Machine translation

Machine translation used to be pretty awful, but new technologies such as deep learning have made significant improvements. To be sure, it still makes mistakes, but it's a lot better than it was just a couple of years ago.

Here is an online tool you can use to translate from one language to another.

https://www.deepl.com/en/translator

My second language is Japanese. Here is a sample machine translation of the following news article in Japanese:
https://mainichi.jp/articles/2020121...0m/030/138000c

I will highlight the errors that I can spot.

Quote:

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Announces Cause of Mauritius Heavy Oil Spill On July 18, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (Tokyo), the operator of the large cargo ship Wakasio (inconsistent romanisation, see below), which ran aground and spilled heavy oil off Mauritius in the western Indian Ocean, announced the results of its investigation into the cause of the accident. MOL (Tokyo), which was operating the ship, announced the results of its investigation into the cause of the accident on April 18. (redundant and the date is wrong) The company said that the crew members approached the island to use their cell phones from the ship and did not have detailed charts of the site, so they did not know the exact location and depth of the water, which led to the stranding. 　The Wakashio was on its way to Brazil from China via Singapore. Vessels passing through the waters off Mauritius generally keep their distance to the extent that they do not enter the territorial waters (within about 22 kilometers from the shore). However, two days before the Wakasio ran aground, the ship's crew slightly adjusted its course to get closer to the coast in order to communicate by cell phone. 　When it approached the island, it was closer to the coast than expected because it had not prepared detailed charts. The depth of the water at the site was misidentified as more than 200 meters when it was actually only 10 meters. Radar and visual confirmation of the situation was also insufficient. The Mauritius coast guard said that just before the accident, they noticed the Wakashio approaching the island abnormally and warned it several times by radio. However, according to MOL, there is no record of the Wakashio receiving such warnings. 　In addition, there are records of the Wakasio making abnormal approaches to the coast off Indonesia and Taiwan within two months prior to the accident, and it is possible that the Wakasio was using a cell phone on that occasion as well. 　The shipping authorities in Panama, Central America, where the ship is registered, have pointed out that there was a "lack of supervision and monitoring and carelessness" on the part of the crew, and that the accident could have been avoided if proper measures had been taken. The government of Mauritius is continuing to investigate the cause of the accident, and the Japanese government is also cooperating by sending an investigation team from the National Transportation Safety Board to the area. The Indian captain and two others have been arrested on suspicion of negligence of safe navigation. 　The Washio was owned and managed by a subsidiary of Nagashiki Kisen (Okayama Prefecture) and chartered by MOL. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) is planning to strengthen its involvement in crew training and its support and monitoring of the ship's operation at its head office as measures to prevent a recurrence. 　In the accident, about 1,000 tons of fuel oil leaked into the sea. The majority of the oil was recovered by contractors and volunteers, but there are concerns about the medium- to long-term effects of the accident, as the site is an area with valuable ecosystems such as coral and mangrove forests. (Mitsuyoshi Hirano, Johannesburg)

Overall, pretty darn good, wouldn't you say? Except for that one redundant sentence with the wrong date. Pretty readable, and you can see what the problem was.

Feel free to try out other languages and post your results.

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