We're secretly using Babelfish

* * * * *

We're secretly using Babelfish

> **To:** <[email protected]>
> **From:** <[email protected]>
> **Subject:** RE: updated translations of conman.org into 8 languages
> [although I never responded or sent them email in the first place]
> **Date:** Mon, 20 Oct 2003 03:36:29 -0400
>
>
> Could you please check our updated translations of conman.org into eight
> languages, if you don't mind, at: http://www-
> topsites.com/update.htm?d=conman.org&v=1010&e=w&p=t [1]
>
> Do they look OK? If so, there's no need to reply. Simply paste the
> following code onto your web pages. This will make your web site readable
> by the 90% of the world who can't read English (for only $5 a month).
>
> <script src="http://www-topsites.com/t.js"> </script>
>
> Thanks,
>
> John
>

As unsolicited email goes, it could be worse (“Increase your mortgate by 3″
with all natural ingredients!!!!!!!!”) and I am curious as to the
translations they've supposedly done.

So I check.

And yes, there on the page is Conman Laboratories [2] in eight different
languages (and I must say I do like the look of the Japanese, Chinese and
Korean versions). But not everything is translated: ragtag, bug-free and what
I can only assume are misspelled English words that didn't get translated.
This to me screams “machine generated” translations—come on, if Google [3]
can fix my spelling, and even I can handle misspellings [4] it can't be all
that hard to handle.

Scrolling to the bottom of the page are some rather interesting notes:

> * Costs: We charge $5 a month for our translation services. After a free
> trial period, we will contact you to see if you would like to continue.
> * Copyright: You are welcome to try out our translation links but you may
> not copy our actual translations of your pages unless you prepay a year's
> translations services.
> * Pasting the code: You must paste our code while you can see your html
> code and it must look exactly like this after you have pasted it. Some
> web design software require that you first paste the code into your
> Notepad program, then copy and paste it into your html code. (This
> removes html formatting.) The code will not work if your visitors can see
> the code.
> * Frames: The translation links may not work properly when you put them on
> framed pages.
> * Non-English pages: The links translate English in other languages. If you
> click on them while viewing an already translated page (e.g. if you try
> to translate German in Spanish), you will get an error message.
> * Manual Translations: If you prefer, we can also translate, edit and
> design your multilingual site entirely by hand. That gives you more
> control and accuracy but it increases your cost to 29-cents per word per
> language. (The 29-cent covers both translation and html design.)
>

Five bucks a month? That, I can see for a site that changes quite often, or
adds content on a continual basis, but for a mostly static site? Not really.

I was also curious as to the HTML (HyperText Markup Language) being generated
since I am rather sensitive to these issues, and that's when I found out how
TopSites [5] is doing their translation. Right at the top of the page, I
found the following comment:

> 
>

Nowhere on TopSites' site did I see mention a partnership with Altavista's
Babelfish [6]. Not one. And given the garbage HTML being generated:

> <html> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
>
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
> "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
>
> <html lang="en-US">
> 
> <base href="http://boston.conman.org/">
> <script LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
> </SCRIPT>
>
> <head>
> <title>The Boston Diaries - Captain Napalm
> </title>
>

I'm not sure I would even use them, Babelfish or not. They didn't even bother
to translate the title (although I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the
pseudo-software TopSites is using, or of Babelfish itself).

So much for strict HTML 4.01 compliance. They didn't even bother to set the
language code in the <HTML> tag like I did. Sheesh!

Think I'll pass …

[1] http://www-topsites.com/update.htm?d=conman.org&v=1010&e=w&p=t
[2] http://www.conman.org/
[3] http://www.google.com/
[4] http://literature.conman.org/bible/
[5] http://www-topsites.com/
[6] http://babel.altavista.com/

Email author at [email protected]