Babel Fish

The BabelFish is a fish that translates speech from one language to another. This fish was discovered by DouglasAdams. (Who describes it as causing the most vicious and destructive wars in the universe, because people started to really understand everything others said. ;-)

Stick it in your ear. I beg your pardon?!?

You can even translate web pages with http://translation.langenberg.com

The online "Babelfish" is a service from AltaVista: http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Babelfish and similar services tend to offer such a low quality that people find their results funny. They can therefore be used as toys, for example translating a text to another language and back; some people try cycles of several languages or iterate to a fixed point or a limit cycle.

Here is an example:

KentBeck's comment on WikiWikiKudos:

''The great thing about Wiki is that it is under your control. You get information at your speed. You don't stand in front of a firehose like you do with a mailing list that suddenly gets hot. If Wiki goes ballistic for a week, you just stop looking at it. Then things settle down and you get more involved. -- KentBeck''

...Translated by BabelFish into French:

''La grande chose au sujet de Wiki est qu'elle est sous votre commande. Vous obtenez l'information à votre vitesse. Vous ne vous tenez pas devant un firehose comme vous faites avec une liste d'expédition qui devient soudainement chaude. Si Wiki disparaît ballistique pendant une semaine, vous arrêt juste le regardant. Alors les choses se calment et vous devenez plus impliqué. -- KentBeck''

...Translated back into English (English spoken wiz a French accent, I think!):

''The large thing about Wiki is that it is under your command. You obtain information at your speed. You are not held in front of a firehose as you make with a list of forwarding which becomes suddenly hot. If Wiki disappears ballistic during one week, you stop right looking at it. Then the things are calmed and you become more implied. -- KentBeck''

This reminds me of the problem with tools that automate writing code. They get close, but are not good enough to be actually useful. No person translating the above would have done that.

You would love http://www.tashian.com/multibabel - a website that does this in six languages. The above comment becomes:

"Great the thing in Wiki is that it is under his instruction. Apanham the information with its tax. It is not apprehensions before firehose, when he forms given with a battery to emit, that becomes morna without the receipt requested. If Wiki to disappear ballistic during one week, apprehension, the end to consider to the right. The then things will be calmed so that and low it suggests -- KentBeck"

"No person translating the above would have done that." Are you sure? Zero Wing was released in 1989, long before machine translators were practical, and aside from "AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs", it has all the evidence that it was just some salaryman whose entire knowledge of English consisted of a pocket dictionary. Other examples of EngrishDialect? and SpanglishDialect abound, especially on the Internet and in stereo instructions in the 1980's. Anything software can do badly, humans can do worse.

Inept translations were emblematic of the Japanese home electronic industry for many years. I have a manual for a shortwave receiver (acquired in 1983) which advises me that "the skies of the earth are full of electromagnetic waves" and that I can now "explore the endless fascinations of electromagnetic waves for yourself."

In the tashian.com-mangled words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "This man who loved the bird, that one loved man, who if he is lost, is with the relative the elbow?" Babelfish CANNOT handle relative clauses - originally it was "Is this the man that loved the bird that loved the man that shot him with his bow?"

And, remember, the early machine translator that transcribed "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" into Russian and back to English. The result was "The vodka is good but the meat is rotten."

See also Prague TV's Retranslator: http://prague.tv/toys/retrans/

Ward wrote a script to TranslateWiki pages from other languages into English using Google's translation service.

The same thing can be done with http://www.FreeTranslation.com although the results a bit more accurate. It all depends on the sentence structure. If ever I need a proper translation I always use a professional translation service such as www.click2translate.com.

CategorySoftwareTool