Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Babelfish Sparks Minor Diplomatic Row

Posted by Zonk on from the careful-how-you-type-that dept.

Stony Stevenson writes with a link to a cautionary tale on the ITnews site. A group of journalists heading to The Netherlands were gathering some information prior to the trip. They sent off an email to the Dutch foreign ministry asking some questions, but as they weren't native speakers they needed some help. Unfortunately, they turned to Babelfish for official correspondence. "The beginning of the email read: 'Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian.'"

3 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The question we're all thinking. by MBCook · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I saw this yesterday and chuckled a little, but it just raised a bunch of questions for me.

    1. How good a journalist can you be if you trust Babelfish to translate stuff for you?
    2. How could you rely on the answers you got since you'd have to run them through Babelfish also?
    3. Could the interviewees not tell that it was a terrible machine translation? Are you telling me it was all perfect up until that sentence?

    The first two are the ones that really puzzle me. Even if it were just a journalist at a high school paper, I would expect them to do better. Go ask for help from the local university or something. Babelfish? Really?

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
  2. English As She Is Spoke - Twain is Proved WRONG! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect."
    --Mark Twain, on English as She Is Spoke

    We have bested the Portuguese masters of muddle! It took the brilliance of a near-passing grade on the Turing test.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  3. Terms of service by kryten_nl · · Score: 3, Interesting
    They should have read the Babelfish terms of service, they're probably liable now.

    6. MEMBER CONDUCT
    (...)
    You agree to not use the Service to:
    (...)
    o. translate any correspondence, of any kind, which could lead to diplomatic rows, a chilling of diplomatic relations, armed hostilities, and/or Global Thermal Nuclear War.
    --
    For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.