Earlier this month The BMJ published an original research article on the use of Google Translate in medical communication. The aim of the authors was to evaluate the accuracy and usefulness of Google Translate in translating common English medical statements.

Methods

The authors took 10 phrases, translated them with Google Translate into 26 languages (8 Western European, 5 Eastern European, 11 Asian, and 2 African) and then asked human translators (26 native speakers of the target languages) to back translate the results into English. The back translations were then analysed for errors against the original phrases.

So far so good. But you may be wondering why I’m reviewing this study in this (boring) factual manner. After all, it has already been widely shared and aired on Twitter, other blogs and forums.

I’m reviewing the article because there’s a twist to it.

[…]

Results

The funny side

Google’s efforts were a joke. A cardiac arrest turned into an imprisoned heart. A fittingchild became one who was constructing.  In Marathi, donating organs was translated astools, and in Bengali, a need to be ventilated turned into a wind movement. For more juicy translations, see the full list.

Google only got it right 57.7% of the time!!! According to these results, only about half of all Googled patients would be properly ventilated, donate their organs and be consented for an operation. That leaves a massive 42.3% switching on electric fans, gifting their tools and agreeing to operate machinery. More.

Read the full post in Signs & Symptoms of Translation here: http://signsandsymptomsoftranslation.com/2014/12/29/google-translate-bmj/

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