Google may do a lot of good things for a lot of people, but so far it’s proving to be a lousy translator, at least from German to English. A visit to the eminently valuable Web site of the German financial magazine Der Fonds is greeted with a top line proudly announcing, “This page has been automatically translated from German,” words that are bound to cause one to contemplate committing autocide.
While some of the translation is intelligible – it is relatively easy to figure out that “Barrier Street” means “Wall Street” and a “daughter” refers to a subsidiary” – try to decipher, “The German Hedge fund scene will experience, says a new, cheaper generation roof fund shortly Thorsten Poerschmann...” or “Ampega did a good grasp with in December 2001 presented funds.” Sometimes, for a lack of any better translation, the translation leaves the original in tact, such as “kapitalanlagegesellschaft,” German for “capital investment company.” One might have better luck in the original German.
To be fair, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page did say on the TV show “60 Minutes” recently that they are working on an automatic translation program – but did not acknowledge the existence or any problems with the current one. And Der Fonds apparently has no control over the automation. Being googled has taken on a whole new meaning.