4 ms·

E-mail error ends up on road sign

29 points by epi0Bauqu 18y ago

jcl 18y ago
"It's good to see people trying to translate, but they should really ask for expert help." The sad thing is: they did ask for expert help, and this is what it got them.
- cstejerean 18y ago
  That's what happens when you ask for things you don't understand and you trust the answer from just one person.
  - jodrellblank 18y ago
    Not one person, the council's own in-house translation service. (OK, that could be one person, but the implication is that it is not). This is what happens when you don't have any sort of defined procedures, reviews, approval process, QA or sanity checks, or if you just ignore them.
  - notauser 18y ago
    If I wrote my out of office message in Lisp I'm not sure I would be able to blame someone else for any resulting screw ups.
mhartl 18y ago
No idea if the translation here is right, but it's sufficient for a sanity check: http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?url=http%3A%2F%2F&type=text&text=No+entry+for+heavy+goods+vehicles.+Residential+site+only.&from=eng&to=wel http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?url=http%3A%2F%2F&...
- palish 18y ago
  I prefer sanity checking the translator by reverse-translating his output: Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i'w gyfieithu. Bit I am being crookedly the office at this time. You send any time I w translate. That would give me pause before I painted it onto my street sign.
  - mhartl 18y ago
    That's an even better idea.
rokhayakebe 18y ago
Although it is a bit different, this shows you should proofread your email before you hit SEND.
- silentbicycle 18y ago
  This is irrelevant - it was an email auto-responder. Maybe a better observation is that if you're the only person in a company that can read/write a language, don't write your auto-respond message in it.
  - hugh 18y ago
    I'm guessing that the auto-respond was written in both languages, but somebody forgot to read the English bit and just copied down the bit that looked Welsh. Of course, if these people were rational they might take a step back at this point and say "If Welsh-speaking skills are so rare here in Wales that this kind of thing can happen, why are we bothering to translate everything into Welsh?"
    - silentbicycle 18y ago
      I think it's because they're politically pressured to; there are cultural groups trying to keep the Welsh language from dying out. (I don't know Welsh or live in the UK, though, so I'm going to defer to anybody who knows better.)
dougp 18y ago
If they used xml this wouldn't have happened

29 points by epi0Bauqu 18y ago

jcl 18y ago

"It's good to see people trying to translate, but they should really ask for expert help." The sad thing is: they did ask for expert help, and this is what it got them.

cstejerean 18y ago
That's what happens when you ask for things you don't understand and you trust the answer from just one person.
- jodrellblank 18y ago
  Not one person, the council's own in-house translation service. (OK, that could be one person, but the implication is that it is not). This is what happens when you don't have any sort of defined procedures, reviews, approval process, QA or sanity checks, or if you just ignore them.
- notauser 18y ago
  If I wrote my out of office message in Lisp I'm not sure I would be able to blame someone else for any resulting screw ups.

mhartl 18y ago

No idea if the translation here is right, but it's sufficient for a sanity check: http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?url=http%3A%2F%2F&type=text&text=No+entry+for+heavy+goods+vehicles.+Residential+site+only.&from=eng&to=wel http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?url=http%3A%2F%2F&...

palish 18y ago
I prefer sanity checking the translator by reverse-translating his output: Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i'w gyfieithu. Bit I am being crookedly the office at this time. You send any time I w translate. That would give me pause before I painted it onto my street sign.
- mhartl 18y ago
  That's an even better idea.

rokhayakebe 18y ago

Although it is a bit different, this shows you should proofread your email before you hit SEND.

silentbicycle 18y ago
This is irrelevant - it was an email auto-responder. Maybe a better observation is that if you're the only person in a company that can read/write a language, don't write your auto-respond message in it.
- hugh 18y ago
  I'm guessing that the auto-respond was written in both languages, but somebody forgot to read the English bit and just copied down the bit that looked Welsh. Of course, if these people were rational they might take a step back at this point and say "If Welsh-speaking skills are so rare here in Wales that this kind of thing can happen, why are we bothering to translate everything into Welsh?"
  - silentbicycle 18y ago
    I think it's because they're politically pressured to; there are cultural groups trying to keep the Welsh language from dying out. (I don't know Welsh or live in the UK, though, so I'm going to defer to anybody who knows better.)

dougp 18y ago

If they used xml this wouldn't have happened