The Conservative MP for Ynys Mon, Virginia Crosbie, has officially apologised for translation errors spotted by constituents on her Welsh Language website according to BBC news online.
Virginia Crosby said the translation was an “automatic translation” and was “not 100% perfect”.
The translation errors found were on press releases issued by the MP on her website.
The first was a reference to the 2 Sisters plant on Anglesey which was automatically translated to “2 chwaer blanhighyn” which refers to a plant growing in nature, as opposed to the factory type of plant which was originally intended.
The second mistranslation was referring to a sewer (as in, one who sews) but was instead translated as sewers, referring to the channels taking sewage away that are found underground.
The third mistranslation was found on an action button which invited constituents to book a phone surgery. The button stated “Rwyf am archebu llawdriniaeth ffôn”.
However, the word “Llawdriniaeth” refers to the type of surgery performed by a surgeon (in an operating theatre) as opposed to the type of ‘surgery’ offered by MPs for their constituents.
The nature of these translation mistakes highlights the need for contextual understanding which can only be obtained by human translators and linguists. At present, automatic machine translation does not offer an accurate, viable alternative to human translators.
Machine translations are notoriously erroneous and have caused a whole host of previous embarrassments for governments, organisations and individuals around the world.
In February this year (2020), Facebook had to apologise to Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, when his name was automatically translated from Burmese to English as “Mr. Shithole”.
Facebook were again at the centre of an awkward machine mistranslation in 2018; when an earthquake hit the Islands of Indonesia, Facebook users began expressing their concern and messaging their family and friends asking if they were ‘selamat’, meaning ‘safe’ or ‘unhurt’.
However, the automatic translation assumed that users meant ‘congratulations’ or ‘happy’ which is the same Indonesian word (selamat) but used in a different context.
Unfortunately, messages began showing with celebratory images such as balloons and confetti, causing users to take to Twitter to show their irritation at the mistranslation.
Human translations are still the most reliable, accurate and precise form of translation available and the only way to avoid embarrassing mistranslations and linguistic errors!
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