What automatic machine translation makes up for in productivity, it certainly loses in accuracy. This may be a valid compromise when conversing with a friend over the Internet, but unacceptable in the medical sector where mistranslations could prove to be fatal.

The National Post reports that in 2009, a law came into effect in the US which required New York pharmacies to provide multilingual medicine labelling. In a city which includes an estimated 50% of citizens who speak a language other than English in the home, it was hoped that these steps would ensure an equality of care for those who do not speak English as a first language. Following this law, a study (published by Pediatrics® in April 2010) was carried out with the objective of evaluating the ‘accuracy of translated, Spanish-language medicine labels among pharmacies in a borough with a large Spanish-speaking population.’

The study covered pharmacies in the Bronx area of New York and the results provided information about how many pharmacies produced medicine labels in the Spanish language; how often machine translations were used; and the quality of the Spanish translation produced.

The results were astounding: 86% of pharmacies providing Spanish translations used machine translation with only 3% employing professional translators; 43% of the total labels evaluated contained incomplete translations and of an additional 6 labels studied, misspellings and grammatical errors resulted in a 50% error rate.

WSFA news reported on the some of the translation errors. A common problem was ‘Spanglish’ – the mixture of Spanish and English – resulting in instructions which were difficult to read and a source of patient confusion. Mistranslations were another problem, e.g. the use of the word ‘once’ which means ‘eleven’ in Spanish – a difference in meaning between English and Spanish which could cause a potential overdose. Misspelling included ‘poca’ instead of ‘boca’ (‘little’ and ‘mouth’ respectively in Spanish) and under the heading of poor translations, ‘Take 1.2 aldia give dropperfuls with juice eleven to day’ was a salient example.

There has been a call for standardisation and improvements in this area and patients have been advised to request the services of professional translators and interpreters to ensure complete understanding of the dosage instructions. But with only 3% of pharmacies employing professional translators to carry out this work, it would seem that adequate access to language services and the provision of accurate translations are not a high priority.

The survey was carried out by Iman Sharif and Julia Tse and their results concluded that the ‘quality of the translations was inconsistent and potentially hazardous’. The need for better regulations and funding in this domain was identified, which Sharif stated ‘is probably something that belongs within the health reform conversations’ (The National Post).

Medical translation is a highly qualified field and it is almost incomprehensible that machine translation is deemed an acceptable resource. Language professionals in the US and abroad will no doubt be interested to see whether these issues will be sufficiently covered in the health reform discussions currently underway, as any mistranslations here could well be the difference between life and death.

In an unprecedented collaboration between members of the Spanish gaming community and publishers of the Wii game Fragile Dreams: Ruins of the Moon, around fifty volunteers will translate the game’s script into Spanish. Due to be released in US and European markets on 16 and 19 March respectively, it is hoped that the Spanish language version will follow shortly.

With a script containing more than 35,000 words – the translation project is no mean feat. But when DSWii.es contacted Japanese publishers Rising Star Games with the idea, an advertisement for volunteer translators was posted and fifty eager recruits were enrolled. However, on accessing the translation website – fragile.blogocio.net – it appears that a grand total of 0% translation has been carried out to date. With just over a week until the European release, it would appear that initial estimates of translation timescales were highly optimistic!

In a press release, Hugo Fraga – Director of Content and Marketing at Blogocio Media SL (DSWii.es’s parent company) – stated that ‘The most important aspect of this translation is not that the game arrives in Spanish, but that this is the first time in history in which gamers will participate actively in the development process or the localisation of a title.’

Yet even though this collaboration has been hailed as the first of its kind in relation to an officially sanctioned translation carried out by fans, it was still unclear from the website as to what was on offer for the Spanish language version. Available as a free ‘digital download’ via DSWii.es and the Rising Star’s Hoshi portal, questions were being asked for verification as to if this was a language patch to integrate files onto the console itself via the SD card. Through the comments page, it appears that the translated material will be a PDF downloadable booklet which can be printed out and consulted whilst playing the game. If this is indeed the case, surely a leaflet or PDF file is far removed from the culture of video games whereby attention is focussed on the screen. And with an estimated 400 million speakers of Castilian Spanish worldwide, surely a language patch would have been the best option.

Nevertheless, the volunteer translators have been applauded for their efforts, but the company itself has received some criticism in its failure to employ professional translators and programmers to create the patch. However, as an interesting aside, some users were pleased that playing video games in English had improved their language skills!

Crowdsourcing is an increasingly popular option for companies – but it is a risky path to follow. Undoubtedly, overall costs are less if volunteers are employed, but the importance of using professional translators must not be forgotten. Fragile Dreams: Ruins of the Moon sold over 26,000 copies in Japan in its first week of release which made it the second most popular video game at the time. It remains to be seen whether the figures will translate quite so well in Spain.