RSS Feed
Saturday, April 15, 2006 | 
This message can be translated into: Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano
Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 汉语
With concern expressed by local clergy and elected officials following one or more recent acts of family violence by those new to Los Angeles or with limited English language skills, the men and women of the Los Angeles Fire Department remind you that multi-lingual and culturally sensitive personal assistance is always available by telephone.
Within Los Angeles County, any person needing physical or emotional crisis support and advocacy, including referral to substance abuse, health, shelter, senior help and care concerns, disabled or public social services, can request non-emergency human services assistance at any hour by simply calling Infoline LA/2-1-1 LA County at (800) 339-6993 or 2-1-1.
Additionally, anyone experiencing or witnessing an emergency: defined as a situation that endangers human life and demands the immediate response of Police, Firefighters or Paramedics, can request that help in more than 150 languages from anywhere in California by calling 9-1-1.
Submitted by Brian Humphrey, Spokesman
Los Angeles Fire Department
9 comments:
Hi LA FD,
with greetings from Germany,I must tell you: A very,very poor Translation. Sorry, you have to work on it.
Thomas
Thomas:
Thanks for the note. Your feedback is both important and welcomed.
Like those creating website content across the globe, the LAFD has been struggling with a way to better (if not yet best) interact in writing with visitors who do not regularly speak or read English.
It is an immense challenge.
Though using a team of professional translators who are fluent in each language and culture would be ideal, it is not at this time practical or cost effective for all of the written material we produce daily.
Therefore, our automated computer-translation of this web log, which is powered by Google at no charge to our agency.
We hope that the message included at the top of each translated page will make it understood that it is a computer and not a person performing this less than perfect translation.
Plase know that when there are formal matters with those living in Los Angeles, including the production of official documents, the City of Los Angeles often provides the necessary but time and money intense resources for the LAFD to have the materials translated professionally.
With nearly 150 languages spoken in Los Angeles, our task remains perpetual.
Thank you for being patient and maintaining a good sense of humor when reading the computer generated translations.
We hope that they will become more accurate in time, but realize they will never take the place of a team of humans who are knowledgeable of both language and culture.
Respectfully Yours in Safety and Service,
Brian Humphrey
Firefighter/Specialist
Public Service Officer
Los Angeles Fire Department
I am a certified Eng-Fr translator with over 40 years experience. I can tell you your machine French translation stinks even if it is free. For example, the column Previous Posts is translated as Previous Poles (as in electric poles). Does not show very much respect for the reader. Translations in other languages are probably just as bad. Have someone retranslate them back into English and you will understand what I mean. Toronto, Canada.
Brian,
The fact that you would even attempt to provide a translation feature speaks volumes for your professionalism and good intentions. Any lack of quality is a reason to criticize the translation engine and NOT the LAFD blog.
The site www.freetranslation.com offers a fair translation engine for multiple languages and readers may try that site.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks for sharing your considerable expertise.
We'll forward your comments directly to Google, which as you mention, is the source of the free software.
Regretfully, we are not able to retain the professional services of schooled translators such as yourself on the 24/7/365 schedule a blog requires.
We're still experimenting with the software, and can assure you that no disrespect to Francophones is intended.
While machine translations will never take the place of people, we're hoping you will join us in providing feedback directly to the vendor (in this case Google) whenever you encounter inexact or inappropriate machine translations.
It's our belief that this is the only way these largely helpful, yet now far from perfect tools can evolve.
Again, thanks for your comments.
Respectfully Yours in Safety and Service,
Brian Humphrey
Firefighter/Specialist
Public Service Officer
Los Angeles Fire Department
As someone who has studied linguistics and machine translation, I can tell you that until genuine artificial intelligence is created, machine translations will never come close to measuring up to human translations. Hopefully, those who are reading the machine translations of the site can appreciate this and be able to figure out from the context that mistakes like "previous poles" actually refers to "previous posts".
Thanks to the LAFD for taking the time and effort to provide such an informative site.
Brian,
Out of curiousity, what are the most common langauges (other than English and Spanish) that you encounter on the job?
Thanks,
Alex
Alex:
Thanks for the note.
Anecdotal information, combined with an informal survey of LAFD field crews would bolster the more formal statistics of our 9-1-1 center in affirming Korean as the next most frequently used language (after English and Spanish) in Los Angeles emergency situations attended to by Fire Department personnel.
Respectfully Yours in Safety and Service,
Brian Humphrey
Firefighter/Specialist
Public Service Officer
Los Angeles Fire Department
As mentioned in an earlier comment, I have engaged in dialogue with the hard-working and well intentioned staff at Google, and am heartened in knowing that they are devoted to improvement of this nascent technology.
In fact, we are not alone in our concerns or observation, yet there does seem to be reason for hope.
While I don't personally expect "perfection" in my lifetime, I am confident that the translations will become less cryptic, and that those who use the clearly labeled software more knowledgeable, in the years to come.
Brian Humphrey
Firefighter/Specialist
Public Service Officer
Los Angeles Fire Department
Post a Comment
Comments to this blog are approved or disapproved without editing.
We seek to offer a broad cross-section of *public* thoughts that are specific to the topic at hand and genuinely polite in tone - regardless of opinion.
Kindly post your comments below.