すみませんがこの席あいていますか？ <-- ?

[dpaint4]

すみませんがこの席あいていますか？

I'm typing and practicing phrases from the lessons in my favorite Japanese word processor and checking my accuracy with Babelfish.

However, the above seemingly tame sentence seems to really disturb Babelfish, which translates my typed sentance as:

It is not completed, but this seat you open?

(I bolded the parts that are strange to me / not what I thought I was saying)

I don't expect good grammar from Babelfish, but I look for general accuracy of my intended phrase, and this is not even close.

What am I typing incorrectly?

[Jason]

What you're typing incorrectly is the URL to babelfish. You shouldn't be relying on babelfish for accuracy. Its translations are horrible.

[Bueller_007]

すみませんがこの席あいていますか？

I'm typing and practicing phrases from the lessons in my favorite Japanese word processor and checking my accuracy with Babelfish.

However, the above seemingly tame sentence seems to really disturb Babelfish, which translates my typed sentance as:

It is not completed, but this seat you open?

(I bolded the parts that are strange to me / not what I thought I was saying)

I don't expect good grammar from Babelfish, but I look for general accuracy of my intended phrase, and this is not even close.

What am I typing incorrectly?

No.

"Sumimasen" literally translates as "it is not finished". Imagine Charles Bronson in Death Wish trying to get his revenge: "This ain't over." Sumimasen has the same meaning in Japanese (and when written using kanji, it uses the same one).

The idea is that when someone does something good for you, you now owe them "giri" or "obligation". If you do something BAD to someone, you then owe them the "giri" of making it up to them. (Or, they owe YOU the "giri" of taking out their revenge.) So "sumimasen" indicates that the relationship between the two of you is not yet over because you have yet to repay your "giri". This is why sumimasen can be used not only as "excuse me", but also as "I'm sorry" and "thank you".

Speaking of "thank you", I will mention that you should only be using "arigatou" for major things. If someone passes the salt to you at dinner, for example, you should say "sumimasen". "Arigatou" is a very strong word. It is the polite form of "arigatai", which means "difficult to bear", and is again, a reflection of the "giri" concept. "You have done something good for me, and this 'giri' that I owe you is 'arigatou' (difficult to bear)."

[dpaint4]

Thanks! You opened up a whole new wave of understanding on this topic for me. I guess I'm happy that Babelfish was so clumsy about the connotation of the phrase, because otherwise I'd have never had this explained to me.

すみませんとありがとう。

[Bueller_007]

Thanks! You opened up a whole new wave of understanding on this topic for me. I guess I'm happy that Babelfish was so clumsy about the connotation of the phrase, because otherwise I'd have never had this explained to me.

すみませんとありがとう。

Yeah... The rest of the phrase is messed up simply because computers are stupid. And the fact that the Japanese language omits subjects, objects, verbs, etc. just complicates matters.

Computers will not, in our lifetimes, be able to translate or understand language in most contexts.

The famous Stephen Pinker example is a simple two-line conversation between boyfriend and girlfriend:
Boy: "It's over."
Girl: "Who is she?"

There's so much human understanding that goes into our comprehension of that conversation that computers simply have no hope.

Understanding a sentence isn't that important for translating from English to French, where you can basically just substitute words, but for E-J (and especially J-E), it's critical.

[steve0]

Its translations are horrible.

[kc8ufv]

Understanding a sentence isn't that important for translating from English to French, where you can basically just substitute words, but for E-J (and especially J-E), it's critical.

Even staying within a language family, where you can do that for the most part, you still must understand the sentance to pick the correct substitute word. Using a machine translator will still frequently give comedic results.

Here's an example. I simply used my text.

Même restant dans un famille de langue, où vous pouvez faire cela pour la plupart, vous devez encore comprendre la phrase pour sélectionner le mot de remplacement correct. Utilisant la machine un traducteur néanmoins donnera fréquemment des résultats comiques.

Even remaining in a family of language, where you can do that for the majority, you must still include/understand the sentence to select the word of correct replacement. Using the machine a translator nevertheless will frequently give comic results.

Not quite as bad as if I used a non-related language (such as Japanese) but still not great. The only things I have found babelfish to be useful for are 1) Comedy and 2) attempting to get a vague idea of what text online/in print says in a language you don't understand at all. I'm not that great with Japanese yet, but I will get a much better understanding by looking at J-E dictionaries (such as peraperakun) than I will from babelfish. Then again, I already have knowledge of the basic grammar.

[korinsan]

What you're typing incorrectly is the URL to babelfish. You shouldn't be relying on babelfish for accuracy. Its translations are horrible.

i agree
a while back, i was quoting something (cant remember what it was), but it turned up to be this
'That “this you attach, shout the [wa] which enters -!!!”'

[Andialu]

The translator below is better than babelfish. I use in combination with http://www.kantango.com

http://www.ocn.ne.jp/translation/

The first radio button is English to Japanese and the second one the reverse.

It translates it to:

Excuse me, but is this seat available?

[jaypunkrawk]

Oooooo! That's a nice translator! Thanks! Babelfish is much better for Romance languages.

[Andialu]

OCN is a great translator. But one of the things you'll find is that the best way to use it is to simplifiy your sentences as much as possible or even break them down. If you throw in long complicated sentences or pragraphs it tends to go haywire. Having a good grasp of grammar is a plus to get the most out of the translator. If it's a more complicated it can give you a rough idea but you need to touch it a bit. I also reverse translate it to see if it threw any curve balls at me. Sometimes it will throw in alternate words and I have to check it at kantango.com.

So my basic routine is:

If I only know the english word or want to translate a sentence.
http://www.ocn.ne.jp/translation/

If I know the kanji/kana but not the pronunciation or meaning
http://www.kantango.com

Hope this helps