Sack the translator - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: BurningTantalum
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 07:43:33 am
content: I have just ordered a couple of OP275s from RS Au for a DAC repair. I also had a look on eBay to see how much the 'fake' ones were. I found this masterpiece of translation:https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Bile-taste-op-amp-OP275-authentic-licensed/132976113777?hash=item1ef5fe7871:g:IzEAAOSwA0JcfeChWhat is that all about?BT

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 07:57:04 am
content: That you shouldn't eat them, they taste bile!

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 08:21:22 am
content: The world is full of examples of bad translation and some of them can be quite amusing. Being a bilingual country there is legislation in Wales that insists that traffic signs should be in Welsh and English, except that sometimes the technology gets in the way:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7702913.stm

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 08:36:52 am
content: Quote from: BurningTantalum on July 13, 2019, 07:43:33 amMost likely it's a machine translation. 'Puters are notoriously bad at understanding context! But it also makes me wonder just what the original wording was like! I suspect it was rather flowery marketing copy to begin with, which is even harder to translate well.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 08:38:08 am
content: Quote from: German_EE on July 13, 2019, 08:21:22 amThat one's a classic! There are other examples from around the world, like ones where the the translation says things like "Error: translation service timeout"

author: John B
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 08:42:58 am
content: What's worse is that it's badly translated audiophile speak:Quote

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 10:04:49 am
content: Quote from: tooki on July 13, 2019, 08:36:52 amIf you (or anyone else) use that abomination of an 'abbreviation' again, I will make it my life's goal to cross Europe, on foot if necessary, track you down, and grasp you by the throat until I am holding your lifeless body.Just saying.Sorry, just an irrational sensitivity that makes me chew the furniture!P.S. I think it's something to do with the way it sounds and being harder to type. There was a kid on another forum who used to use it in practically every sentence, I think he though it made him look 'hip'. I just had to leave in the end!

author: OwO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 11:20:48 am
content: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.226.3b2c64a755DJ2F&id=520734353439&ns=1&abbucket=11#detail"胆味浓" means bold, but literally means "bile taste strong".

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 11:10:19 pm
content: Quote from: BurningTantalum on July 13, 2019, 07:43:33 amPerhaps that is what they taste like. I'm more impressed by the 106db gain and 9MHz bandwidth. Thats a GB of 1.8THz. For two bucks!

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2019, 04:24:39 am
content: Quote from: German_EE on July 13, 2019, 08:21:22 amIn Helsinki, there is a subway stop "Kaisaniemi". In Swedish, it is "Kajsaniemi". When spoken, they sound identical. A lot of people, especially tourists, wondered why it was said on the loudspeaker twice. It took years for the city, and untold paid hours of planning and discussion, to decide to just drop it to one utterance...Then, soon after, they changed the stop name to University of Helsinki. Because reasons.

author: BurningTantalum
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2019, 05:13:26 am
content: Thanks OwO, that explains it nicely. I must confess to some of my own howlers, as I spent a large part of my working life in countries with a different language to mine including several years in the People's Republic of China. A foreign language can be a very dangerous thing, and the point at which one has a reasonable smattering can lull one into leaping into deep waters. I was once honoured with an invite to the house of the head of an import/export corporation. He had a daughter who spoke a reasonable amount of English and the conversation turned to the fact that she was in her twenties and had not found a husband. I cottoned on that it was possible that I was being considered for this prestigious post, so to save her obvious embarrassment and mine, I set off blathering in my best Putung Hua and, translating on the fly from colloquial English, said that she had plenty of time as she was just a spring chicken. There was a deadly silence and I knew I had cocked up badly but not how or why. The daughter set off in a distraught gabble to her dad and eventually the smiles returned. She later explained that I had said that she was a prostitute.Keeping to the China theme (sorry OwO and Blueskull...) but I have a picture somewhere of a sign in English and Chinese that sat on the Shenzhen side of the Lo Wu border crossing back to the New Territories about 30 years ago. It had a whole lot of info about customs and behaviour when travelling into Hong Kong, including: 'No scattering of coals', and 'No sh*tting and p*ssing at random'.In Russia I finished commissioning some equipment but there was no Russian language file in the display. I sat down with the interpreter to translate the 50 or so English messages, but he had no technical background and it was hopeless ('output moisture level out of limit' etc.) Eventually I borrowed a production worker and what I estimated would take an hour (1 per minute) took two days. All was well the next day and the machines were humming. Then came a stoppage and all heads turned to look at the display, and gales of laughter floated around. The workshop manager waddled down to see what the fuss was, and he was very wobbly large. It turned out that the display said "outfeed clutch. Call the big fat b*stard" or words to that effect. Fingers pointed at me, and I couldn't dob in the worker who had slid off to the toilets at this point.Regards, BT

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2019, 07:29:32 am
content: Back in the day, French & German manufacturers seemed to have a very "laid back" attitude to technical translations.My theory was they got the office girl, who had an English boyfriend, & knew a bit of that language, to do the job!The Germans included a text in their own language, which was usually quite helpful, as you could usually "nut out" what was meant by comparing the two texts.Unfortunately, the French usually just provided the English translation, leaving you to your own resources.Perhaps for this very reason, the Engineering Associateship course at the old Perth Tech included a subject called "Technical German".They didn't teach "Technical French", though!

author: TheWelly888
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2019, 11:54:13 am
content: I was updating a German made syringe pump and this screen came up with my favourite "Gerglish"!

author: BU508A
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2019, 12:26:02 pm
content: Quote from: OwO on July 13, 2019, 11:20:48 amInteresting. There are Hiragana signs in your footer but your flag is stating "China"?

author: OwO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2019, 03:06:09 pm
content: Quote from: BU508A on July 14, 2019, 12:26:02 pmAnyone who knows both Japanese and Chinese can easily tell what it says

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 08:36:58 am
content: Quote from: TheWelly888 on July 14, 2019, 11:54:13 am”Denglisch” is the common name for it! :pThat text looks exactly like so many I’ve seen over here over the years. Classic transliteration using the first definition in the dictionary instead of actual translation...Quote from: vk6zgo on July 14, 2019, 07:29:32 amWhen I moved back to Switzerland, my first job was at a software company, where I was hired to do the translation of the product and all ancillary text (website, manuals, in-program contextual help, correspondence templates, etc). When they hired me, they already had an initial translation, done by... drumroll please... the old bookkeeper. At first I tried just cleaning it up, but after finding enough places where the content of the translation was totally wrong, I told the bosses that comparing her translation to the German original was actually far more time consuming than just translating afresh (which is absolutely true), and we decided to scrap her translation and I did a clean-slate translation that ended up coming out really well.

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 07:42:02 pm
content: Quote from: OwO on July 13, 2019, 11:20:48 amOnly a native language speaker can know this kind of stuff! And, I'm sure there are similar examples in every language.Jon

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 07:50:22 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on July 15, 2019, 08:36:58 amI have a Philips pick and place machine, made by Yamaha. I have three generations of the operator's manual. The first must have been a poor translation from Japanese to Dutch to English, and was really bad. The second was much better, but not really a good manual. The last one appears to have been almost a total rewrite, done by a guy who was fluent in English AND PC board assembly. Most of the screen shots and drawings are the same, but the text is MUCH better at explaining the procedures.From experience in reading English manuals from a variety of Japanese gear, there seems to be a cultural thing where you must not tell somebody how to do a procedure, as that could be condescending. You explain how a thing works, and the reader has to figure out how to perform the procedure.Jon

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 09:55:06 pm
content: In the begin of the 70s japanese manuals translated in english then to dutch were famous for a good laugh.Examples that I remember where:-How to check the operation of the screenTranslated to: How the operational chess is screened- Insert the mains jack in the wall socketTranslated to: Stick the first car jack in the wallThat kind of direct vocabulary translations were quite common

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2019, 10:02:43 pm
content: "bile taste" means "sound like tube amplifier""authentic licensed" means "genuine"

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2019, 02:43:09 am
content: This image attached here shows the translation for an LED floodlight I bought on eBay from a vendor in Australia. The translation is the worst I have ever seen come out of China, and doesn't even match the device I bought. Maybe the manufacturers do not have access to Google Translate because their communist leaders might view it as a threat to their absolute power. In any case, many Chinese manufacturers don't want to spend the money to engage professional translators, but instead would rather make themselves look like idiots."radar voted induction light lamp induction device (3G following) using more general Le effect prinicple." I feel ripped off - the voted radar does not work and I could not find where to plug in the 3G! At least the radar supports democracy.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2019, 06:12:00 am
content: For many years, NEC TV Transmitters had a perfectly good English text in their Workshop manuals, but the Safety pages were an insert in the beginning of the book, with the most hilarious "Japlish".Of course, everybody read it and had a good chuckle.I began to feel that it was done on purpose, so users, who might normally just ignore tnose pages in their haste to get to the technical stuff, would pause & read it.Even though it was funny, it still gave plenty of good safety information!

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2019, 06:56:37 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on July 16, 2019, 03:39:33 amSo why have they thrown in French words. Google Translate is is not that dumb and could not be that bad, so your theory that they used Google Translate might be incorrect. I doubt a locally written Chinese translating service could not have done such shoddy job. Some words run together without spaces, and there is a serious absence of punctuation. They should have a least used someone who knew English to check it. I believe China is teaching most young people English. Even a millennial phone text addict here could not decode the instructions. Their response would have been: RTFM - > LOL -> ROFL -> LMAO -> GTG.It would not cost a lot of money to hire a translator, surely, when trying to sell a product overseas. The hardware quality was quite good, by the way. They just spoil their product with rubbish documentation.A friend of mine, a highly qualified and experienced tech professional from IBM started a business doing professional translations for websites, user guides and datasheets from Chinese to English. His tried hard but his business failed, because according to him he could not get anyone interested. Strange.

author: Kremmen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2019, 11:43:54 am
content: Quote from: BurningTantalum on July 13, 2019, 07:43:33 amAs per EU regulations products require attached instructions in local language. Much hilarity and despair has ensued as a result of the machine translation efforts from almost any language to Finnish which is unrelated to almost anything else. There is a legendary translation for instructions how to set up a childrens' inflatable pool. It makes absolutely no sense and is garbled beyond belief. The translation still circulates in the net after several years.

author: Lord of nothing
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2019, 03:26:44 pm
content: QuoteWell when I hear a German speaking if feel like the Translate everything from Klingon.QuoteThats why we should use the "D" Translation? NAZIS!

author: mfro
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2019, 04:53:16 pm
content: Quote from: TheWelly888 on July 14, 2019, 11:54:13 am... German machines have attitude. Remarkable

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2019, 05:05:09 pm
content: Quote from: Kremmen on August 12, 2019, 11:43:54 amYes, and it's not a pure EU regulation. It came from several major european countries already having such a law BEFORE it was regulated at the EU level. The same probably applies to many other countries outside of the EU. I doubt you're allowed to sell a product in the US with instructions in German but not in English.And it's just common sense really.Sure with the global market we have now, it can take a lot of work to get all the translations. Many companies will handle the work to a human translator for a couple of the main languages they are targetting, and the rest will be done with automated tools. Sometimes if they have a local sales network, they will ask the distributor to do the translation. Which may not yield anything much better than Google translate as the distributor may not have a very good command of the original language either. Translation is a skill.

author: TheNewLab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2019, 06:50:24 pm
content: Quote from: jmelson on July 15, 2019, 07:42:02 pmChinese characters or Kanji (which roughly means Chinese characters).Had Japanese and Chinese students in classes. They my not speak the same language, but passing notes around was a breeze and the professor cuoldn't get upset, because it might have been students helping each other out re the class.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2019, 12:22:42 pm
content: Visiting German friends, (limited English), questioned me why there are so many shopsselling 'Poisons' ?? As "Gift Shop" in German would mean "Poison Shop". Simply justa coincidence though, with the same word & spelling !! Different meaning though...As a Tech, and learning German for personal reasons, I would often have to translateTechnical Schematics of German equipment/machines, to help others. I quickly realizedthat although I understood them, the majority of the words/phrases were quite technical,and even the majority of German 'layfolk' do not even understand ! Like....Überstromrelais(Over Current Relay)Quecksilberschalter(Mercury Tilt Switch).Motorklemmenkasten(Elect Motor Terminal Box)Klemmenschiene(Terminal Rail)Druckknopf or Taste(a 'Work Knob', or Elect push Button). They don't 'taste' of bile eitherSteuerkreis or Steurungplan(Control Circuit/diagram). 'Steuerung' (Steering!!)And hundreds of others. Not hard, but just not everyday German speech.Sorry if my Grammar/word-Gender is not perfect, but was the best I could do at the time!!

author: Lord of nothing
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2019, 12:32:48 pm
content: I am not a German but if you have some trouble to find the right translation I could help.the Germans are Crazy.Like we are going into the School the are just going to School.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2019, 01:03:19 pm
content: Actually the Germans are still rather practical.But there are countries that are so proud of their language they refuse to accept even common English words like "computer".In French for instance it is "ordinateur". Not sure if it is changing lately, probably due to the internet the youngster speak good English now, but when we went on holiday in the 70s no-one spoke a word English. As a kid I used handsignalling to the other French kids to at least get some communication going

author: Lord of nothing
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2019, 01:41:53 pm
content: Quotesince WW2 the Germans get drilled to be proud of nothing. The must have there Country, there Language everything.Its a leftish dream. If someone love there Country the called them a Nazi.Because I love my Country I must hate the Germans.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2019, 12:39:38 pm
content: To "Lord of nothing"....I know that"I"often get off track in my posts...But you seem to be oneAngryand biased "Mo$%er Fu%^er"?I can't see anything said initially, or up to & including this, that would Prompt the likes of youto decide in your racially biased 'brain' to say/do what you are 'trying' to say/do?Obviously you hate Germans. Ok... Do you think that their visiting youths of today, are all nowNAZI followers???.... I've seen young Japanese people here in Australia visiting military places,that have tears in their eyes for what their 'forebears' have done... You need to stop 'painting'everyone with the same brush... TODAY.... or else Fuck Off from this discussion.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2019, 12:55:13 pm
content: Do not throw multiple punctuation characters in a row Glenn, they get translated to the emoticons by the forum software.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2019, 01:11:32 pm
content: @GlennSpriggNot that I agree with LoN but I don't believe that is the point he was making.His point which is correct IMO is that Germans were after WW2 group forced into not being proud of their language, country and achievements anymore, a nationwide shame was carried.The sad truth again IMO is that the black period of AH and his followers totally overshadowed all great scientific achievements the germans had made between 1915 and 1935 and even later on.They were global scientific frontiers, all forgotten and buried due to the horrible period in history that followed.It was not for nothing that the most famous scientists were seen as wartrophies to be grapped asap to America and Russia.But he could stay more ontopic and express himself more clearly thats for sure.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2019, 01:30:16 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on August 23, 2019, 12:55:13 pmI can see that... but this comment is equally off topic, and not helpful in the circumstance....

author: rhodges
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2019, 01:30:57 pm
content: Going back to translations...I saw a package for a toy doll. The idea was, you toss the doll (not too high, I hope) and the doll giggles.The packaging said, "She laughs while you throw up!"

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2019, 02:53:56 pm
content: Quote from: rhodges on August 23, 2019, 01:30:57 pm

author: Lord of nothing
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2019, 03:24:30 pm
content: QuoteIts seem to. When I watch RTL Austria, Pro7 Austria,... and the say "here in Germany", "we Germans",...Its seem the still use this Map:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Grossdeutsches_Reich_Staatliche_Administration_1944.png

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2019, 03:37:26 pm
content: Quote from: GlennSprigg on August 23, 2019, 01:30:16 pmOf course it is. It will help you to deliver your thoughts better by typing clear. If you look back at your posts they look chicken mess because of overuse of punctuation that gets worse when the forum converts them to emoticons.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2019, 06:29:54 pm
content: The translation is probably unintentionally accurate - if you buy it, you will taste bile since it's probably a fake.