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The peril of autoresponders in foreign languages

Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]


Sun, 2 Nov 2008 00:06:38 -0700

Jimmy, weren't you saying something about studying Welsh? Try this one on for size.

----- Forwarded message from Deirdre Saoirse Moen <[email protected]> -----

From: Deirdre Saoirse Moen <[email protected]>
To: Rick Moen <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2008 23:59:45 -0700
Cc: Karsten Self <[email protected]>
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.929.2)
Subject: The peril of autoresponders in foreign languages
http://community.livejournal.com/cranky_editors/739695.html
-- 
_Deirdre                                             http://deirdre.net


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Jimmy O'Regan [joregan at gmail.com]


Sun, 2 Nov 2008 11:53:57 +0000

2008/11/2 Rick Moen <[email protected]>:

> Jimmy, weren't you saying something about studying Welsh?

No; just working on an MT system for it--I only know a single word of Welsh!

> Try this one on for size.
>

Heh. Saw it yesterday, via Language Log.

$ echo 'Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i'w
gyfieithu.' | apertium -d . cy-en
am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to translate him

(That's the translation with latest SVN - I think Francis must have seen that webpage too, because yesterday the translation was something like 'Am be being in the office at the moment')


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Jimmy O'Regan [joregan at gmail.com]


Sun, 2 Nov 2008 12:02:41 +0000

2008/11/2 Jimmy O'Regan <[email protected]>:

> 2008/11/2 Rick Moen <[email protected]>:
>> Jimmy, weren't you saying something about studying Welsh?
>
> No; just working on an MT system for it--I only know a single word of Welsh!
>
>> Try this one on for size.
>>
>
> Heh. Saw it yesterday, via Language Log.
>
> $ echo 'Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i'w
> gyfieithu.' | apertium -d . cy-en
> am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to translate him
>

Actually, I really like the attitude this guy takes: http://renatobeninatto.blogspot.com/2008/11/you-cant-make-these-things-up.html

"Translation is for professionals. I can hear the linguists around the world jumping to use this as proof that machine translation doesn't work. Well, the Welsh story is actually just an Out-of-Office reply that the client thought was the translation for the text he or she requested. The client actually sought a professional to do the job."

(Various Welsh-language promoters have all been keen to point out that this kind of message is quite common, but the English equivalent is always written first).


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