Last week, the Malaysian Ministry of Defense posted an English translation of its dress code for employees on its web site. Unfortunately, it appears that they didn’t make arrangements to have the translation work done by a competent translator. The results were predictably hilarious and awkward.

Some of the issues stemmed from simply atrocious grammar. For example, this rather convoluted sentence comes from a screen grab of the web pages in question, now hosted on Scribd since the originals have been taken down:

“Therefore, how to dress and clothes are clean, tidy and appropriate to be standard practice is emphasized to the officers and staff.”

Well, then. That’s enough to give any English teacher a fit, but at least you get the gist of it. But, it gets worse. Women working at the Malaysian Ministry of Defense are advised not to wear “Clothes that poke eye” or “Dress up that thought it seems to want to attend a party or picnic.”

On Thursdays, Male employees who aren’t required to be in uniform must wear “long sleeve batik shirt with collar/ mongoose fight.”

Two mean, carnivorous animals fighting- yes, that’s exactly what I want to be wearing around my neck!

After people got wind of the page’s translation issues, the Ministry became the target of mockery across social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, according to the Uppercaise blog. As a result of the publicity, the English version of the site was taken down.

Malaysian Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told the Star that the errors were due to Google Translate, saying “We have corrected the mistakes and translations are no longer done that way. It is now done manually.”

While these sorts of translation errors are often the fruit of relying on “free” machine translation, Uppercaise discovered that the official statement was probably not the whole story. They ran the original Malay on the site through Google Translate and found significant differences from the translations posted on the website.

The origin of this particular translation fail may always be shrouded in mystery, but the lesson is clear: When it comes to translating your website, take the time and spend the money to use a qualified translation firm!

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Malaysian Defence Awkward Translation

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Thinking of moving your business to China? A word to the wise: hire a skilled translator! As a recent article in the New York Times points out, translating a business name into Chinese requires

much more than Google Translate; you also need a deep understanding of the nuances of Chinese culture to avoid utterly humiliating yourself.

As the Times explains:

“More than many nations, China is a place where names are imbued with deep significance…Given that China’s market for consumer goods is growing by better than 13 percent annually — and luxury-goods sales by 25 percent — an off-key name could have serious financial consequences.”

Sometimes, it’s enough to use Chinese characters to indicate how your brand name should be pronounced. However, you have to be careful to avoid unintended double meanings. For example, the word “Bing” in Mandarin has a few possible meanings, including disease, defect and virus.   A direct phonetic translation could easily leave a Chinese consumer afraid that the search engine would crash his computer.  Microsoft went with “Bi ying” instead, which sounds similar but means “responds without fail.”

For many brands, the most effective strategy is to choose a brand name that has positive connotations for Chinese consumers. If the name turns out to be phonetically close to the original English, so much the better. Here are some examples:

Nike- “Nai ke,” enduring and persevering.
Reebok- “Rui bu,” quick steps.

Colgate- “Gao lu jie,” revealing superior cleanliness.

Citibank- “Hua qi yinhang,” star-spangled banner bank.

Lay’s- “ Le shi,” happy things.

In this 2002 study, companies that chose a Chinese name with a positive meaning were found to be associated with better performance, in the form of increased brand loyalty and commitment. Companies that used a neutral phonetic translation were seen as demonstrating a “passive attitude toward consumers, making it difficult for Chinese consumers to understand the brand’s meaning, and demonstrating indifference toward the target market’s perceptions.”

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Brand Name In China

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Language barriers and mistranslations are fertile ground for comedy. Chinese translations of English seem to be particularly vulnerable to gaffes, possibly due to a shortage of fluent English speakers and a corresponding over-reliance on translation software.

As an aside, it should be noted that English speakers have their own problems when it comes to translating Chinese characters. Also, at least our Eastern brethren’s translation failures seem to be confined to signs and menus as opposed to permanent tattoos. You can always change a sign!

Be that as it may, however, China has become somewhat famous for signs written in hilariously garbled English. It was partially these bad translations that inspired Tony-award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang’s  new Broadway play Chinglish. The play centers around an American businessman trying to land a lucrative contract in China, without being able to speak the language. As Hwang explained in an article for Broadway.com,

“On a trip in 2005, I was taken to a brand-new cultural center in the ultra-modern city of Shanghai, where my father was born and raised. The facility was amazing—Brazilian wood, Italian marble, German design. And then there were these ridiculously translated signs: For instance, the handicapped restrooms read, “Deformed Man’s Toilet.”

Many Chinese people feel that the existence of so many poorly translated signs is an embarrassment. In fact, the Chinese government has made a point of trying to clean up the mistranslations in cities where international events  are being held, like the Olympics in Beijing and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. However, while Mr. Hwang may be touching a sore spot,  he is not out to make fun of the Chinese.

In fact, the play is written and performed in two languages, with the Americans speaking English and the Chinese characters speaking Mandarin. English subtitles keep American audiences from getting lost.

Mr. Hwang told the Wall Street Journal that underneath the humor, the play examines how hard it can be to communicate across cultures:

“As our play tries to show, however, even when you literally understand the words, sometimes you might as well be speaking a different language, because underlying cultural assumptions and practices may vary dramatically between the two cultures.”

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Chinglish

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Frank McCourt’s 1996 memoir Angela’s Ashes chronicled his childhood growing up dirt-poor and hungry in Limerick, Ireland. In writing it, McCourt tried to capture Limerick as he experienced it- the good, the bad and the ugly (and there was an awful lot of ugly).

The book was a hit with both critics and consumers, winning a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award among others.  It was less of a hit in McCourt’s birthplace of Limerick, however, as some residents were unhappy with the way their fair city was portrayed in the novel. Here’s how the Globe described it at the time:

“It wouldn’t be Irish if there wasn’t a split, and the split here is between those who see “Angela’s Ashes” as an exaggerated, mean-spirited attack on the city and its people, and those who embrace the book’s art, humanity, and the attention, whether good or bad, it has brought Limerick.”

Angela’s Ashes was translated into 25 different languages, but when Mr. McCourt died of cancer in 2009, Irish still wasn’t one of them-until now. Luaithreach Angela, an Irish translation of the memoir created by Irish actor and writer Padraic Breathnach, was made available in Ireland on October 10.  A US release is set to follow next month.

Editor Dominic Taylor explained how the project got started on IrishEmigrant.com:

“The publication in the Irish language is a tribute to Frank McCourt’s Irish roots. On the occasion of Frank’s untimely passing in 2009, the Limerick Writers’ Centre made a decision to honor our famous author in a significant way and after much deliberation we decided that it would be appropriate for us to publish an Irish edition of Angela’s Ashes, the book that put Limerick on the literary map.”

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | An Irish Translation for “Angela’s Ashes”‎

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By now, many scientists are willing to accept that intelligent animals like dolphins may have languages of their own. But what about honeybees? They couldn’t possibly have their own language, could they? After all, they’re just bugs! 

Not so fast, say scientists from the University of Dundee in Scotland. They believe that honeybees may, in fact, have a language of their own, and have installed sound monitoring systems in 100 Scottish beehives to see if they can decode and translate it.

Dr. Chris Connolly, a neuroscientist at the University of Dundee and the leader of the project, explained the study in a little bit more depth to ScotlandOnSunday.com:

“They make a whole range of frequencies of noise. What do these sounds mean? Do they have words or phrases to indicate they have got an infection, or they are hungry, or haven’t got a queen? The idea is to record the sounds from lots of different bees and if it transpires that all the bees are making a certain type of noise when they have, say, nosema infections, that would be very interesting. Whether this is just bee noise we don’t know. It may be that there’s a language there.”

Dr. Connolly indicated that the team has already detected some potential patterns in the noises made by the hives they are monitoring:

“It’s very early days but there is some suggestion that it might be possible to identify when a colony is hungry, or about to swarm, or hasn’t got a queen. Bear in mind that this is a social community of 50,000 to 60,000 bees.We want to see if certain noises are indicators of certain conditions.”

Of course, even if certain noises do turn out to indicate certain conditions, that doesn’t necessarily means that bees have a language as linguists understand the term. According to Wikipedia, language is different from other types of communication because “ it allows humans to produce an infinite set of utterances from a finite set of elements” and it because it consists of a system of rules that must be learned through social interaction. That’s why most research projects that have attempted to prove that animals other than humans can use language have focused so much whether or not the animals were able to understand not only individual words but on whether or not they were able to combine the words using proper syntax, which is how word order determines meaning in human languages.

Regardless of whether a hive of bees has a communication system that could be called a language, however, it’s obvious that the individual members of the hive must have some means of communicating with each other. Learning more about how they do that and what the sounds they produce mean may help scientists finally get to the bottom of the colony collapse disorder that has been wreaking havoc on bees worldwide. That’s definitely something to celebrate!

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Translating Honeybees

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When it comes to Afghanistan, winning the all-important “battle of hearts of minds” has proven to be quite difficult…especially when soldiers don’t speak the language. Now, a new, free iPhone app is available to help soldiers learn Dari, one of the local languages. The app, TripLingoDari, was recently profiled on CNN.com.

Dari, the Afghan dialect of Persian, is spoken by about half of the country’s inhabitants. Being able to speak it, even with a limited vocabulary, is a huge advantage for NATO soldiers. Lt. David Duffus of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland told CNN that the app has been a big help: “It helps break the ice with the locals… I can talk directly to the soldiers without needing an interpreter and when we are under fire that can save lives — ours and theirs.”

The app also help soldiers avoid the type of social faux pas that often happen when cultures collide, with a crash course on Afghan etiquette and customs. The app’s creator, Jesse Maddox, usually makes translation apps aimed at tourists. He told CNN.com, “Soldiers aren’t your typical traveler… but, they have the same problems that tourists do and perhaps even more pronounced…The ability to communicate can go far in delighting someone and getting them on your side… It can help make them no longer see you as a foreigner… but as a person.”

TripLingoDari is not a replacement for living, breathing interpreters and translators. The human touch is irreplaceable. Still, the app is designed to be as useful as possible, in that it does not require an Internet connection to work and the vocabulary is geared toward the needs of a soldier. A separate app is available for medical workers, as well.

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | iPhone App Helps Troops

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In 1896, students from Oxford University on backpacking trip stumbled upon a rubbish dump in the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus. To modern archaeologists, the contents were about as far from rubbish as you can possibly get: thousands of pieces of Greek papyri, dating back to the period after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt.

The students collected the papyrus fragments and brought them back to Oxford, but due to the sheer number of fragments, translation has been slow going. As Dr. Chris Lintott of Oxford told the Daily Mail :

“after 100 years we’ve gone through about two per cent, so we thought it was time we called in some help.”

So, who are they calling in for the cavalry? A crack team of linguists? Actually, no- they’re crowdsourcing the translating, allowing everyday people like you and me to help analyse the papyri. Working with a company called Zooniverse, which previously crowdsourced the classification of up to 60 million galaxies, the university has set up a website where anybody with some spare time can help decode the ancient texts.

As project director Dr Dirk Obbink told the BBC:

“We aim to transcribe as much as possible of the original papyri, and then identify and reconstruct the text. No single pair of eyes can see and read everything. From scientists and professors to school students and ancient enthusiasts, everyone has something to contribute – and gain.”

You don’t have to know a thing about ancient Greek to help, either. When you go to the AncientLives.org website, you’ll be presented with a papyrus fragment and a picture of the Greek alphabet, including examples of ancient handwriting to give you an idea of what the letters looked like written down. Using these examples, you can give your best guess about each of the letters on your fragment of papyrus. Then, the fragment is sent to a University scholar for double-checking and translation.

Dr. Chris Lintott told the Daily Mail that the effort is already bearing fruit:

“We’ve already discovered this tiny fragment of what appears to be a lost gospel. We’ve also got a very formal letter from a 14-year-old boy, telling his father unless he was allowed to go to the big city of Alexandria he was not going to eat or drink. So it shows some things never change – including teenagers!”

 

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Ancient Greek Translation

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These days, movies and even TV shows are expected to play for a global audience. However, translating them is often as difficult as translating literature. So much of what makes a successful film or TV show “work” is rooted in local culture. For example, consider Disney’s recent worldwide release of “Cars 2.”   Rick Dempsey, senior vice president of Disney Character Voices, told Forbes that “Mater”, one of the most popular characters, was also the most challenging to translate:

“Mater’s kind of a redneck, but that means nothing to anyone overseas because they don’t have that particular vocal culture. So we had to figure out what region of Germany, for example, has more of an uneducated population without being offensive.”

Another challenge is that even in countries that speak the same language, words can vary in meaning and connotation. So, trying to translate from one widely spoken language to another, like from English to Spanish,  requires in-depth knowledge of how the language is used in all of the countries that speak it. It’s much more difficult that it appears to outsiders. For example, Elena Barciae, who translates English films into Spanish versions aimed at Central and South America, told Forbes:

“The more slang, the harder it gets because slang tends to be very localized. Simple words are affected, too. `Bicho’ means bug everywhere except Puerto Rico, where it’s a slang word for a part of the male anatomy. That wouldn’t go over too well for the title of `A Bug’s Life,’ would it?”

Sometimes, the basic premise simply doesn’t translate. For example, Phil Rosenthal, the writer behind the popular American series “Everybody Loves Raymond,” thought that his sitcom about everyday family life would have universal appeal. Not so much, as it turns out. He told NPR:

“When I got to Russia. They said to me, ‘Real life is terrible, why would we put that on television?”

While he managed to eventually create a version of the sitcom that resonated with Russian audiences, it’s not something he wants to do again.

As the world grows ever smaller, it will become ever more important for studios to hire talented translators. Companies that try to take short cuts will more than likely lose out on international revenue.

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Translation On The Silver Screen

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New York City has long been a city of immigrants, the first stop for the “huddled masses” who got off the boat in Ellis Island. While modern-day Americans like to natter on about how those original huddled masses assimilated themselves immediately while today’s immigrants do not, the truth is that immigrants have long clustered together, creating neighbourhoods that reflect their cultures and remind them of home.

For example, the neighbourhood of Flushing in Queens is primarily Chinese and Korean, and it shows- especially in the Chinese- and Korean-language signs over the doors of shops and restaurants. As Peter Tu, the executive director of the Flushing Chinese Business Association, told the Washington Post :

“People must respect that this is a special area and please respect the Asian culture. They have their own life in this area. When you walk in the street, you don’t feel like you are in America.”

For some New Yorkers, that’s precisely the problem. While many residents embrace the city’s multi-ethnic character, others are annoyed and alienated. In response, the Washington Post reports that two City Councilmen, Dan Halloran and Peter Koo, are drafting legislation that would require translation of foreign-language store signs.

First, effective immediately, stores would have to display their names in English. There is already a law on the books that requires that, but it was created to protect consumers from fly-by-night businesses using false names in the era after the Great Depression. It was never intended to block stores was putting up signs in another language, and it is not presently enforced. The new legislation, if it passes, would require the city to inspect stores for compliance. Then, after a four-year grace period, all businesses would have to have at least 60 percent of their signs in English.

According to Councilman Halloran, the law is “This is designed for public safety, consumer protection and to start increasing the foot traffic into the stores.” Now, it makes sense that you’d want emergency crews to be able to figure out where they’re going as easily as possible (though that really only requires having the store name and address be in English).

However, considering that the merchants themselves don’t seem to want the law (per the Washington Post) and their stores seem to be thriving without it, that bit about increasing foot traffic into the stores smacks of patronisation.  What do you think of this proposal?

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Translation of Foreign Stores

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Language is more than just a set of vocabulary words. For example, think of how two different people can say the same thing two different ways. This complexity is what makes it so hard to create adequate machine translation programs, or even to teach machines to recognize spoken commands.

In an attempt to build cars that people can more easily control with their voices, Ford is teaming up with a company called Nuance Communications to address this issue using a technique called “statistical language modeling,” or SLM.

Ford’s SYNC system is one of the car company’s major selling points, allowing drivers to call people, control the stereo and more, without having to take their eyes off the road. However, at the moment, it’s pretty finicky when it comes to the commands it will accept. Ford programs the car to recognize specific recorded commands. If you try to give the car a command in a different format, it won’t respond.

That’s not how people naturally talk, so basically humans have to be trained to interact with the car. As Ford’s lead engineer for voice control, Brigitte Richardson, told MSNBC,  statistical language modeling is

“a totally different way of doing things. It wants to incorporate more natural ways of talking.” Ideally, you’d drive the car off the lot and it would “just work,” with little to no learning curve.

To reach this goal, Ford is working with Nuance to build an  “inference engine” that can learn, understand, and interpret voice commands.” It won’t be easy, especially since the technology needs to work without the benefit of an internet connection. However, if they are successful, the end result will be a car that you can talk to just as you would another human being- like a less super-powered version of KITT from Knight Rider.

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Speaking With Cars

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