I was laughing together with thousands of Malaysians when the twittter feed went viral on the really funny translation used by the Ministry of Defence for their attire webpage. Yes, it was quite funny I must admit, but not to the point that I take the mickey out of them.
I was quite surprised that those taking the mickey out of the site were all 'my people', were they taking the mickey out of the translation or was it worse, a small case of racism at the wardrobe that was being transmitted out ? If you had gone through the site on the day it went viral, I searched about 3 of the pages that had translated pages, a bit off I must admit, all equally damaging to Mindef but theStar had to pick out that page. The wardrobe page ? What people wear the work was what theStar was interested in. Wow, the editor of that article in the Star must be some sort of wizzkid of worst, he might be racist hence the reason for such a drastic action taken by them.
I went through MStar yesterday and I found quite of lot of mistakes in the English - Malay translation, which I too have print screen and shall send to KritisOnline as their News package to prove that really, the POT is calling the KETTLE black. Yes, MStar will say they have a disclaimer, looks like theStar forgot to read the disclaimer at the bottom of the Mindef site which says exactly the same.
Mindef does need to use a better method to translate (did not see theStar offer their services, just taking the mickey out of the site), and I can only hope that Mindef looks at it holisticly. Maybe having a look at a better translation software ending with a 'human being' checking the final versions. Sorry, I am too busy in my job at the petrol kiosk too help.
There are many things that make us laugh and giggle everyday, but when it goes on for awhile, it gets weird and at the end, nasty. looks like the theStar is having a field day. Well, though KritisOnline feeds from theStar everyday, I don't think theStar brings us news as this episode leans more towards being nasty in a very silent way.
Written by Susan Loo
Wednesday, 11 January 2012 19:33
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