09 February 2006

Martabatkan Bahasa Melayu !!! apa bercakap anda?

Following my previous blog about my blog appearing in Chinese, I got a suggestion to see if I can try and find a web translator that would convert my blog to some other language instead ... OK, sounds like a challenge to me.

So, I googled this site out - LinguaWeb. It's an experimental tool available for a limited time that is supposed to help us translate from English to Malay (and vice-versa? I dunno, had so much fun translating English -> Malay I really don't care about the rest). It's really simple ... you check the Laman Web radio button, then you put in your URL, click on Cari, and viola ... your website gets Malay-fied.


And your end result is ...

Lemme say this ... the tool ... needs work. Major work, more like a closer revamp than anything else. Let's take passages from a blog I've published ....

Original Quote "
Valentine's Day Gifts I DON'T Want"
Translated Text "Hari Valentine hadiah saya TIDAK mahu" *Samy Vellu? Is it really you?*

Original Quote "
I was surfing yesterday night when I came across these online Valentine's gift peddlers with strange ideas"
Translated Text "
Saya adalah sukan lunar ombak malam semalam apabila saya datang seberang ini dalam talian hadiah Valentine pengedar dadah dengan idea ganjil" *scratching head*

Original Quote "
She had a tough day"
Translated Text "Dia telah satu orang samseng hari" *really?*

Original Quote "Putrajaya Night Scenery"
Translated Text "Malam Putrajaya Pemandangan" *Oi ... SPM BM Pass ka ?*

Original Quote "Just who the heck are you, Moz?"
Translated Text "Hanya yang alamak andakah, Moz?" *are these 2 phrases even RELATED ?*

I think these translation samples I've picked up here shows that the disclaimer they had put up is really, necessary. The translations are just waaaaaaaaaaaay off mark. I won't really want to use this site to translate my homework. Angel ... ada komen? This is your line of work ...

I think it's not ready la ... unless they market it as a comedic relief tool la ... go ahead, Malay-fy your blog and see the results. Which is exactly what I've done. And I'm asking you to do it too. Then post some of the funny translations back as comments ... so that I can laugh too =)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

wahahahaha! kelakar giler la...

of cos machine translation tools are not ready! i'd like to think that machines can never replace a human translator...no?

the tool is just 'helping' u to do a literal translation without taking into consideration the grammar, slang, culture etc.

a test 4 ya'...how do u translate these two phrases?

-what talk you?
-what say you?

;)

moz monster said...

kamu cakap apa?
kamu kata apa?

dunno ... i only A2 for BM in SPM ...

Anonymous said...

first one correct.

second one, i'd put it as "apa pendapat awak?"

;)

waaa... A2 in BM eh? me only A1... *blek*

Cheng Sim said...

it would be more embarassing if that site was set up by a Msian.
hrm. nvr noticed that the BM translation was that bad. haha.

yeah, it does reminds me of Samy Vellu. i thought im the only one in the world who thinks Samy Vellu has a funny BM accent. we shld put him to a BM test.

moz monster said...

angel: I'd agree it could be "apa pendapat kamu?". That's why me BM no A1 lor ..

cheng sim: SV is comedic relieve to me during the news hours on TV. I pray that he appears more often - it's not often a very pow-der-ful person makes a fool of himself =)