The Inquisitr » translation

One less U.S. State Department translator has a job now

Steven Hodson — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 03:34:18 +0000

It is always a good idea when trying to give someone who speaks a different language a cute little gift that has a saying in their language on it that you get the translation correct. It is especially important when you are dealing with international politics and how touchy politicians can be over something said incorrectly.

However it seems that someone in the U.S. State Department forgot to double check a recently translation that was used to engrave a special little gift Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave to her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is: ‘We want to reset our relationship and so we will do it together,’" Clinton said, presenting Lavrov with the red button.

What the foreign minister got, however, was a button that said "peregruzka," which translates into Russian as "overcharge" or "overload" (depending on the context). Oops…

"You got it wrong," Lavrov teased Clinton, but said he would put it on his desk anyway.

Source: ABC News – Political Radar Blog

As Zoli Erdos suggested on his blog maybe next time instead of using a human translator they just farm it out to Google Translate

[Clinton/Lavrov picture courtesy of ABC News / Google Translate graphic courtesy of Zoli Erdos]

Jajah Babel Offers Free Phone-Based Translations

JR — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:24:10 +0000

Jajah Babel is a fun little new service to kick off your Beijing Olympics weekend. The feature — demoed by Webware’s Josh Lowensohn here — will translate anything you want into Mandarin Chinese via phone in a matter of seconds.

All you do is dial in to the access number and speak. The automated system will confirm what you said in English, using its monotone computer voice, then repeat it back to you in Mandarin. Babel can also translate from Mandarin into English.

This may not have any earth-shattering applications, but it’s novel. And hey, you never know when you might have a random need to communicate with someone in Chinese (outside of ordering the Kung Pao, which you probably already know how to do).

The service is free for the U.S., the U.K., and Australia using the numbers below:

U.S.
+1-718-513-2969
+1-718-513-2968
U.K.
+44-203-3557628
+44-203-0516561
Australia
+61-390-015794
+61-390-011061

Incidentally, Google has also just revealed an iPhone-friendly version of its web-based Translate tool, accessible via mobile browser at translate.google.com. I’ve never felt so linguistically enabled.

Happy translating!

JAJAH

Google

MeGlobe Gets Lost In Translation

JR — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:23:29 +0000

MeGlobe is a new startup designed to bridge the language gap in the world of instant messaging. The free service lets you chat in real-time with people in 15 different languages, translating their IMs into your default language almost on-the-fly.

The platform is completely web-based and requires no downloads. You only have to fill out a quick form to get started, then its interface opens up within your browser. You can search for people based on name, gender, language, country, or a number of other factors, then initiate auto-translated chats.

The translations are still a bit rough — as the service’s developers readily admit — and that makes any actual conversation prove to be a bit tricky. I chatted with someone who spoke Portuguese and someone who spoke Chinese, and neither conversation really got past basic pleasantries before getting lost in translation.

Right now, MeGlobe supports English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Greek, Swedish, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Chinese traditional, and Chinese simplified languages. The service launched last month.

Our vote: MeGlobe is a great idea for our global Internet economy. It has interesting social appeal and plenty of potential business applications as well. Right now, though, the rough translations prevent it from being terribly useful. There also just aren’t a whole lot of people on it yet, so the idea of chatting becomes rather limited in that regard, too. Once the translations are improved, MeGlobe would do well to combine its services with a standard IM-based platform such as Meebo so that users wouldn’t be restricted to a small, proprietary community.

Google Preps Human-Based Translation Service

JR — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:25:44 +0000

Google appears to be working on a human-based translation service. The Google Translation Center is now up and running, though not yet functional (you’ll get an “invalid request” if you try to login).

The front page indicates it will allow you to “request, provide, and review translations” for uploaded documents.

“Passionate about bringing content into your language? Browse through Google Translation Center to find open translation requests into your language. Accept translation requests and use Google translation tools to provide quick, high-quality translations,” the site explains.

Users will be able to choose from either professional or volunteer translators, according to the information posted. Philipp Lenssen over at Google Blogoscoped — who first wrote about the discovery just a bit ago — noted that the terms and conditions specify that Google “is not involved with any such dealings” when it comes to “payment and delivery of goods and services” — leaving some as-of-yet unanswered questions as to the payment structure of the service.