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You are here: Home / Language Technologies / Machine Translation / Unless you want “Ice Cream in the a*s” use Yandex for Russian MT, or better still a human!

Unless you want “Ice Cream in the a*s” use Yandex for Russian MT, or better still a human!

June 4, 2012 By Doug Lawrence 1 Comment

I’m often asked why we need professional translators when Google Translate (for example) is free. The short answer is because Google Translate, and other MT engines, can make mistakes. The picture below, of a mistranslation from a Russian Menu, has been circulating on Facebook. “в асс.” is short for ассортимент or assortment, meaning choice – and has been badly mistranslated.

 

Russian ice cream menu translation mistake

Russian ice cream menu translation mistake

 

I checked with Google Translate and sure enough it makes the same mistake, it may of course have been the mistake’s original source…

Why you shouldn't use Google Translate

Why you shouldn’t use Google Translate

So if you are a professional translation provider and you’re asked the ‘Google Translate question’, ask them if they like ice cream …

Oh and by the way folks, Bing is no better …

Why you shouldn't use bing translate either

Why you shouldn’t use Bing translate either

As this is Russian, I thought I’d give Yandex a try, and sure enough it does a ‘slightly’ better job …

 

Yandex translate does a slightly better job

Yandex translate does a slightly better job

 

So if you’re going to use machine translation for Russian unless you want your ice cream in the “a*s” use Yandex, or better still a professional  translation provider.

Filed Under: Machine Translation, Translation Technology, О России и русском языке Tagged With: Bing, Bing Machine Translaton, Google, Google Translate, Russian language, Translation, Yandex, Yandex Translate

Trackbacks

  1. Tomedes Blog » Buzzwords and Publicity Stunts in the Language Services Industry: Google’s Translator Toolkit says:
    June 14, 2012 at 8:32 am

    […] Unless you want “Ice Cream in the a*s” use Yandex for Russian MT, or better still a huma… […]

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