I actually have a sample text that I use to test translation software. WARNING: Cruelty to seagulls ahead. This text from Topito grosses me out a bit, but I've found over the years that it tends to break translation software. This text is interesting for a couple of reasons:
- It deliberately mixes formal and informal language.
- It uses plenty of vocabulary you'd never find in a newspaper (and most translation software is trained on newspapers).
- It uses some nautical vocabulary, which is also outside of many training sets.
Topito wrote:Quand on croise un marin aviné au comptoir d'un bar côtier, celui-ci ne manque jamais l'occasion de narrer le dernier coup de pute qu'il a fait avec ses compères à une mouette chopée au large. Il s'agit en général de lui faire bouffer des roulements à billes et de regarder la pauvre bête clouée au sol sous les rires gras de ces rugueux marins. Ou de littéralement l’agrafer à une planche pour déconner. C'est certes cruel, mais ce sont bien ces gaillards au visage buriné par les embruns qui ont raison tant la mouette est un animal détestable. Les bonnes raisons de le penser ne manquent pas.
Here's the DeepL translation:
DeepL wrote:When you come across an avid sailor at a coastal bar counter, he never misses the opportunity to recount the last hooker's blow he made with his fellow sailors to a seagull caught in the open sea. It's usually a matter of making her eat ball bearings and looking at the poor beast nailed to the ground under the greasy laughter of these rough sailors. Or literally staple it to a board to screw around. It's cruel, but it's those guys with their faces chiselled by the spray that are right because the seagull is such a detestable animal. There is no shortage of good reason to think so.
There's a couple of weird translations here: aviné is a fairly uncommon French word, but the dictionary says it means "drunk". A couple of colorful words are translated as more generic ones, and so on. But basically this text is usable. I've never seen a machine translation handle this text well before.
I'm also fascinated by the translation of compères "buddies, partners in crime" as "fellow sailors". That's a clever bit of context dependence. And I'm also impressed by the "making her eat ball bearings", because lui in this particular context is gender-neutral, but the underlying referent is mouette "seagull", a feminine word. So it seems to be tracking long-range gender agreement.
Now let's compare what Google Translate gave me:
Google Translate wrote:When you cross an avined sailor at the bar of a coastal bar, this one never misses the opportunity to narrate the last blow of a whore he made with his friends to a seagull choped off. It is generally a matter of eating ball bearings and watching the poor animal nailed to the ground under the fat laughter of these rough sailors. Or literally staple it to a plank to mess up. It is certainly cruel, but it is these fellows with a face engraved by the spray that are right so much the seagull is a detestable animal. There is no shortage of reasons for this.
Yeah, Google Translate is still a total disaster here. I have no idea how it gets "chopped off" from chopée au large, but DeepL chooses the much better "caught in the open sea".
So, my verdict: Go check out DeepL if you use machine translation to make sense of L2 texts. This one looks pretty nice after my single, unscientific test. And it seems to have a much better informal vocabulary than Google Translate. Let us know if it works well for you!