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Is this a human Estonian translation or a machine translation?
Thread poster: Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
Sjedinjene Američke Države
Local time: 14:40
Spanish to English
+ ...
Jun 25, 2014

I apologize for the English, but I thought I may get a faster response in this forum.

See the preview for this book: Tom Sawyer in Estonian:
See more
I apologize for the English, but I thought I may get a faster response in this forum.

See the preview for this book: Tom Sawyer in Estonian:
http://www.amazon.com/Seiklused-Tom-Saeyer-Adventures-Estonian/dp/1500115355/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403716623&sr=1-4&keywords=estonian

Time Machine in Estonian: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500155926/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=26BDSCZXPYDA0&coliid=I3PQE6JSSENOX4

I got excited when I saw that there were several classics available in Estonian, but the reason I ask is because if you click on the translator's name, he has "translated" books into a number of languages. This is an unfortunate trend on Amazon with people self publishing machine translated works.

I want to notify Amazon about this scam, but I want to make sure first because most of the titles are older books and it is quite possible that this person has located a human translation....


[Edited at 2014-06-25 17:37 GMT] ▲ Collapse
 
pauliine27
pauliine27  Identity Verified
Španija
Local time: 20:40
Spanish to Estonian
+ ...
A machine translation for sure Jun 25, 2014

Hello Mr Whittaker!

I am Estonian and also a translator, although not in the field of fiction. Still, I believe my observations can be of help.

Only by observing the title of the first book it can be confirmed it's not a human translation, further peeking inside already the first few sentences are so horrible there is no doubt about both of these being machine translations.

Both "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Time Machine" are already available in ... See more
Hello Mr Whittaker!

I am Estonian and also a translator, although not in the field of fiction. Still, I believe my observations can be of help.

Only by observing the title of the first book it can be confirmed it's not a human translation, further peeking inside already the first few sentences are so horrible there is no doubt about both of these being machine translations.

Both "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Time Machine" are already available in Estonian long time ago (although I´m not sure if there are e-book versions available)..

http://www.vanaraamat.ee/Mark_Twain_Tom_Sawyer_Huckleberry_Finn_Eesti_Raamat_1989_2278-65.htm
(That´s the version I read in my childhood, where "The adventures of Huckleberry Finn" were added as a second part. Translated by Anna Bergmann and Marta Sillaots, edition 1989).

https://www.raamatukoi.ee/cgi-bin/raamat?6350
(That´s a newer version, translated by Jana Linnart, edidion 2001)

http://www.vanaraamat.ee/Herbert_George_Wells_Ajamasin_Maailmade_soda_Eesti_Raamat_1995_37281-18.htm
(Edition 1995, translated by Kalevi Kvell)

Estonian being such a "small" language, it´s quite an event when somebody translates classic and famous authors. So it´s not usual to not have any data (outside of amazon.com and similar webpages that sell e-books) about this new translator who has been translating these important books to Estonian.

I´m sure the rest of the books "translated" by this individual are also machine translated.

Thank you for drawing our attention to this, I wasn´t aware there are such scam schemes happening with translations. How disappointing! ▲ Collapse
 
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
Sjedinjene Američke Države
Local time: 14:40
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you for your response Jun 25, 2014

I suspected this because I have been searching for Estonian books for some time.

I will notify Amazon immediately (not that they will listen).

There are a lot of people doing this.
 


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Is this a human Estonian translation or a machine translation?






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