[jsword-devel] Translation using Google Translation

[Greg Hellings]

Hi, Tonny

2008/7/28 Tonny Kohar <tonny.kohar at gmail.com>:
> Hi,
>
> I am planning to add locale for Alkitab Bible Study and wondering
> whether google translation is good enough tool ? Does anyone can
> comment on the quality of the Google Translation
> (http://translate.google.com/translate_t) result ?
>
> Since I am only able to speak Indonesian and English (not so good),
> could anyone check this sample translation (result of Google
> Translation), because if the result is good enough, I think I will go
> ahead
>
> Below are the sample text that I translate using Google Translation tool
>
> CTL_Bible.Text = Bible
> CTL_ViewerCategory.Text = Viewer
> CTL_NoVNum.Text = Hide Verse Numbers
> CTL_VNum.Text = Show Verse Numbers Only
> CTL_CVNum.Text = Show Chapter and Verse Numbers
> CTL_TinyVNum.Text = Use Small Verse Number
> CTL_VLine.Text = Start Verse on Separate Line
>
> // German
> CTL_Bible.Text = Bibel
> CTL_ViewerCategory.Text = Viewer
> CTL_NoVNum.Text = Hide Vers-Nummern
> CTL_VNum.Text = Zeige Vers nur Zahlen
> CTL_CVNum.Text = Zeige Kapitel und Vers-Nummern
> CTL_TinyVNum.Text = Verwenden Sie kleinen Vers Zahl
> CTL_VLine.Text = Start Vers auf separaten Line
>
> // Spanish
> CTL_Bible.Text = Biblia
> CTL_ViewerCategory.Text = Espectador
> CTL_NoVNum.Text = Ocultar número de verso
> CTL_VNum.Text = Mostrar sólo verso números
> CTL_CVNum.Text = Mostrar el capítulo y versículo números
> CTL_TinyVNum.Text = Uso número pequeño verso
> CTL_VLine.Text = Inicio verso en línea separada
>
> // Chinese simplified
> CTL_Bible.Text = 圣经
> CTL_ViewerCategory.Text = 查看
> CTL_NoVNum.Text =       隐藏韵文号码
> CTL_VNum.Text =         数字显示，韵文只
> CTL_CVNum.Text =        显示诗章和号码
> CTL_TinyVNum.Text = 使用小的数目诗
> CTL_VLine.Text = 开始，诗就单独的行
>
> So what do you think about this Google Translation result (totaly
> wrong, somewhat wrong, just ok, good) ? Is it suitable tool for
> Alkitab locale ?
> If the result is not suitable, I will need to think another way :(,
> however if it is ok, I will go ahead and create the locale.

I don't speak any of those languages well enough to comment on the
accuracy of these exact translations, but I do study in the area of AI
and text processing.  I can tell you that a tool like this might be a
good tool to use as a rough translation, but all of the phrases would
need to be checked by a human familiar with both languages, preferably
one who is a native speaker of at least one and hopefully of both.
Use the tool to get you started, but then go over each translation
carefully to check if it makes sense in Alkitab.  These tools
especially do a poor job of translating colloquial phrases and figures
of speech.  Hopefully you won't find any of those, but you never know
-- and that's why human checking is still necessary for all machine
translation tasks.

--Greg

>
> Cheers
> Tonny Kohar
> --
> Alkitab Bible Study
> imagine, design, create ...
> http://www.kiyut.com
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