Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Google and the Maltese Translator.

What a wonderful tool for us non Maltese speaking expats, Google have just added Maltese to it's list of languages available on it's translator. I have used the Google translator on many occasions to assist me in my typically British inability to speak a foreign language, normally for French or Spanish, but Maltese not being widely spoken world wide has not been among it's list of many languages available.

I can speak a few of the more popular words or phrases in Maltese and I am learning more all the time, but everyone agrees it is one of the more difficult languages to learn, being a kind of Italian / Arabic crossover.

For those that don't know Google translator or Google translate enable you to select your language and then click translate, it takes seconds.

I jaraw jekk xogħlijiet, jiena xi ħadd li jiżgura li seaks Maltin se jkunu jistgħu tell me jekk dan huwa korrett?

Any Maltese speakers, does it work?

'Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing'. Robert Benchley.

4 comments:

Michael Carøe Andersen said...

I tried to send some Danish->Maltese to my Maltese girlfriend and she was not impressed. But I'm sure it will improve over time.

The Danish->English (or vice versa) has gotten quite good over time.

Anonymous said...

Hi Steve, it's been a while since I last popped in here. I'm sorry but that sentence you posted made me laugh (as online translators usually do!!).

I don't know written Maltese well enough to give you a translation of it, but for example, xogħlijiet is plural of the noun work; Maltin means Maltese people, not language. That's the problem with translator software, it just can't work.

"...jekk dan huwa korrett" is correct though (= "if this is correct"), LOL!

A while back I read my blog via the google translator English-German. Being able (well duh!) to read the German fluently, it had me in fits and tears...

Unknown said...

Hi Sabine, I hope the arm is back in full working order.

At the moment for me a bad translator is better than nothing at all, although it could lead to the start of a good comedy production.

Anonymous said...

Hehe...being Maltese I can confirm that the translator is not good ;) The problem is also that they leave a number of English words in the translated thing, and translate the context not so well...It took me a while to figure out what it should have said ;)
And as Michael said, Danish to Maltese also is not that good, but I guess it is better than nothing :)