Automatic translation: EPIC FUNNY FAIL!

[seawasp]

As an author, I am of course interested in what people say about my books, no matter what country they're in. As Grand Central Arena is also the first book I've had translated, I'm even more interested in (A) how good the translation is, and (B) what people think of it.

However, automated translation seems... lacking. Here's an example of the translation of a review of Grand Central Arena from Amazon.jp, as translated by Google:

Review Author: Black pussy willow
This review is from: Grand Central Arena (above) (SF Mass Market Paperback) (Paperback)
Ozu is superior to the middle pin and the stage set and story line good enough, or that I bought loss, etc. (that are impolite) but I thought that stage, "Arena" and much of the story moves to the tempo also rise, you suddenly become interesting.

OK What is it that scientists in the macho battle to the captain of a beauty girl, I think people set up a super pretty calm considering, surrounded by a variety of different tribe, must be found in it and survive mankind as a representative, rather it is a good enough.

Yes... er., well, that must be very good, as "Black Pussy Willow" (characters are  黒猫柳) gave GCA five stars. But I'll be damned if I can figure out more than about 10% of what it actually MEANS.

Here's another:

Review Author: Santai
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Grand Central Arena (above) (SF Mass Market Paperback) (Paperback)
Theory and experiment which establishes a different space ultra-fast navigation. To wander the world of miniature garden attracts several thousand aliens, called Arena.
Where witch-like tribes, tribes like the priests, and the tribe faces wicked "challenge" was to compete in a game called.

Have a story or miniature garden world genre yuan, Ranobe Sneaker Bunko "It is their problem child it comes from another world?" Is similar to setting the stage. That aside, until about 2 / 3 上巻 is partly Imaichi illegibility, suddenly becomes interesting and challenging start to the challenge.

The author met with fans in E · E · Smith, the Senate pro game is OK people Supeope body as a scientist at the time.
And the Homage neta more original characters, so this is summarized in the postscript of 下巻 and even,
Seize the characters and enjoy it if you do not mind reading some Netabare. People are concerned about the Netabare Conversely Avoid this.
Inflation is the strength of the human race, scientists and captains of What superhuman strength and hose Supeope opera, partly nostalgia is nice.

This one I think I can make out a little more of, but it has some... bizarre moments in it ("Ranobe Sneaker Bunko"?).

On the positive side, all the reviews thus far are good (4 or 5 stars) and what little I can make out of them seems to indicate they are at least reading something like what I wrote. If I could travel back in time and tell myself to learn Japanese, though, I probably would.

Comments

[shanejayell.livejournal.com]

*snerk*

Yeah, that's pretty amusing.

[kengr]

You think that's bad. You should see what comes out when you run foreign language amateur porn thru google translate.

[shanejayell.livejournal.com]

And... why would you do that?

*lol*

Never mind, don't wanna know.

[kengr]

And... why would you do that?

Surely the answer is obvious?

[seawasp]

But there's PLENTY of English-language porn.

[kengr]

Ah, but there was a site catering to a somewhat unusual kink that had folks posting not just in English, but in German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and even Chinese.

And the German stuff wasn't half-bad until you hit one of the spots where the translator didn't know the slang or idiom.

[kjn]

Heh. If we ever get to meet over a beer, ask me about the story of the Scandinavaian porn magazines and how a friend of mine got an apology out of Harlan Ellison.

[alexey-rom.livejournal.com]

But is it as funny when run through Google Translate?

[kjn]

Maskinöversättning blir mycket svårare när två språk är mycket olika grammatiskt eller konceptuellt, och finns det grammatiska fel i källtexten så blir det än värre.

Så dina översättningar från japanska till engelska här är nog bland de värsta tänkbara fallen – det enda goda är nog att det finns en ganska stor korpus av översättningar från japanska till engelska.

(Enter into Google Translate for a comparison!)

[seawasp]

Yes, I'm aware of that; I wasn't saying there's something particularly wrong with Google's version compared to someone else's. Translating to or from Japanese into/to English is not an easy task; I know of a couple cases where a quite experienced translator missed verbal cues (trying to translate from what they heard) and translated the OPPOSITE meaning of what was really being said.

If you have closely related languages it's much easier, and in fact I found that if I select Norwegian rather than Swedish I still get enough translated to have guessed at more of your meaning than I did with the Japanese!

[kjn]

I think the funniest translation is the name of one of the reviewers: Black pussy willow. Wonder what that was supposed to have been originally!

I know quite a few of my anime-watching friends lament the fact that most anime released in Sweden has first been translated to English, and from that to Swedish. A big reason for that is that there apparently are a lot more cultural-linguistic similarities between Swedish and Japanese than it is between English and Japanese.

[seawasp]

I suspect that's actually the name, in that those were (I think) Kanji. But the actual NAME probably doesn't MEAN that any more than my name MEANS "State(sman) Prince Spur".

I suspect a shortage of Japanese-Swedish translators. If enough people know English to the point that it's hard for an American to get immersive language learning in Swedish, there's probably a huge number of English-Swedish translators (or fan translators), but a vastly smaller set of Japanese-Swedish translators.

[aardy.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, 黒猫柳 = Kuroneko Yanagi (or, for Westerners, Yanagi Kuroneko). Kuroneko does happen to mean "Black Cat", and Yanagi does happen to mean "Willow tree", but in this case it almost certainly is just a name rather than a pseudonym.

(And no, I don't speak a word of Japanese, I just have a lot of experience with transliterating Japanese words, especially names.)

Its not just the reviews that get lost in translation

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

This is almost comprehensible:

The contents ("BOOK" from the database)
2375 years, mankind's first ultra high-speed boat navigation experiment "holy grail" moment beyond the speed of light had spread to a huge enclosed space. There are over 4000 all races have developed a super-fast navigation of this galaxy far, was the grand arena of competing unrivaled supremacy over? Resupairotto female beauty is the captain, a young genius physicist, superman Earthlings eight hidden special abilities, such as power engineering, such as Hulk is over the fate of mankind, the affront to tribal powers the mighty galaxies! -.

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

At least they've got an EXCUSE, once this starts getting assigned for Japanese summer reading lists, for finding meanings in it that you never put there!

--Dave, origami rorschach

[seawasp]

Ah, the very thought of my book being assigned for reading lists... guaranteed royalties FOREVER...