More dangers of relying on machine translation

Posted on July 22nd, 2008

Yesterday my friend forwarded me this post about the dangers of relying on machine translation.

Apparently some poor Chinese translator typed the Chinese characters for “restaurants” into an online translation tool and mistook the error message of the translation server being temporarily unavailable to be the translation of what he input! And this translation made it to a large public sign.

All the more reason to check your important translations with a native speaker, or contact me for help!

Tags: danger, machine translation, public, 公共空間, 危険性, 機械翻訳
Filed under Public Spaces|公共空間, Restaurants|飲食店 | 1 Comment »

No dash on to a Train

Posted on July 3rd, 2008

This photo comes from the platform of the Seaside Line in Yokohama which I used last weekend to go to the Yokohama Bayside Marina to go sailing with a friend of mine. (It also goes to Hakkeijima Sea Paradise.

I find this sign a bit striking because it is located so close to Tokyo. Usually the more into the countryside one goes, the worse the English becomes, but in this case it’s near Tokyo and Yokohama.

The mistakes here of course are the use of the indefinite article (“a”) instead of the definite article (“the”), the capitalization of “Train”, and the space between “on to” – all admittedly difficult nuances since they don’t exist in Japanese. All the more reason to ask a native speaker such as myself to proofread your important English translation that will be seen by thousands of people!

Shock English: No dash on to a Train
Correct English: Don’t run onto the train; Don’t dash onto the train

Tags: information, public, Trains and Mass Transit|電車、交通機関
Filed under Public Spaces|公共空間, Trains and Mass Transit|電車、交通機関 | 1 Comment »

Public security announcements: understandable, but why not proofread the headlines?

Posted on June 18th, 2008

Here’s another poster I recently saw in a subway station. In this case the English isn’t terrible to the point of being wrong or misleading. But it’s still wrong. How easy would it to be to get a native speaker to check the phrasing on important posters like this in public places that are seen by many people?

Shock English: We reinforce railway security.
Correct English: Reinforcement of railway security:

Shock English: Other rules when you see unattended item. Don’t touch! Don’t smell! Don’t move!
Correct English: When you see a suspicious item: Don’t touch it! Don’t smell it! Don’t move it!

Tags: announcement, information, poster, public, security, Trains and Mass Transit|電車、交通機関
Filed under Public Spaces|公共空間, Trains and Mass Transit|電車、交通機関 | No Comments »

Emergency help buttons almost always in Japanese

Posted on June 16th, 2008

Here’s another common sight in Japan: emergency help buttons, especially next to toilets, which is without doubt a good idea. The pictures above show a toilet in a public subway station that no doubt it used by many foreigners. The text in Japanese says “Please press in an emergency” on top and “Emergency button” taped on the bottom. The placement of the emergency button is such that it could be easily confused for the flush button by some people. How hard would it be to put a simple English translation on it? No doubt the button has been pressed by mistake by some foreigners; I’m sure originally it didn’t have the protective tape over it at the beginning.

When I was a student studying in Japan during college, our Japanese reading skills were really awful. Many
apartments also have emergency buttons in the bathrooms. I still remember going to one of my friend’s apartments with another friend, who accidentally pushed the emergency button instead of flush, as again it didn’t have any English translation! This created quite a stir… I can somewhat understand the buttons in private homes being only in Japanese, but in public places it seems the benefit of avoiding unnecessary false alarms would outweigh the difficulty of writing “Emergency Button” in English. Yet I have still not seen a button with an English translation. I will keep looking…

Suggested English: Emergency Help Button

Tags: bathroom, emergency, public
Filed under Public Spaces|公共空間 | No Comments »

For Japan Rail, poor translations mean everything is an accident…

Posted on June 15th, 2008

Inside the JR Yamanote line trains, since around 2001 or so they’ve had state-of-the-art large LCD sign boards displaying comprehensive train information, news, and commercials. One of the info screens is for train delay information of Tokyo train lines.

But just what are the causes for those delays? Some lazy translator working for JR decided to translate most of the reasons as “accident.” You’d think they’d want to promote themselves as having fewer accidents, not more!

At least some of the translations are reasonable, like the one for crowding (see picture), which I could never imagine happening in America.

So many people see this information every day and the translations are so sloppy and easy to fix that it boggles my mind. Delays due to car inspection and signal trouble seem quite common, but English speaking riders will only see these as accidents. Why don’t we fix these mistakes? (Note: There are more reasons than those in the list below.)

Tags: accident, information, Japan Rail, JR, public, Trains and Mass Transit|電車、交通機関, yamanote
Filed under Public Spaces|公共空間, Trains and Mass Transit|電車、交通機関 | 3 Comments »