Did anyone else notice Babelfish now translates Chinese, Korean, and Japanese?

April 26, 2001 12:22 PM

Did anyone else notice Babelfish now translates Chinese, Korean, and Japanese? This may be old news but we come across a lot of Asian Web site defacements at Attrition. I think this is a huge step to be able to translate a non-Roman character language- and it works.
posted by bkdelong (23 comments total)

wow, that's kick ass. but when has babelfish ever translated anything correctly? =)
posted by elle at 12:33 PM on April 26, 2001

Works for me.
Hey -

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posted by tiaka at 12:36 PM on April 26, 2001

verdammen Sie Sie tiaka! Sie schreiben schneller als ich!
posted by th3ph17 at 12:38 PM on April 26, 2001

Can someone point to a good non-Roman character site to use as an example?
posted by thebigpoop at 12:52 PM on April 26, 2001

http://www.yahoo.com/r/cc :P
posted by fusinski at 1:03 PM on April 26, 2001

Once the shade power exposure repelled " the financial big alligator " inside story
Bull strip >>
News in focus
- China sells on USA to the Taiwan armed forces proposes the grave negotiation
- Philippine former president is a suspect invades the government money is officially arrested
- The National People's Congress member approves passes the marriage law bill for amendment
- The new date small spring pure eldest son clamors founds an armed force repairs the constitution
Other news...
Yahoo! society area
- Yang regards the racket shoots the vulture again?
In line with regards for Yang makes the suggestion the original intention, everybody said in your heart new version shoots vulture is how?
- Chatroom : The global people all in such meet with you!
- Club : The total energy finds with you has the same hobby similar! Quickly has a try...
- On-line flirts : Transmits the free regard greeting card!
Yahoo! selects
- Yahoo! Zhou Xuan: In addition kind
- Splendidly chats the activity: The " edge plays ", " disguises pure sentiment ", " baseless rumor "
- Yahoo! astrology and physiognomy fortune-telling: Every day all has the thing, quickly has a look!
posted by tiaka at 1:07 PM on April 26, 2001

Wow, mefi looks really neat when viewed in chinese.
posted by samsara at 1:08 PM on April 26, 2001

Some of that almost makes sense, tiaka. I'm glad to hear that the Philippine government has been invaded and that its money has been officially arrested, in any case.
posted by kindall at 1:12 PM on April 26, 2001

Okay, so I got MetaFilter in Japanese. For those without Japanese Fonts, here's a screen grab (50k). Fun!
posted by kokogiak at 1:13 PM on April 26, 2001

Hrmph. My Bad - the first link above is broken. Seems The Babelfish links evaporate after one use. Well, at least you can see the screen grab.
posted by kokogiak at 1:15 PM on April 26, 2001

This is absolutely hillarious. Metafilter translated into chinese and then back into english -

On April 26th the embryo is the person? The bill supporter, mainly the republican party member during the debate, denies this measure is anti-abortion, with instead aims at the penalty attack is pregnant woman's criminal. Its exemption abortion execution and woman's agreement. Is that completely it is perhaps there one hypothesis for the comparison further law, enters the abortion and like this? Posts the afternoon 12:54 PST - 0 commentaries by tiaka - posts the commentary "

I started to use its six weeks ago and I do and with 6 sleep with 11 beautiful young chickens!

This is the way I ever did best investment!" - Mike Delmaire posts the afternoon 12:32 PST - 3 commentaries by tiaka - posts the commentary Who is informs Babelfish now to translate Chinese, the Han national language, with Japanese? This perhaps is the old news but we meets many Asian website damages to the attrition. I think this is the great stride can translate one kind of non- Roman character language and this is effective. Posts the afternoon 12:22 PST - 7 commentaries by bkdelong - posts the commentary SpamCon in 2001 obtains carries on in one month. This is the brains conference crushes spam and the photograph like this. But probably is too late. Legislated possibly ever does the dent in spam? Is the technical solution is possible (to open SMTP is dishonorable permits)? Posts by mathowie to the morning 10:48 PST - 3 commentaries - posts the commentary Pamela Anderson tidies up doctor? ...
posted by tiaka at 1:17 PM on April 26, 2001

What I found particularly interesting, is how nicely everything fitted into the sidebar. And then everything started to make sense too.


koko: I tried that...it wants the referrer to come from altavista ;-)
posted by samsara at 1:18 PM on April 26, 2001

let's hear the all your base jokes.
posted by elle at 1:22 PM on April 26, 2001

From the translated amazon.co.jp site. I guess I just find it cute:

It is troubled: When the password is forgotten, this way - As for help desk this way.
posted by gluechunk at 1:39 PM on April 26, 2001

I've been using this for a couple months now, mainly to translate Japanese fanart sites. One thing I've noticed: the Fish tends to choke on katakana, translating it into the English words those katakana are normally used to render, instead of translating them directly into the sounds they're used for, or doesn't bother to render them at all into English. Reading Harry Potter fansites with Babelfish becomes real interesting and headache-inducing after a while.
posted by Electric Elf at 2:05 PM on April 26, 2001

It's funny how the English to Japanese mode won't translate Japanese place names (like Hokkaido) at all.

What do I have to say, "I live in North Sea Road?"
posted by dfowler at 2:29 PM on April 26, 2001

Nope, the HTTP specification does not allow different character sets in one document. However, most Asian encodings also contain a Roman character set it is common to need an English word here and there.
posted by kindall at 2:30 PM on April 26, 2001

the only reason i can think of for not rendering katakana is the consideration that there are people who are not aware of empirical terms in japanese and translating the sounds directly, such as sumisu for smith, would make no sense to mr. smith at all.

for bkdelong's rendering issue, why don't you just manually change the encoding? looks for 'encoding' under view in both IE and ns6. for ns4 i think it's almost the same operation, can't remember.
posted by elle at 2:31 PM on April 26, 2001

why don't you just manually change the encoding? looks for 'encoding' under view in both IE and ns6.

Damn. I always wondered what that was for. Thanks!
posted by bkdelong at 2:35 PM on April 26, 2001

So are there any good Japanese, Chinese or Korean sites that I should be reading? I've already gone through and read the Sanrio site, as well as the Japanese versions of my Webmonkey articles. I want to read the cool Korean gaming sites, and the inscruitable Japanese culture weblogs. Where do we start?
posted by captaincursor at 3:54 PM on April 26, 2001

Of course, I'd prefer the hardware version.
posted by feelinglistless at 4:30 PM on April 26, 2001

You mean the wet-and-squishware version.
posted by kindall at 5:07 PM on April 26, 2001