Canada accidentally helped crack computer translation

Yes, I remember using a translation startup's automated website to translate a text to French where "kind regards" were translated to "I'd like to thank the president of the EU". I'm pretty sure they were using EU documents for training...

I believe other sources include UN documents, which are translated into even more languages, and then there are a bunch of combined corpora like https://opus.nlpl.eu/ which contains hundreds of languages as well.

The obvious downside of this, of course, is that translated text often ends up quite official and stiff. Great for reading news, translating speeches and reading papers, not so great for day to day conversation. There are corpora for more practical, specific use for a few languages, but they usually only come in pairs.

I don't know how services like Google Translate work now, but through experimentation you used to be able to see how the translation matrix went through English first when you translated between two other European languages. You'd put in a word for which the source and destination language had specific words, but for which English only had one single word, and you'd get a mistranslation every time. The shorter the sentences, the more likely the translation service would get it wrong.

I just found out this can still be replicated on Google Translate, actually: the Dutch word mees (tit, the bird, aka titmouse) and the Dutch word tiet (tit, slang for human anatomy) both get translated into French as mésange, the bird, when you enter them each on a new line. Add more words for context ("wat een grote rieten" vs "wat een grote mezen") and the translation corrects itself.

I don't believe the French word mésange has any direct correlation with mammal anatomy, so clearly the translation matrix involves the English language, or af least one with similar ambiguities. This is why you can't rely on Google Translate if you're just looking for the translation of a single word, especially if you're translating between languages other than English.

How is it not topical to mention that a government-led research project failed to accomplish with their own data trove what a private organization did with it, when the whole article is about that very data and that private organization's achievement?

As someone who had worked with both research and procurement agencies in the Canadian government, I'm surprised the author was able to hold their tongue until the middle of the article.

OP is right, nevertheless.

You can play these games within the same language: See, Regina v. Ojibway.

I'm baffled that dense contracts with so much money on the line do not have better clarification of the terms. It would take one or two extra sentences to make intentions clear for both parties (e.g. "For example, if neither party notifies the other by the end of the 4th year that they do not intend to cancel the renewal, the contract will automatically renew for the subsequent 5 years").

I'm not a lawyer, but when I was helping write agreements for my dad with tenants he had - it seemed like a no-brainer to include "this means, if X does not happen by 11:59pm of Y date, Z will apply".

ps - I'm angry at any contract agreement where the date can be interpreted as "end of day, 11:59pm" or "the day, which starts at 0:01am"

In Ireland (ROI), Irish being the first official language of the state, constitutionally the Irish language version of a law takes precedence (Article 25, 4.6º) over an English language version (this applies to the constitution itself also).

Many laws are written in English in the first place though (the president can sign either form), sadly it's sometimes a decade or more before an official translation is made. A secondary problem is the insistence of a defendant to have his trial heard in the Irish language, or have Irish forms of the various laws/summons/transgressions. We usually call those people "cute hoors".

Someone from up north. I am not mad, and I don't know anyone who is. If freeriding was required to enable a major breakthrough, so be it.

Also of note, bilingualism/multilingualism is practically the norm across the world; monolingualism is almost an exception.

We have tried to raise our daughter at least with some bilingualism, and so had her in French immersion from senior kindergarten through to grade 8. In retrospect a mistake for a multitude of reasons. I doubt her French will persist well beyond her school years and without a community other than school to use it in, it's mainly pointless, and many aspects of the curriculum were harder than they should have been for her because of the language barrier. And after 9 years of immersive education she can't listen to a native French speaker and understand or watch TV, because French in the real world and outside of her classroom is spoken much more quickly and accented.

Nevermind that French immersion in Ontario is teaching these kids Parisian French and pronounciation, while 25% of the population of Canada speaks Quebecois dialect so kids here are not learning the French from their own country. Frankly, there's a bias in the education system against Quebecois French generally which reflects a Colonial era mentality (mother country "good" -- and local is a poor imitation, a psychological disease that's all over Canada, especially English Canada).

All of this ranting is just to bring up the challenges of trying to attain bilingualism when you are a native English speaker in an English speaking country. In some ways it's a curse.

These days I'd mostly prefer to live in Quebec for cultural/political/lifestyle reasons. But I was brought up unilingual in Alberta (with some German), and never learned French beyond half-heartedly counting to 10.

Canada's official bilingualism is mostly a thin veneer that is a reality on the ground only in places like Ottawa. Sort of a half-hearted half-completed project just to try to put a cork in separatism.