Binged and Googled

Madame Thalia insisted that I (her humble servant, please not to forget) follow up on the Bing Translator vs. Google Translate controversy.  She was quite appalled that a friend of hers, one who wishes to remain anonymous, had used Bing to translate two Korean comments that had been left on her Facebook page (no, Madame is not so old-fashioned, or old, that she does not keep up with the times!).  This friend, reared in what is most inaccurately called 'The West' and knowing absolutely nothing about any language except one or two falling squarely under the Indo-European umbrella constructed by Europeans in the 19th century, was surprised, indeed appalled, to find that Bing could not instantly take a comment from Seoul and render it into an English that she, in Gotham City, could at once understand.  Her coy post:  "I hope that Bing didn't quit her day job!"

Curious, Madame sent me on errand after errand in an effort to understand her friend's foolishness.  It was I, therefore, who copy-and-pasted the Korean remarks into, first, Bing and then into Google.  Let's see what happens.

The first remark was left by a native Korean speaker.  Here it is, complete with the trendy texting symbols:  윤성 산에서 훈련해요 ㅠ 5일동안 텐테에서자요ㅠ

Notice first that there is no punctuation--something that can make all the difference in the world to Bing or Google's translations.  Periods are an absolute must, and yet the native Korean speaker did not bother with any periods--presumably in keeping with the same trends we see in English language texting.

At any rate, here are the two translations:

Bing:  I'm a great 5 days training in Seongsan-Yoon ten sleep from me ㅠ

Google:  I trained in the mountains Yun, Seong sleep in a tent while 05 ㅠ ㅠ

You can see at once that they are very different, but more importantly you can see (especially if you know no Korean) that they make little sense.  If you know some Korean, you can probably figure out what meaning was intended:

Meaning:  Yoon-Sung is training in the mountains.  He has to sleep in a tent for five days.  [The texting 유 signifies sadness on the part of the speaker, a little playfully]

In both translations, notice, the correct subject of 'training in the mountains' is wrong, and I have no idea why both Bing and Google would make this error.  Any native Koreans reading this blog?    Why Bing translated the cognate for 'tent' as 'ten' is a mystery indeed.  

Of course, overall there are so many errors and awkward constructions that anyone not familiar with at least some Korean will simply turn away.

Let's try another.  This time let's use the Korean post of a non-Korean, someone (OK, it's me, I confess) whose native language (alas) is English.  

The post:  아이구! 너무 어렵습니다!   

This post was no doubt very awkward to my Korean friend, but I'm sure she could understand my meaning and my intention (because she got used to my butchered Korean over the course of many years).    Here, anyhow, are the two translations:

Bing:  Kids!  Is too difficult!

Google:  Oops!  Too difficult!

You can see at once that both translations are more similar this time.  Why?  I suspect it's because both 'sentences' (as determined by punctuation) are very short.   The moral?  If you use either Bing or Google, break down what you're trying to translate--into sentences, at the very least, and probably into phrases for better results.

Still, neither translation is very good, not very good at all.  It's especially surprising that Bing thought the first 'sentence' meant 'kids.'  It did so (I argue) because the word for 'children' is very similar, and in the Bing dictionary (so to speak) there is simply a typo.

But the Korean word doesn't mean 'oops' either, or at least it rarely means that.  It's a very all-purpose interjection, one of the first words a foreigner living in Korean is likely to learn.  Here, I would translate it as "Oh, no!"

The other 'sentence' (and it is a full sentence in Korean) is accurately translated (because Korean does not demand sentences have subjects).  Still, the translation is not good.  Why?  Because of me.  I simply didn't know what a native Korean would say in that such situation.   I have since remembered what one might say, but (as the French would say) what good is l'esprit de l'escalier?