human touch so for now the most accurate translations can only be performed by humans. Before jumping the gun and translate your entire content test the waters with a few pages and see what difference it makes.

New year; New language? Learning a new language: Part 2

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It is that time of the year again; well the end of the year where even though nothing really changes at the same time a whole lot can be changed. As we wave goodbye to 2016 and say hello to 2017 it can be and is widely embraced as a benchmark for better things or a shift in mentality if you will. New mind-set, new goals, new life and yes inevitably, “New Year, new me” posts on social media! But why not a new language? There are so many pros compared to the cons when learning a new language, imagine not having to rely on translation services all the time when you are traveling or the money saved on localisation services.

Following on from our first post on what to take into account when learning a new language we know that even though a lot of people will set new goals and new ways of thinking most will soon drift back into their old ways but fear not we are here to give you some tips on how to stay on track when you hit those oh so familiar speed bumps of the new year.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

When you set out to learn anything in order to grow yourself you will soon encounter some difficulties and learning a new language is no exception. When you are learning new words you only have to look at children as an example, they are not born speaking a language, they learn from their environments and experiment with words that they utter and the reactions they receive. They are not afraid to make mistakes or look foolish so why should you? Leave your ego at the door with 2016 because you will learn much more from making mistakes than not trying at all. You are not a professional translation agency you are going to make mistakes, it is part of life, learn from it!

Consistency is crucial

Consistency in general will get you through anything in life and when you do start learning from these mistakes alongside being consistent in acquiring your newfound language skills you will see yourself becoming more fluent. This would hopefully lead to a snowball effect where you should start gaining more confidence to attempt to carry out advanced conversations and as a result more of the language will stick with you which means you will not need that Mandarin translation service when you travel to China on that impulsive trip you booked as part of your New Year goals.

Remember why

Finally just like any other goal you want to achieve, remember exactly why you are doing this and remind yourself of this reason every time you feel your motivation slipping away! It could be a desire to learn a new language out of necessity like relocating for a job abroad or traveling to a certain country that requires so. On the other hand you could be learning a new language as a passion or part of your New Year resolution to yourself. But whatever your reason for learning a new lingo you will get that motivation back once you have thought about exactly why you started learning it in the first place.

Comment on your experiences of learning a new language.

Image by: Robert Lowe | Flickr

Has Google created its own language?

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Will this lead to the end of human translations?

The Neural Machine Translation or simply ‘NMT’ is the name of the latest technology that Google has employed to help improve their real time translation services. Originally showcased earlier this year in September, Google announced that these neural networks are going to be the process behind Google Translate. Google has already started utilising NMT for some languages within the last month.

Traditionally Google Translate has always been a useful tool if you ever needed to know anything from a word to a phrase in another language and was perfect if you required a fast translation as it is instant. But Google Translates’ translations for anything more would mostly be grammatically wrong and lacked a ‘native feel’ (don’t even think about translating slang words). But now with these improvements in technology Google aims to have more accurate translations as well as the NMT being able to learn more with what Google are calling “zero-shot” translations which could be bad news for the professional translation agency of tomorrow.

The zero shot translation is essentially a translation system that has the ability to translate one language to another without previous experience of translating that language pair beforehand. So for example if the NMT had been taught to translate English into Hebrew and vice versa as well as being taught English to Romanian translations and vice versa; now imagine you were in need of Hebrew translation services from the Romanian language the Neural Machine Translation system would be able to translate without having learnt that language pair before.

So for this to happen there must have been some kind of ‘learning’ process involved from Googles artificial intelligence (AI) which begs the question ‘Has Google created its own language?’ that’s the hypothetical thought Devin Coldewey offered when he wrote an article in which he discussed Google’s NMT and its ability to understand a language pair it hasn’t faced before through connections made from prior knowledge.

In fact he is partially correct with these assumptions as AI researchers have suggested that the zero-shot translation might have been a result of Googles NMT being able to communicate with itself potentially bringing the translation level up to exert level.

This all sounds impressive but in the longer run could this ‘Interlingua’ that this AI possesses be the foundations for something more sinister? We tried to warn you before in our previous posts. But in all seriousness it is the forward step in making language translations easier to obtain.

What are your thoughts?

Image by: Kathryn Decker

Blame it on the Translation?

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A rather amusing story has emerged from Australia in recent times, which for once is nothing to do with dodgy retail translation services. For the first time we are actually bringing you a story of a translation fail without any help from a less than accurate translation service at all. No instead this story involves a Uruguayan footballer, an Australian team’s cup glory, an ‘alleged’ and very odd translation fail and a rather rude word. We will leave it up to you to make up your mind.

It all started on Wednesday 30th November in a Westfield FFA cup final that was contested between two Australian teams Melbourne City FC and Sydney FC at AAMI Park. The tightly fought cup final was eventually decided in the second half when Australian footballing legend Tim Cahill scored with one of his trademark headers on the 53rd minute to secure Melbourne City FC the win and their first ever trophy in the clubs history.

As you can imagine emotions were most likely running high after such a historic game for the club and this is where the controversial and comedic moment happened. Melbourne City’s Uruguayan captain Bruno Fornaroli was giving a speech to the fans in the stadium on his side’s extraordinary win, bearing in mind his mother tongue is Spanish and his English has been described as ‘broken’ so he was reading his speech from cue cards; when after he ended his speech he threw the cards into the air and screamed out ‘And f..k off!’ Perhaps better localisation services are needed here?

But in all seriousness Bruno came out the next morning to explain this odd expletive. According to the skipper himself, he apparently was meant to say ‘vamos’ which has a Spanish to English translation of ‘let’s go’ to cheer on his team refer to his excitement and overjoy as the reason why another word came out instead, he also apologised to anyone it might have offended.

We are not sure how true that explanation is or that anyone has been offended but one thing is for sure it is definitely hilarious. Let us know what you think about him blaming translations, see the footage below and tell us your conclusion.

Image Screenshot: The Tight Five Football YouTube

3 Things for English speakers to take into account when learning a new language

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So you have decided that you want to learn a new language, first of all well done to you. As someone who speaks English and just like many other English speakers, the truth is we expect everyone around the world to know our language with a fluency of the Royal Family! Although English is generally accepted as the ‘universal’ language of the world, the majority of the world doesn’t actually use it instead communicate in their own various different languages and dialects and it would be arrogant to go traveling around the world without some sort of translation service to help.

So do give yourself a pat on the back for considering putting effort into learning another language, whether it is for a need, hobby or just something for you to tick off the bucket list but there are a few things to take into account before you embark on this journey

It takes time/patience

Learning a new language, especially a language that is on a separate branch of the language tree is going to require full attention and a lot of time and patience. It is estimated that for an English speaker to achieve a basic fluency in a new language could take between 480-720 hours of learning depending on the difficulty and intensity of learning. So if you are heading on your travels in a weeks’ time and you think a couple minutes of your English to Mandarin translation book will help you, think again!

Forget your language rules

Forget every grammar rule you know, well at least just for when you are trying to comprehend your new chosen lingo. The mistake that many people make when they are learning a new language from English is that they apply the same rules that the English language consists of for the language which they are learning. Save yourself a lot of time and frustration and remember, most languages just have different rules and you have to adapt yourself to them accordingly. You will find that some languages are affected by male/female words, some languages where a different tone of voice will change the meaning and so on. You will also discover that some words and phrases might not have a direct nor fast translation into English.

Immersing yourself is key

This last point really is an important one because like any growth skill actively engaging in your subject will lead to quicker results and this applies to learning a new language. If you were to constantly speak to a native, read literature, watch films or even live in the country of the language you are learning you will find yourself becoming more fluent at a quicker rate. For example if you were learning Romanian, a good idea would be to live out in Romania for a while and with the help of Romanian translation services of some type or English speaking locals you would then be able to encounter the Romanian language on a day to day basis, thus picking up the language even quicker as well as learning some informal expressions used by native speakers.

Are you an English speaker that has learnt a new language? Share your experiences below or if you have learnt English as a second language let us know your thoughts!

Image: © Thomas Williams/Crossroads Foundation