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Microsoft's Chinese Translator Lags Behind Google Translate

Microsoft's subsidiary MSN launches its Chinese translator Engkoo at engkoo.msra.cn. However, for its quality of translation still lags behind Google Translate or Abacus Chinese Translation Services' human Chinese translators.

by Samuel Chong
December 3, 2009

Los Angeles, California.: Microsoft's subsidiary MSN launches its online Chinese to English translation engine "Engkoo" on December 2.  It provides definitions of English words, sample pronunciations, Chinese Pinyin queries and whole-sentence translations.

However, professional Chinese translators at Abacus Chinese Translation Services tested Engkoo for a few sentences, and found out that its Chinese translation quality still falls behind Google Translate or human Chinese translators at Abacus Chinese Translation Services.

On November 18, 2009, the article Google Translate, Now a Threat to Freelance Translation Services (Good Thing for the Public, Though) details why experts at Abacus Chinese Translation Services believe that Google Translate will become a threat to freelance translation services.  In fact, the quality of Google Translate has been improving, at least for English to Chinese translation.

For the sentence "I am the best Chinese translator in the world", Microsoft translates it as "I am the best China translate, in (at) the world", which does not make much sense to a native Chinese speaker.  On the other hand, Google Translate translates it as "I am the best Chinese translator in the world" which is a perfect Chinese translation of the original English sentence.  Chinese translators at Abacus Chinese Translation Services are amazed at the accuracies of Google Translate.

"At least for this sentence, Google Translate has done an excellent job, providing the most accurate translation in the sense that its translation is how our human Chinese translators would translate it." Says Sunny Wang, a Chinese translator in Los Angeles.

Microsoft's MSN is no match to Google, at least for now, and at least in terms of Chinese translation.  Google Translate, on the other hand, is currently no match to the human certified Chinese translators at Abacus Chinese Translation Services, at least for now, and for some time in the future.  However, Chinese translators at Abacus Chinese Translation Services still feel threatened with the new developments of Google Translate.

"We are now focusing more on oral interpretation.  As Andrew Grove says, 'only the paranoid survive'". Wang says.

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This article can also be found at http://www.certifiedchinesetranslation.com/09/1203-Chinese-Translator-Microsoft-Google.html