Machine Translation Tools for the Haggadah?
Post date: Dec 2, 2018 12:30:35 PM
Dealing with many blundering human-made translations of the Haggadah on a daily basis makes one wonder about the linguistic capabilities of these translators. Completely mistaken translations, clearly misunderstood translations and deliberately slanted translations abound. It makes you wish for a definitive, objective translator whose translation is 100% correct. Wouldn’t it be nice is machine translation was the answer? Well, it isn’t as I can show right away by having different MT projects translate the 8-line poem Hassal Siddur Pesach from the end of the Haggadah. The original text:
חֲסַל סִדּוּר פֶּסַח כְּהִלְכָתוֹ,
כְּכָל מִשְׁפָּטוֹ וְחֻקָתוֹ.
כַּאֲשֶׁר זָכִינוּ לְסַדֵּר אוֹתוֹ
כֵּן נִזְכֶּה לַעֲשׂוֹתוֹ.
זָךְ שׁוֹכֵן מְעוֹנָה,
קוֹמֵם קְהַל עֲדַת מִי מָנָה.
בְּקָרוֹב נַהֵל נִטְעֵי כַנָּה
פְּדוּיִם לְצִיוֹן בְּרִנָּה
And here some of the translations:
Microsoft’s Bing translator makes a complete mess out of it. Whereas the first 4 lines at least resemble English it quickly deteriorates in the final four:
Eliminate the longer Pesah sanctifying
ordered the trial and hakato.
When we fix it
so we can do.
Zach lies,
ADAS who replaced her.
Soon manage pdoim
preparation for germ.
Even worse is etranslator. This website rightfully hedges with the following disclaimer: Use this translation service for colloquial translations. Avoid using it for important document translations, like business translations, medical translations, technical translations or website translations. In this case, you must contact a reliable translation company.
Hsl Sdor Passover Chlcto,
Ccl Msfto and Hkto.
Wherever Zcino Lsdr selfsame
yes Nzch Lasoto.
Zc situated residence,
Komm Khl congregation Who quotient.
You soon Nhl Ntai Cnh
Fdoim Ltzion Brnh.
Babylon made only a half-baked effeort to translate and just left in some Hebrew words it could not understand:
No More Form כְּהִלְכָתוֹ Passover,
as trial וְחֻקָתוֹ.
When we arrange it
so you will have to do.
pure is tortured,
to stir up the audience who dish.
Soon manage rock
פְּדוּיִם sincere for joy.
Although many of us might trust Google Translate once in a while for our Hebrew/ English translations, the following suggests we should do so cautiously:
He has broken his head,
His judgment and his law.
As we were able to arrange
He is entitled to do so.
This is a poor neighbor,
He stood up for a time.
Almost as soon as we went, we drove
Farewell to Zion.
Comparing all these to the translation produced by an unknown website: Do-It-In-Hebrew brought a big surprise. This website, created by PellaWorks did actually better for the first four lines than any of the other big and well-known computer translators (although the last 4 again became a mess):
The Passover Seder is not the same,
As far as his trial and legislation are concerned.
When we were able to arrange it
We will do well.
Zach dwells in a torment,
The congregation of the congregation of Mei Mina rose.
Natani will soon be honest
Fadim to Zion Brna.
But still, even the worst human translator did better than any of these, so no machine translated Haggadah for the time being.
P.S. The response (which is automatically translated) you get when sending Do-It-In-Hebrew feedback is cool:
