Lost in Machine Translation

(((You may well laugh, but these gizmos are getting better.
LOTS better. The technology scarcely moved for about 30 years, then statistical machine translation arrived with the ability to crunch billions of words wholesale, and now they're getting hairy. I ran some random text through one of these "comical"
translation sites a while ago and the results caused no superior smiling; the results were kinda disquieting in their dignified accuracy.)))

(((Of course, you can still get an awesome semantic mangling by shunting English text through, say, Korean.)))

Link: Lost in Translation.

"What happens when an English phrase is translated (by computer) back and forth between 5 different languages? The authors of the Systran translation software probably never intended this application of their program. As of September 2003, translation software is almost good enough to turn grammatically correct, slang-free text from one language into grammatically incorrect, barely readable approximations in another. But the software is not equipped for 10 consecutive translations of the same piece of text. The resulting half-English, half-foreign, and totally non sequitur response bears almost no resemblance to the original. Remember the old game of "Telephone"? Something is lost, and sometimes something is gained. Try it for yourself!"

English Text:

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Translated to Japanese: 賢い人は彼が見つけるよりより多くの機会を作る。

Translated back to English: The wise person finds him, many opportunities are made at times.

Translated to Chinese: 明智的人员找到他, 许多机会时常被做。

Translated back to English: The unwise personnel found him, many opportunities are often made.

Translated to French: Le personnel imprudent l'a trouvé, beaucoup d'occasions est souvent fait.

Translated back to English: The imprudent personnel found, much occasions is often made.

Translated to German: Das unvorsichtige Personal fand, viel verursacht wird gebildet häufig.

Translated back to English: The imprudent personnel found, much is caused in an educated manner frequently.

Translated to Italian: Il personale imprudent trovato, molto è causato frequentemente in un modo istruito.

Translated back to English: The found staff imprudent, a lot is caused frequently in a well-educated way.

Translated to Portuguese: A equipe de funcionários encontrada imprudent, é causada muito freqüentemente em uma maneira well-educated.

Translated back to English: The joined team of employees imprudent, is caused very frequently in a way well-educated.

Translated to Spanish: Causan el equipo unido de los empleados imprudentes, muy con frecuencia en una manera instruída.

Translated back to English: They cause the united team of the imprudent employees, very frequently in a well-educated way.