Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Bilingual People-Is the translation by babelfish fairly accurate? (2024)

Babelfish is best used to get a "gist" translation but certainly not for a usable, reliable text in the target language.

So really, as has been suggested, the best thing is to get your text checked over by somebody who speaks German before you send it.

I agree with most of the other posters.

If you were asking a simple question about double room availability for some many days on such and such dates, the translation would be adequate--thus my original response. The simpler the sentences the better.

If you start to diverge, asking about many types of different types of services offered or the like, the translation could get murky.

I used babefish once to translate a recipe from Italian into English. The results were hysterical. :-)

I'm not trying to conduct diplomacy or anything....just things like "Can you accomodate 5 people on July 12?" and "Are both rooms on the same floor?"

I thought of babelfish because I received a reply in German; I ran it through babelfish and got something like "Sorry, but all of our rooms are written down" which I interpreted to mean are "booked." Don't know if "written down" is a German figure of speech, but I suspect it was a translation thing.

Long before babelfish existed, the problem with automated translation was summed up in the translation of "out of sight, out of mind" and "invisible idiot". And I fear babelfish is not much better.

But if you're giving them your English original with the German, it would help a bit. It would probably help to break down the separate information items, as though you were filling in a form, e.g.,

I'm looking for

a room with bath

for two people

for X nights

from [dates]

(and spell out the months, to avoid confusion between dd/mm/yy and mm/dd/yy formats)

I wouldn't ever do that, as I wouldn't ever send messages that I wouldn't know what they said. I don't know about German, but I've seen translations to French or Spanish (which I do know) and they often were inaccurate enough that they didn't really say the same thing -- even for simple requests.

I would think that if they are running a hotel in Germany, if they want to run some text through an online translator, they could easily do it themself. That's what I'd assume.

It depends.

Your first example:

Can you accomodate 5 people on July 12?
Können Sie 5 Leute am 12. Juli unterbringen?
Almost flawless, though it would have been a bit more "normal" to ask whether they accomodate from July 12 until July 13. Or to say that you want to arrive July 12, and stay 1 night.

Your 2nd example:

Are both rooms on the same floor?
Sind beide Räume auf dem gleichen Fußboden?

This will get a few laughs since floor gets translated to the flooring you literally walk on, but not to something like level.

It takes a much better knowledge of English to mentally jog thru the possible reasons for a funny translation than to understand a basic English text.

I've used Babelfish quite a bit to decipher web pages from Italian to English. I also know a bit of Italian and I have to say that quite often it's not even close.

If you are writing very simple sentences in the present tense... it may suffice.

Any use of idioms, non-standard uses of vocabulary or grammar, or complications in verb tenses will likely not be correct.

Most foreign language phrase books will have the sentences you are looking for in correctly written German. Like Fodor's German for Travelers. I'd use that.

missypie, I've used babelfish for our previous trip to Germany, and for our upcoming trip, to send e-mails to apartment owners. I always let them know (in German) that the message is being translated so they are understanding if it doesn't make sense. I also try to keep the text basic. In some instances I will get a response in English, but the responses that I have received in German translate ok and answer my questions so it must not be too bad.

Tracy

I have a fairly decent understanding of German, so this comment refers only to that language.

Sometimes if I encounter a large text in German, and it is intimidating, I will run it through Babelfish. The results are always amusing, since Babelfish does not seem to get word order correct. It immediately gives me the gist of what was written, but it is not entirely accurate. Sometimes it gives me another translation of a word, one I didn't know, a translation that make more sense. However, more often, it uses a translation that don't make sense in the context of the sentence. Although I appreciate the rough translation, I almost always end up doing a translation on my own to fully understand what was written.

That said, I mostly agree with Tracy. The Babelfish translation is probably more likely to amuse, than to confuse, the recipient.

But, why are we doing this? Doesn't "everyone" in Europe speak English (along with one or two other languages besides their native one)? If you believe that, I have a condo in Upper Slabovia to sell you.

I guess someone who knew German commented on those translations, but I was going to say that it might work if the sentences really are kept very simple and straightforward, and are grammatically correct, without idioms or words that can have many meanings.

The problem is that a lot of people can't write sentences that way, they leave out relative pronouns or conjections, etc., and they use too many idioms. For example, the first sentence "can you accommodate five people... " is already not clear and an obscure way of saying something other than you really mean. The word accommodate can mean many different things in English -- I checked that translation into French on babelfish and it would probably be understandable but wasn't really what you'd say if you were asking if a hotel had a room for five people. Acoomodate also means other things in English than make room for, it means to help out, adapt to,, etc. It's most direct translation is NOT do you have a vacant room for someone.

Why not just ask directly, no idioms or roundabout ways of saying something, what you mean -- do you have a room available for five people?

I remember another case where someone was trying to do the same thing (who asked about it on here) and was saying things like "can you accommodate our party" etc. Another example of not being direct and using words that have too many different meanings (eg, party, when they just mean "us")

>do you have a room available for five people?
Babelfish traslates this to:
"haben Sie ein Zimmer, das für fünf Leute frei ist?"

That sounds very odd in German, you would get the idea what is meant, but the response may be like "Yes, but we've also got a room available for 4 people". Rather confusing answer, isn't it. The qustion was simple and straighforward, just that no German would ever use that wording.
The proper simple german question "Haben Sie ein Zimmer für 5 Personen" will be traslated by babelfish to
"Have a room for 5 persons"