PASSPORT TO .. FAILURE
Passport Travel magazine made a brief appearance on the bookshelves in Thailand last summer.
Priced at 90 baht, this letterbox format publication spared nothing when it came to production. Where it was found sadly wanting, and what probably led to its downfall, was its use of Google Translate for its English translated content.
Although not totally bilingual, the magazine opted to reproduce some of its Thai content in English, presumably to attract more advertisers. Here are some examples of what appeared in print.
"The night I was count the start until slept, and wake up with morning call of editor. In the morning if you would like to see sunrise should be driving to Dinsor mountain or it will be most amazing driving to Kaewprasert Temple, will have group of island among opposite sea when sunrise in back of mountain ridge of island."
Or how about ..
"Boutique Resort style British-India still symbol of Thai, link small garden to each room. Tisita derived from Dusit means 4th heaven which resident of angel and for people are comfortable as if residing on heaven. Any rooms have private corner to residence. Wiman backside terrace nearly bright stream and large chair is comfortable with buddy book."
For the sake of 20,000 baht - the probable cost of native English proofreading - this could have been a very good magazine.
4 comments:
What a fail - either the English section was never intended for any English readers, or the staff who decided to use a machine translation was totally incompetent. Google Translate can translate English to Thai as well, so it would be easy for them to check the quality of the translation, and they should easily notice that it can only be used to get a glimpse of a foreign language content, whether it is worth to spend more energy to get a real translation.
I have one copy of the TRIPS magazine, as it sometimes has parts in English as well, though not the same depth as the Thai text. But at least that issue - on the historical parks - had almost a complete translation.
Thanks for your comments Andy. There was another magazine in 2009 called Open Thailand which also used Google Translate. That one survived a couple of issues.
Wait Andrew, you're saying there're MORE issues of Open Thailand out there? I thought it hasn't survived the first one - of which I still hold a copy in honor (thanks for that btw!) ;)
Khun Saksith, good to hear from you again and thanks for commenting.
From memory there were two issues of Open Thailand but I will check my ever-growing pile of magazines and let you know. A friend says she's seen another Google Translate magazine recently and has promised to pass me a copy. Stay tuned. :-)
Post a Comment