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Google seems to be
lost in translation, some netizens say
By Wang Pei-hua and Jake Chung / Staff Reporter, with Staff
Writer
If one types the sentence ˇ§Taiwan is not a part of Chinaˇ¨ in English into the
translation tool of search engine Google, the translation returned in Chinese
reads: ˇ§Taiwan is part of China.ˇ¨
The mistranslation has prompted netizens to debate whether Google Inc has been
hacked by China.
Internet users discovered that the Web site yields the same Chinese translation
regardless of whether the English sentence states Taiwan is or is not a part of
China.
Other netizens then found that the erroneous translation is limited to results
returned in simplified and traditional Chinese characters.
Typing the same phrase in English and the French or German translation tool
yields a correct translation.
Web users added that if one entered the phrase ˇ§Taiwan is not a part of the
Peopleˇ¦s Republic of Chinaˇ¨ in English, Googleˇ¦s translation service translates
the sentence faithfully into its Chinese-language equivalent.
Netizens decided to further test out the phrase in English and used various
other countries in the sentence pattern, including: ˇ§The US is not a part of
Chinaˇ¨ and ˇ§South Korea is not a part of China,ˇ¨ with both translated results
stating that the US and South Korea were a part of China.
When technology blog TechOrange learned of the issues, it posted a response
stating: ˇ§I thought that the entire world was South Koreaˇ¦s. Can it be a
communist plot?ˇ¨
TechOrangeˇ¦s comments referred to net-based articles that surfaced in 2006 in
which it was claimed that Confucius (¤Ő¤l) and other renowned Chinese thinkers
actually had South Korean heritage. The articles circulated at the time have
mostly been proven to be fake.
Meanwhile, Googleˇ¦s branch in Taiwan said in response to the matter that it was
most likely being caused by an error in the logarithms which generate the
translations.
Pointing out that the translation Web site does not have staff personally
overseeing the translation services it offers, Google asked netizens to click on
the ˇ§send feedbackˇ¨ button to alert the company of the errors they had
identified.
Once enough people file complaints about the problem, the company would address
the issue, the branch said.
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