When it comes to bringing real materials to the classroom, I initially think it takes some precious time you may not even have. However, these examples are always loved by my students. For that reason, I decided to share the ones I find in case it could be of any help. This time Meta and Instagram webs are the precious sources that can generate an interesting debate regarding translation.
We live in an age where many of us are familiar with social networks. Recently, I got the following notification:
I didn’t fully get what was this about so I looked for further info (Más información) and then it was when it got interesting. The more detailed explanation contained not only minor but strange conjugations:
The correct way could be: puedan saber. It goes without saying that we are only human. I didn’t recognize that specific phrase as something that could have been translated by AI so I went to the English version of the Support page in order to find the original text meant to be translated.
So far so good! I have a genuine translation example containing mistakes from a very popular source but… wait a sec! When I was changeing the language of the webpage I realized a coupple of things. Firstly, there are two Spanish versions available for the language option which are Spanish (Spain) and Spanish. Surely, translations on both pages must be pretty similar. Well… not quite. Here are some varied examples:
In the Spanish from Spain there were mistakes but not in the (just) Spanish one.
In the Spanish (Spain) one there are some sections left in English while in the just Spanish version the sections are translated properly.
Then there is this case where Shop (in the US version) gets translated as Shopping = Comprar (as an action) in the Spanish from Spain and Shop = Tienda in the Spanish version. In both cases, there is a question left entirely in English.
Another example worth mentioning is that both translations omit translating the heading of essential info such as Creating an Account and Username.
There are even really basic mistakes such as this one where in the Spanish (Spain) they forget to use a capital letter whereas the Spanish one gets it right.
These cases make me think about the following:
- Do translators that work in both versions and do work for Meta do collaborate or is it 100% independent work? They probably have tons of work already and not the best working conditions at some point so maybe someone could help to improve that situation.
- Do these tech companies rely on human translators and not AI? At least it seems it is not good enough for them.
- Such powerful and popular companies should consider treating their employees a bit better. They probably can afford to have webs with these mistakes but it does not send a very professional image.
On top of that, I click on a hyperlink while navigating the Support page for Instagram and it took me to META for Business. Since they mean business I assumed this website would be better procured. However, I quickly find that on the one hand there is a section they forgot to translate.
Go to:
And then this appears in English:
And on the other hand, there is a section where they specify in English (although I am still in the Spanish version) that the service they are talking about is only offered in the US. It takes seconds to write this service is only available in the US (Este servicio solo está disponible en EE.UU.). This later one has been changed as I write these words but I kept a shot from the earlier version and there is still a section that needs to be translated.
Most recent version:
I honestly spotted all the above mentioned within 10 minutes of surfing these pages. I do not if there are any further examples to be considered.
P. S. The screenshots were captured on 03-03-2022. I assume and hope these are corrected at some point. Cheers!
I do make mistakes as well. These were mere observations.
MFL & BEYOND 