Google Translate: Competitor ElaN Challenges App Accuracy With Recipe Test [Watch]
Translation service ElaN recently challenged the accuracy of industry leading competitor Google Translate in a head-to-head translation test.
ElaN is a relatively unknown service that offers both free and paid translation solutions to companies and individuals. Google Translate uses automated results, while ElaN uses a team of human experts to translate text.
The company wanted to prove that its free translation services are better than those offered by Google Translate. To prove that it is more accurate, ElaN created a video that puts the two services head-to-head in creating a dish from a Japanese recipe, AdWeek reports.
The "Taste the Translation" video shows a chef creating two versions of the Japanese dish, after the recipe is translated into English by both Google Translate and ElaN. The video was released earlier this year, but played primarily in the Netherlands. It has since gained widespread coverage after winning several awards.
The video starts off with several blindfolded guests waiting to eat the dish, a sushi cake, which the chef prepares using both translation services.
To begin cooking, ElaN tells the chef to boil the spinach. Google Translate tells the chef to "rape the spinach," leading him to smash the greens several times with a pan.
After boiling the spinach, ElaN tells the chef to discard parts of the spinach roots. Google Translate renders the same phrase as "discard roots by cutting lots of coins." The chef follows the direction, using a power saw to cut into actual coins.
In another error, Google Translate tells the chef to "mix spinach with rice sprinkled flyers," leading him to cut up actual paper flyers into the dish.
ElaN accurately tells the chef to top the dish with the rose salmon, diced avocado and salmon topping. Google Translate mentions something about "hard horses hovered the tomato fruit." The chef is not quite sure what to do with that instruction, so he sprinkles miniature plastic horses on top of the dish.
The two dishes are then presented to the blindfolded guests. The ElaN-translated dishes appear tasty and edible, while the Google Translate dishes have pieces of paper and miniature plastic horses in them. The guests struggle to eat the Google Translate dishes and enjoy the ElaN dishes.
ElaN offers pay translation services for major companies like BP, 20th Century Fox and Bose. With the video, the company wanted to prove that professional translation tools are important and that free tools like Google Translate can be highly inaccurate. ElaN advises companies to only use free translation services for a few words.
Watch the video below:
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