Google Translate serves translations "Welsh scummy"

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Chelsea Dickenson

This is an amazing technology – put a sentence in a box and see it translated into the One of 103 languages. But what impact does Google Translate have on a minority language?

This is what we explore in Click for Cymraeg, a BBC Radio Wales program that studies how the translation service of the research giant has influenced the Welsh language.

It is in August 2009 that Welsh arrived on Google Translate. The story of a service that was launched in 2006.

"The reason was that it worked," says Macduff Hughes, the director of engineering at the helm of the project.

"Google Translate is built by finding language data on the web."

There were enough examples of online Welsh translations for Google computers to work and build a machine translation service of sufficient quality.

This was at least the theory. But not everyone agreed on quality.

Soon people started to notice that Google Translate often made mutilated or absurd sentences.

And often, according to comedian Gary Slaymaker, they made their way through public documents and posters to reduce the cost of translation.

"Rather than paying for a Welsh translator breathing, they'll put their translations through Google Translate and finish with word gruel," he says

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Chelsea Dickenson

Soon the term Scymraeg, or Welsh scummy, was born and he really took it – it's part of Gary's stand-up routine, and examples are posted via a Twitter hashtag and in a Flickr group.

Among them, a sign saying "Blasting in Progress" was translated as "Gweithwyr yn ffrwydro" or "exploding workers".

Ben Screen, a translator working for the NHS, says that all this has created "negative feelings" about the service. "There are so many translations in the public sector," he explains.

"People used Google Translate all the time for their documents and websites and the signs in particular and they were wrong."

There was also concern about the impact on language learning – once schoolchildren have a website to do their Welsh homework, would that not really prevent them from understanding the language?

At Willows High School in Cardiff, Welsh leader Abi Rees meets a half-dozen students to discuss about this issue.

All but one admit that they use Google Translate for their homework.

"It's a very good method of learning new languages ​​and it's so approachable that having it in your pocket," says Isabel.

To my surprise, Ms. Rees is also enthusiastic.

"Personally, I think it's a good thing because it gives students the confidence to finish their work," she says.

"As long as they use it as a means of support, and do not trust

But then she takes the students in an exercise that illustrates the limitations of technology. [19659005] They are given two-way Welsh words – "ysgol", for example, may mean school or ladder, and Google Translate ends up telling them "the school is in the hangar."

Ms. Rees says that she spots this kind of mistakes appear in homework but still thinks that Google Translation is "a very good tool" to support students.

"But I do not think translators from around the world need to Worrying about their work, "she adds.

" Life or death matters "

It is clear that this technology is advancing rapidly Google has decided to include Welsh on the service, with a leap forward over the past two years as a technique called deep learning produces translators much more precise

But Mr. Hughes of Google, who has Welsh ancestors and took a course in the language a few years back, urges caution with the way the service is used.

"You should use it when you need to communicate and understand and you have a reasonable tolerance for mistakes," he says.

For example, he explains how he used it successfully in Japan in search of laces. But he says, "I would not use it for high stakes things today without review – legal contracts, life and death issues."

And even professional translators like Mr Screen think that Google Translate can be a useful tool.

"The way we would use it would be that you use source text for English and pbad it through Google first – Google would give you something," he explains.

"More often than not, it will have to be corrected, but correct is easier cognitively – most has been made for you."

Surely, however, technology improves and s & # 39; more easily integrates into phone applications and headphones, the day when you can do without a human translator is not far away?

million. Hughes does not believe this will happen anytime soon – he thinks technology will make the life of translators more creative.

"I think this will advance their work to greater value and it has a message for those who want language and its translators to develop in the machine age – it depends on the Welsh community who continues to take care of him by the way and embrace the Welsh language ".