Comments on: Incredible Lebanon Google Catch!

By: Facebook Banned In Syria. How To Undo The Ban. | The Beirut Spring, a Lebanese Blog

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 06:23:08 +0000

[...] • Last month, I made an incredible google discovery on Lebanon. Check it out • Also, last September, I discovered that Google Earth now has images of “tent city” the opposition’s infamous camp. [...]

By: N10452

N10452 — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:43:06 +0000

Try Libanesischen Präsidenten

It will give you Lebanese President.

By: Mustapha

Mustapha — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:51:43 +0000

Pazuzu,

Thanks for taking your time and explaining this for us. I’ll definitely contact google

By: Pazuzu

Pazuzu — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:44:22 +0000

LoL well if you want to understand this better just check out how google translator works, it doesn’t have translators that actually insert definitions and translations, it works on comparing previously translated texts to make a one-on-one relationship between words. the success and efficiency of this system works most of all on languages that have a lot of bilingual texts, the more texts there is the more comparison there is and the more accurate the translation would be. If you use the combination of two languages that have little bilingual sources (such as arabic-german) then any potential false or inaccurate translation could cause serious damage to the data base… it’s all about statistics. If you have for example a few long texts with a prevalence of “Syrian president” and “Lebanese president” in it, then the system might be mislead to identifying “Syrian president” with “Lebanese president”… Since the Lebanese politics are so closely related to the Syrian one and with the grave influence the Syrian president has in the lebanese presidential elections, it’s understandable that these mistakes would occur in the translator.

But you can contact google and fix, just send an email and inform the team of the mistake they will quickly fix it and actually thank you for mentioning it .

I know this because a Lebanese gay activist discovered that the arabic translation for homosexual in teh google translator was: ???
Which is degrading, so he contacted google team and they explained the system, corrected the mistake and thanked him for his contribution.

By: Jester

Jester — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 23:59:39 +0000

hahaha… Great find Mustapha. I suggested a new definition, and advise all of you to do to the same.

By: Johnny

Johnny — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:52:39 +0000

Nice catch Mustapha!

By: Danny

Danny — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:14:39 +0000

For the past nine years…President of Lebanon…Assad family. Currently Bashar. So google has not erred yet!

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:00:39 +0000

if you dont use capital L for libanesischer it translates it as lebanese president.

Guess google understands the political situation best

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:00:23 +0000

if you dont use capital L for libanese it translates it as lebanese president.

Guess google understands the political situation best

By: beirutspring

beirutspring — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:53:47 +0000

Kheireddine,

..And Google took that for face value?