Lost In Google Translation

Google Translate is a wonderful tool. Wonderful, that is, for the howlers it produces. My advice: steer clear of Google Translate, unless you want to be held up to ridicule, or if you don't steer clear, do not, under any circumstances, take it as the final (strangely translated) word.

Google Translate is a machine. It is the Captain Larry Dart of cyberspace. An unseen on-chest translator of the type that "Space Patrol" deployed in order to turn Martian into perfectly comprehensible English with a mechanical-sounding, mid-Atlantic drawl. Larry Dart's translator had one advantage over Google Translate. It was generally correct, unless a technical hitch required the intervention of Galasphere 347's on-board boffin, Professor Heggarty.

One of Google Translate's biggest problems is that it cannot always make sense of verb conjugation. From Spanish to English, therefore, this means that the third person singular, as an example, comes out as he, she or even you, when none of these may actually apply (because it should be "it") or when he should be she, or vice versa.

This amusing little grammatical foible is nothing, however, when compared with what Google Translate does with some names. There is no doubting that as a tool, Google Translate has made more accessible information that is available only in Spanish, or indeed Catalan, to an English-speaking audience with only a rudimentary understanding of either language, if that. So it serves a useful purpose up to a point, but when whole tracts of articles or news items are then posted to the internet, some of the glaring errors scream out at you. As with some recent ones with a Pollensa angle.

Pollensa's mayor is Tomeu Cifre, but he isn't according to Google Translate. He is Tomeu Encrypt. In a way, it is appropriate. Mayors of most towns deal with speaking in code, a lack of transparency and obfuscation. In Santa Margalida, its mayor is Miguel Encrypt. The joke of the name of the local DJs, Two Many Cifres (nicked from 2 Many DJs and an observation on the fact that there are an awful lot of Cifres), would be an even better joke were they to name themselves Two Many Encrypts.

Other politicians suffer similar fates. Take tourism minister Carlos Delgado. Put Delgado into Google Translate - and on no account try this with Catalan to English, as he wouldn't like that at all (and besides which it wouldn't work) - and out pops Carlos Slim. In continuing the "Space Patrol" association, Slim was an elf-like creature from Venus on Galasphere 347. So maybe Delgado is in fact a Venusian. It would explain a lot. Delgado could also, so Google Translate informs us, be thin, flimsy or spidery. I leave it to you to apply your own preference.

The man in charge of the mega-ministry of agriculture, environment, land and transport, Gabriel Company, does not emerge in fully businesslike fashion from a Catalan to English Google translation. He is merely a companion or a colleague, but having recently renounced his independent status within the regional government's cabinet and become a card-carrying member of the Partido Popular, he is now a genuine PP companion and colleague, a transport minister who has become a fellow traveller.

Going back to Mayor Encrypt, the Pollensa one, his predecessor was Joan Cerdà. Joan offers an awful lot of scope when it comes to his English meaning, not all of it terribly complimentary. From Spanish, minus the accent, he is either hairy or porcine (and feminine porcine, to boot). Bristle or sow. Much as many like to poke fun, he is no pig in a poke. Cerdà, in Catalan terms, comes from someone who was a native of La Cerdanya in the Pyrenees.

It isn't only politicians of course who suffer fates of humiliation or nominal corruption by Google Translate. Who is the most famous Mallorcan of all? One of the world's greatest sportspeople. Rafael Nadal. Not quite. He is Rafael Christmas (though you do have to enter Nadal by itself to turn him into a yule-tide festival; Google Translate can sometimes cope with proper names and therefore not translate them).

Yes, Google Translate is a wonderful tool. One that offers hours of endless amusement. But Larry Dart's translator was still superior. What, though, would have happened had Galasphere 347 landed at a wintertime fiesta in Pollensa, overseen by Mayor Encrypt, and had Husky, its sausage-loving Martian crew member, consulted the Martian via Catalan to English translator? Botifarró? The mind boggles. Remarkably enough, though, Google Translate does it. Sausage. Just don't mention this to Pollensa's former mayor. 


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.