Earlier this week, PCWorld published a roundup of Windows 12 rumors translated from PCWelt that does not meet our editorial standards. We’re deeply embarrassed by it, and I personally apologize that the article was published. It should not have been, but we’re keeping the article live (with an editor’s note at the top) so it remains in the public record.
Windows Central published a response detailing its errors. Thanks for keeping us accountable, guys — genuinely. In the same spirit of accountability, I want to explain how this happened, and what we’re doing to ensure a mistake like this never occurs again.
Let’s start by discussing how PCWorld handles translated articles, and then I’ll dive into the issues with the article itself.
There is a difference in translating, and interpreting. And interpreting can be difficult even for the best as you need a deep cultural understanding of both parties. Just machine translating articles is an obvious recipe for disaster.
In my experience. Since they mentioned they translate article from the Swedish branch as well. As a Swede. Translation software has never been particularly good at translating Swedish. There is just too much nuance and contextual words for a software to provide reliable translations.
We have lots of words, that have multiple meanings, often very, very different from eachother, based entirely on context.
Any Swede will know what “får får får?” Means. This is a real sentence. Translation software does not understand it one bit, unless it’s been hardcoded in.
Edit: another funny one. “en bar man bar en bar man i en bar” you have 4 “bar” but they mean 3 different things.