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Babbling Babel Fish sparks international incident

theregister.co.uk — A word of advice: Never use Babel Fish to communicate with the Dutch Foreign Minister.

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  • CyberArmy, on 11/13/2007, -1/+16This is priceless!
    • Sven333, on 11/10/2007, -2/+0I think Borat said it best... "Very Nice!"
      • Giga, on 11/09/2007, -0/+0You know, Borat isn't the only one that can say "Very Nice!"
        • Sven333, on 11/09/2007, -0/+1You make a Very Nice argument, but I still disagree.
  • jamdogg, on 11/09/2007, -0/+33So THAT's why I keep losing foreign customers on ebay.
    • solid12345, on 11/10/2007, -1/+2Hi, my name is Mebunto, I am from Nigeria, may I have a minute of your time?
      • yahoofrom, on 11/10/2007, -0/+10hi i am sleep on Nigeria are can eat your part of clock?
  • knomevol, on 11/09/2007, -0/+18i've tried using babel fish several times to speak in a recipient's mother tongue. before sending away, though, i had the audacity to paste the foreign language back in and have it translated back to english. more often than not, the resulting nonsense made me resort to a completely english communication.
    • airwalkery2k, on 11/09/2007, -0/+24Translated from English > Dutch > French > German > English >Japanese > English

      As for me in spite even to that of the receiver, the complete English report ending in nonsense compared to there is no I frequently, it was translated because there is English it made in them themselves, but he who possesses the courage to which I acquire foreign language in the center, before I who am the acquisition of toevlucht refer to the part using the fish in order to speak in home country language, you try and the plural returns, do not have Babel and.
    • spyrochaete, on 11/08/2007, -0/+8That doesn't really work. Languages are structured differently so you can't really convert to and from and expect it to be perfect.

      For example, in English we say "I am thirsty" while in French you say "J'ai soif" which translates literally to "I have thirst."
      • lemur, on 11/09/2007, -0/+3"I have thirst" is nothing compared to some difference among other languages. For example, in Hindi prepositions are frequently used in place of how we normally use verbs in English. For example, in English, "Do you have it?" becomes, "Is it your with?" In the same sense as, "Is it with you?" Possession is not indicated by the verb. The phrase, "Get off of me," might translate into something like, "Go from my above." You can see that each series of words assigns a part of the meaning to a different word, but the overall meaning is the same.
    • Spoomeister, on 11/08/2007, -2/+2Is anyone from babelfish listening? This is a great feature request for their page. I do this all the time, where I push a phrase through, e.g. English to German, then copy that exact German phrase back German to English as a sanity check.

      Of course, the article's been updated to note that it wasn't babelfish.
    • varchar255, on 11/09/2007, -0/+9I translated knomevol's comment to Spanish and back using Google Translate. Here's what I got:

      "I tried to use Babel fish several times to speak in a language of the recipient. Before sending away, however, had the audacity to paste the foreign language in the back and have been translated into English. Most of the time, the absurd result made me resort to a completely English communication."

      Not too bad...it even capitalized "English" for me.
    • xp3ll3d, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1I've been doing this for mandarin. Translating english to chinese, then pasting it back in and converting back from chinese to english to see if it was an alright translation.
      Was getting tedious, so i wrote a quick .NET app (took me like 5 mins) to do this translation for me.
      3 text boxes and a button. simplicity

      if anyone else wants to give it a try, here is the method that does the online fetching
      http://blogs.msdn.com/shahpiyush/archive/2007/06/0 ...
  • chris9902, on 11/09/2007, -13/+31"How could this email possibly have been sent? These journalists have sparked a major, major incident,"

    what a dick. Many people don't speak or understand foreign languages. No need to get your panties in a bunch about it.
    • over90000, on 11/09/2007, -2/+8actually unless you happen to be american on english, there is a high chance you are multilingual.
    • Spoomeister, on 11/09/2007, -0/+14You sort of expect a journalist to either a) speak your language or b) hire a professional translator. This isn't a guy asking directions on a street corner. This is a formal press conference with an official representative of a sovreign nation.
    • merreborn, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1When you're communicating with foreign diplomats, you have to be ***** careful. You have to respect every little cultural expectation -- a greeting that's considered completely normal in your home country may be incredibly offensive in someone else's.

      You sure as hell don't send messages that you aren't *completely confident* communicate exactly what you intend them to, in a polite tone.
  • celeb, on 11/09/2007, -19/+5Another story directly from Reddit... Depressing
    • ErrorBorn, on 11/08/2007, -1/+8You know whats really depressing? That you use two sites that do the exact same thing. That also apparently have the same content.
    • winmywii, on 11/08/2007, -1/+6Reddit didn't produce the content.
    • celeb, on 11/08/2007, -0/+3:) only 2 flames:) I was expecting more from my fellow diggers haha
  • carcass350, on 11/09/2007, -1/+31Come on! The translation makes no ***** sense. How could anyone take this seriously?
    • Otto, on 11/08/2007, -1/+7Agreed. If you've ever tried to communicate with foreigners via email, even those who know English, then you see this sort of thing all the time. You learn to accept it and read between the lines, although sometimes you just have to throw up your hands and say "that made no sense, please try again".

      Translation software doesn't help much, but even when they kinda know the language, there's often a culture gap that gets in the way too. Japanese/Chinese native speakers probably have the worst time of it, the languages are very different and it's hard to make the switch.
  • typicalusername, on 11/09/2007, -1/+11What a bunch of wussies! I mean, first of all, if my mother did have sleeping arrangements in Pallestine, then I'd say "Way to go Mom! Good for you for getting outta the house!" Secondly, why didn't this dutch minister simply trash all the e-mails he gets in this broken english/dutch format. I've got about 50 in my inbox trying to sell me Viagra, they all end up in the same place.
  • suppazone, on 11/08/2007, -0/+7if you are even considering using an online translator then go for google translate instead
  • kahlessreborn, on 11/09/2007, -2/+5This is satire right? I mean which all teh crazy stuff going on in the world you really just dont know.
  • MaskedSlacker, on 11/09/2007, -0/+25By removing all barriers to communication the poor babel fish has sparked more violent conflicts than any other cause in history.

    • CountBlah, on 11/09/2007, -0/+9I was thinking the same thing when I saw the title. Adams was a prophet.
    • payrok, on 11/09/2007, -0/+7I think that should be quoted and author named, you know, for those who might mistake that as your own creative writing?

      MaskedSlacker's line is directly from 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams
      • sittered, on 11/08/2007, -1/+1It wouldn't be dugg up so much if people didn't recognize it as Adams.
    • popltree2, on 11/09/2007, -0/+6RIP Douglas Adams.
  • theradical, on 11/09/2007, -1/+17Really, a major incident? Israel has NOTHING else to worry about?
    ....right
  • realwx, on 11/09/2007, -0/+10This satire is not. In fact I communicate translating in English then again to the French man and finally to the back in English. Do you include?
    • awhiteflame, on 11/09/2007, -0/+1It is bizarre that it translates `comprendre' primarily as 'include'. Yes, it does mean include as does `inclure', but you would think that it would use the most common definition as the primary translation..
  • ErrorBorn, on 11/09/2007, -0/+13"There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the Dutch." - Nigel Powers
  • z0zin, on 11/08/2007, -1/+1Use Systran!
  • Hetman, on 11/09/2007, -1/+8Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
    • diggydougie, on 11/08/2007, -1/+6That was the dolphins, who weren't talking about bablefish.
      Yeah, I'm a jerk. Just had to say...
      • qber, on 11/09/2007, -0/+5Since you're being nitpicky, you might as well add that the line was "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    • spyrochaete, on 11/08/2007, -0/+3Maybe the translation was so bad because the journalists forgot to slip the babelfish in their ears.
  • FlyCO, on 11/09/2007, -0/+4They should've used Google Language Tools
  • negativefx, on 11/08/2007, -0/+3Fun game: write things in english, translate to korean, and then back to english. Make sure to use slang. ie: sweet ass ends up as 'sugar donkey'.
    • e1en0r, on 11/09/2007, -0/+1I once ran a blog post about how I suck ass at bowling through a couple translations and then back to English and ended up with "donkey suction".
  • lebruf, on 11/08/2007, -2/+1Borat couldn't have said it any better
  • hansk, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1I've used babel fish and many other free online translators to try and speak with my wife's family, which always ends up being a total failure, where it just spouts out incoherant nonsense that has nothing to do with what I was trying to say. I just given up on these and, if I do use em, it's to translate only one word at a time.
  • Slackdragon, on 11/09/2007, -6/+3"The Dutch are scum." - Skwisgaar Skwigelf
    • theradical, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1That is a useful inclusion to the conversation. Thank you.
  • coyote1284, on 11/08/2007, -4/+1Babel Fish is anti-semetic!
  • uknowwhoibe, on 11/09/2007, -2/+4Sigh...can we find some real problems to complain about?
  • Barnstormer, on 11/09/2007, -0/+7I tried this years ago and it still "works":
    Type in:
    We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz
    ==> translate to French:
    Nous ne sommes pas en ligne voir le magicien, le magicien merveilleux de l'once
    ==> then back to English:
    We are not on line to see the magician, the marvellous magician of the ounce.
    • zip000, on 11/09/2007, -0/+8Going from English to Chinese back to English yields this gem:

      We will see the witchcraft teacher, the wonderful Austria this empire will experience dangers records
  • popltree2, on 11/09/2007, -3/+10All your base are belong to the Dutch Consulate's mom. Take off every bed.
  • yutowu, on 11/09/2007, -0/+7International Incident? I didn't find out untill I read Digg today. I had to Google the response of the Foreign Ministry which said it wasn't a big deal. Mistakes happen. None of the Dutch media outlets bothered reporting this "International Incident". An Isrealic newspaper was just in need of another sensational headline. Nothing new there.
  • LesCommon, on 11/09/2007, -0/+5Please update article title to reflect correction in linked story.

    It wasn't Babblefish.
  • vintershaype, on 11/08/2007, -0/+0Haha this article seems like something I would've read in The Onion. What's the big deal?
  • keyme, on 11/08/2007, -0/+3Hebrew is a very complicated language for algorithms to translate. I don't think the current (incomplete) Hebrew translation algorithms should be put into a live environment at all. They just don't work.

    But I still blame it on the journalists. Only Israelis can do something that stupid, yet funny at the same time (and I'm saying this as an Israeli myself).
  • 2000, on 11/09/2007, -0/+4The article has now been updated:

    (18:23 GMT)Our source for this article, The Jerusalem Post, reported that Babel Fish was the translation software used. We have since learned that JP was wrong, so we have changed this article to correct our mistake Apologies all around, especially to Babel Fish.

    The Jerusalem Post claimed that the journalists used the popular translation engine Babel Fish, but this appears to be incorrect. Babel Fish doesn't handle Hebrew. One reader tells us that the hacks used Babylon (www.babylon.com), though this has yet to be verified.
    • livejamie, on 11/09/2007, -0/+2ah, so we CAN use Babel Fish to communicate with the Dutch Foreign Minister!
  • Woecip, on 11/08/2007, -1/+1For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. These people need to get over themselves, get an internet connection , understand how this happened and shut the hell up.
  • forcedfx, on 11/09/2007, -4/+1Everybody hates the Dutch!
  • sigmaman2, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1Oh deity! These words cause the laugh much more! All souls that to the words put their eyes will cause the laugh as well. These words cause the hole to be made in the ground!
  • reikiman, on 11/09/2007, -1/+2Crazy
  • sigmaman2, on 11/10/2007, -0/+3Please...fondle...my...buttocks..!
  • livejamie, on 11/09/2007, -1/+1"Never use Babel Fish to communicate with the Dutch Foreign Minister."

    really??
  • MrNexus, on 11/08/2007, -0/+3Maybe they were really just interested in banging the foreign minister's mum.
  • CaesarTjalbo, on 11/08/2007, -0/+3In all fairness, there's a nice list of embarrassing mistakes made by Dutch ministers in other countries trying to speak the foreign language. An example is the minister for environment introducing himself in France as 'ministre du milieu'. The French word milieu does mean environment in Dutch but (criminal) underworld in French. Perhaps he should have checked his speech with Babelfish at the time...
  • orlyfactor, on 11/09/2007, -1/+1I thought most Israelis spoke English? WTF, come on Jews!
  • shotgunefx, on 11/09/2007, -1/+3Funny, but the Dutch need to relax. Not exactly what I'd call an international incident.
    • cruzlee, on 11/10/2007, -0/+1The article is *****. Trust me, the Dutch know how to relax.
  • bossm4n, on 11/09/2007, -1/+1Now I know why all the spam I get from Nigerian scammers is so grammatically atrocious. They obviously use Babelfish.
  • tecratour, on 11/09/2007, -1/+1Douglas Adams. #1 Atheist
  • Cuchulainn, on 11/10/2007, -0/+2Really? I live in the Netherlands, follow the news and haven't heard about an international incident... Sounds like a ***** and bull story....
    • cruzlee, on 11/10/2007, -0/+1Exactly. Ministers get huge amounts of e-mail and when they are written like this I am certain they will not even be read by their secretaries. Also the whole story is a mess. What is a consulate doing using journalists to send a message about a visit to a minister to the consulate? Did someone here even try to understand that?
  • jimbo92107, on 11/08/2007, -0/+0If you have too much time on your hands, try typing a typical sentence or two into Babelfish, translate it into any other language, then translate the result back to English. Pure gibberish. Babelfish is good for a laugh, but not too good for real communication.
  • adraft, on 11/09/2007, -0/+3I remember reading that at a UN meeting some translator screwed up leading another delegate to think he had just quoted Shakespeare, and so he had his translator reply "Something is rotten in the house of Denmark," which, of course, lead the representative from Denmark to get incredibly angry. They had to take a brief break in the conference to clear things up.
  • mp3dog, on 11/09/2007, -0/+2Those Dutch need to chill the ***** out. It was a simple innocent mistake. Everyone should be able to just laugh it off, but instead, they're being uptight pricks
  •  

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