The perils of automatic translators - Printable Version +- kanji koohii FORUM (http://forum.koohii.com) +-- Forum: Learning Japanese (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-4.html) +--- Forum: Off topic (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-13.html) +--- Thread: The perils of automatic translators (/thread-2966.html)

The perils of automatic translators - Thora - 2009-06-08 〜　喫煙されるお客様へ　〜 構内は禁煙になっております 外の喫煙コーナーでお願いします。 The gist (but politely): "To customers who smoke: This is a non-smoking area, please use the smoking corner outside." A blogger took the time to compare various automatic translators. Here are his results fyi: [Babelfish] - To the customer who smokes - the enclosure we have become prohibition of smoking, we ask with the smoking corner outside. [Google] Smoking to be one of your Smoking is on the premises, In the smoking area outside. [Reverso] I ask a smoked visitor for the yard at the outside smoking corner that smoking is prohibited in. [Paralink] Customers will be smoking on campus is a non-smoking, smoking outside corner. [Windows Live] and smoking that is customer to premises smoking and: on the outside smoking corner in. [OCN] Premises at the outside smoking area which becomes no smoking to the customer who smokes, please. [@Nifty] - Visitor smoked - please give me premises in the outer smoking corner which is giving up smoking. [Excite] To the customer from whom it smokes I hope premises in the smoking corner of the outside that is no smoking. Kind of like reading modern poetry. The perils of automatic translators - vosmiura - 2009-06-08 Well, the dodgy honorific "sareru" does make it read like "To smoked visitors..." :p. The perils of automatic translators - bodhisamaya - 2009-06-08 I love those Engrish photos on Flickr I never understood why so many Japanese businesses dsiplay billboards and signs that make little sense in English. Are they so cheap as to not pay a native English speaker for five minutes of proof-reading before going through all the expense of printing them? The perils of automatic translators - captal - 2009-06-08 I have always thought that'd be a great business- fixing English in Japan- but I'm doubting most companies would pay for it. I do have a fun story however. I was at a video rental place and on their price list they had Blu- Lay - I pointed out to the person at the counter that they had made a mistake and told them the correct way to spell it. In America, nothing would probably have happened, but the next day when I went back to return my movies, they had pasted Rs over the Ls on the menu. That's my little contribution to Japan. The perils of automatic translators - vosmiura - 2009-06-08 In the US you could probably sue them for false advertising . The perils of automatic translators - bodhisamaya - 2009-06-09 If it was specific as to exactly what was being smoked, this would all make a little more sense. I wonder if they have Maui Wowie in Japan