Max Samukha wrote:
[...[
> 
> I suggest people in the NG have the D site's front page autotranslated
> into their language. I just say no to Russian translation. Some
> extracts translated back into English:
> 
> "Michael the Great is the only thing I need."
> "Segfualt D is the language of systems."  (I like this one:))
> Portablility turns into mobility, of course...
> "metaprogramming styles" - "styles of the zodiac"...
> 
> How about other languages?

http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitalmars.com%2Fd%2F&langpair=en%7Cit&hl=en&ie=UTF8

LOL:

"web" -> "photoreceptor" (???)
"just what I need" -> "Only a moment ago what I need"
"supporting imperative, object oriented, and template metaprogramming styles" -> "styles imperative metaprogramming, objectively oriented and of the supporting (thin metal plate with a cut pattern)"
"D change log" -> "D changes the log (of wood)"
"tech tips" -> "ends of technology"
"Issues and bugs" -> "Editions and insects"
"Code coverage" -> "Coding the filling"
"Last update Sun Feb 4 12:10:26 2007" -> "Last sun (the star) Feb 4 12 of the update: 10: 26 2007"
"Home" -> "Domestic"

Some error is only a little misleading:

"download" -> "transfer from the central system to the satellites"
"Exception safety" -> "Exceptional safety"
"(programming) language" -> "(natural) language"

Some sentences are completely without a meaning.
Note also that the whole example is on one single line.

As a side note, I can say the translator keeps getting better, decade by decade. It got right: "Programming language" and "Style guide", while "Debugger" is translated as "adjustment/tuning program" (the right translation is "debugger"). Maybe in 30-60 years it can produce acceptable output.

Ciao

Max Samukha wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:21:55 +0100, Roberto Mariottini <rmariottini@mail.com> wrote:
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>> I've been looking into adding buttons to the D web pages to do automatic translation to different languages. The trouble is, the google translator also attempts to translate the code blocks, resulting in a mess.
>> The real trouble is that these translators are not good enough for 'production'.

>> Here in Italy we laugh at sites automatically translated, we even signal them to friends by e-mail.

> I suggest people in the NG have the D site's front page autotranslated into their language.

> How about other languages?

Google Translate does not support finnish yet, but I found www.tranexp.com. Well, it does look a bit hilarious :D

Many of these online translators don't care about context at all. They simply use a stupid mapping of original words to some bad translations. Ok, here's part of the machine translated frontpage translated back to english by me:

---

[Logo]
It takes to synchronize Sun (<- the one that shines in the sky) ...

D-LETTER Programming Use of language

<snip>

"excellent, reasonable what I-LETTER misses.. another D-LETTER home programming" - Segfault

<snip>

You note: that's right, D-LETTER user accepts that staying with downloading and treating D-letter, that is book knowledge D-LETTER eyeglasses, he or she post statute explicit recognizes something redeem so that intellectual real estate exactly with the help of publishing right aka patent evaluation at home something keep synchronized, that is emailed feedback fly so that Digital Mars.

--- end of bad translation

Probably the best part is the code example. I could not translate it w/o LMAO.

here is an article about a system that's supposed to work - it considers context. google's translator obviously doesn't.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/translate.html

Roberto Mariottini wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> I've been looking into adding buttons to the D web pages to do automatic translation to different languages. The trouble is, the google translator also attempts to translate the code blocks, resulting in a mess.
> 
> The real trouble is that these translators are not good enough for 'production'.
> 
> Here in Italy we laugh at sites automatically translated, we even signal
> them to friends by e-mail.
> One of the funniest was the now non-working it.mp3u.com, where you could
> find some pearls like:
> 
> "100% risk free" => "100% rischia liberamente" that means "you risk 100% freely" (ROTFL), and should be "Libero da rischi al 100%".
> 
> Ciao
> 
> P.S.: Google Translate brings "rischio di 100% liberamente" that means "risk of 100% freely". LOL

Jari-Matti Mäkelä wrote:
> Google Translate does not support finnish yet, but I found www.tranexp.com. Well, it does look a bit hilarious :D
> 

InterTran's Finnish translation is a joke. I don't know what it's logic is in translating the English "I" to "I-KIRJAIN" (literally "THE LETTER I") instead of "minä". That's one of the most basic words in either language, and can't be that hard to get right.

Run its Finnish->English on the Kalevala for a laugh:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kvfin/
Or the English->Finnish, if you're feeling lucky:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/

I love the way "tuo sotka, sorea lintu" (approximately "that duck, graceful bird"; the English translation has "a beauteous duck") becomes "yonder bitch, pretty bird".

Unknown W. Brackets wrote:
> An option, although a bit of work, would be to load the code snippets in a separate request using JavaScript.  Unfortunately, this would require JavaScript (although alternative links could be provided to the same content.)  It's definitely nicer than using iframes, but not good enough...
> 
> If you're using JavaScript code to make the translation happen, this might be reasonable.  All it would have to do is reload the original (untranslated) HTML and replace the sections of code with the originals.  That wouldn't be too much work, actually.
> 
> It's also possible to provide the translation through the server side, using a proxy and caching thus allowing you to control it to your desires... but this would probably be overdoing it.

It sounds like too much work!

> That said, in my previous projects I've been very impressed with community-driven translation efforts.  I mean, we had something like 35 volunteer translations of about 250k of text.  That's nothing compared to the probably 1500k of text to be translated for D...

The real problem is that the documentation changes regularly, invalidating the translation work.

> Even so, automatic translation just cannot compare to the real thing. Not without smarter routines than we have now.

I know. But it's:

1) effortless
2) always in sync with the constant changes to the documentation
3) reasonable to expect google will get better at it over time, and such improvements will be automatically incorporated

Hasan Aljudy wrote:
> Seeing as how automated translation is horrible at best, might as well just drop the whole idea ...

I've experimented with the German=>English translations (see http://www.generalatomic.com/teil1/index.html) and, while horrible, is decipherable. It's better (much better) than nothing.

It's also kinda fun :-)

Jascha Wetzel wrote:
> here is an article about a system that's supposed to work - it considers
> context. google's translator obviously doesn't.
> 
> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/translate.html

It's a very interesting technology. It could be a coup for Google to buy it and incorporate it.

Walter Bright wrote:
> Unknown W. Brackets wrote:
>> Even so, automatic translation just cannot compare to the real thing. Not without smarter routines than we have now.
> 
> I know. But it's:
> 
> 1) effortless
> 2) always in sync with the constant changes to the documentation
> 3) reasonable to expect google will get better at it over time, and such improvements will be automatically incorporated

I don't think it's google that wrote the translation engines .. it's probably some other company's 30+ years of work!

Hasan Aljudy wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Unknown W. Brackets wrote:
>>> Even so, automatic translation just cannot compare to the real thing. Not without smarter routines than we have now.
>>
>> I know. But it's:
>>
>> 1) effortless
>> 2) always in sync with the constant changes to the documentation
>> 3) reasonable to expect google will get better at it over time, and such improvements will be automatically incorporated
> 
> I don't think it's google that wrote the translation engines .. it's probably some other company's 30+ years of work!

You're right they bought it. But I think they'll continue to improve it, because doing it better can be worth enormous money.

Actually, this was true of my project as well.  Not all of it, of course, and we used versioning to see what had changed... but large segments could change between releases and things always had to be retranslated.

Of course, we tried to minimize this... but the volunteers were always willing to keep at it!

Effortless is as effortless does, in the end.

-[Unknown]


> The real problem is that the documentation changes regularly, invalidating the translation work.
> 
>> Even so, automatic translation just cannot compare to the real thing. Not without smarter routines than we have now.
> 
> I know. But it's:
> 
> 1) effortless
> 2) always in sync with the constant changes to the documentation
> 3) reasonable to expect google will get better at it over time, and such improvements will be automatically incorporated