A government-backed automatic translation website for Maltese and English is "mediocre", promotes incorrect use of the Maltese language and undermines translation and proofreading jobs, a student association has said. 

L-Għaqda tal-Malti - Università said the traduzzjoni.mt website promoted by the government was providing substandard Maltese translations, degrading the richness of the language and threatening language professions.

The association said it also fears the tool could negatively impact students' future prospects.

In a statement issued Sunday, the students referred to a 30-second advert uploaded to the government's public service Facebook page ("Is-Servizz Pubbliku") last month.

The advert shows well-known Maltese personalities Ron Briffa and Frank Zammit watching television and comparing how they each translated a document from English to Maltese.

Briffa describes translating the document manually as an arduous chore that took much longer than intended, while Zammit - using the government-backed website - says it was a task he quickly got out of the way.

"You can upload powerpoints, documents or write whatever you want and it is translated to Maltese," he says.

He then directs Briffa to traduzzjoni.mt, the free, automatic translation platform introduced earlier this year.

'It irritates us'

The students said when they tested the platform, the machine responded with shoddy Maltese translations.

They said while the results may seem acceptable, they were not of a high enough standard and ultimately jeopardise the integrity of the language.

"It irritates us that the Centre for the Maltese Language, the brains behind this advert, is breaching its own founding rule: to grow awareness and good use of the Maltese language," the students said in their statement.

"It appears the centre does not acknowledge that translation work is to be taken seriously. With websites like this one, users can easily fall into the trap of translating legal, medical, economic and political texts wrongly, which could have critical repercussions."

The Centre of the Maltese Language was controversially set up just over a year ago and trusted under the leadership of former PBS head of news Norma Saliba, who earlier this week threw her name into the hat to become the PL's new president.

Times of Malta reported last year that the chair of Malta’s National Council of the Maltese Language - a body tasked with similar goals - did not know of plans to create the new centre.

Platform unable to translate advert that promotes it

The website performed poorly when Times of Malta tested it on Sunday.

A transcript of the Maltese dialogue between Briffa and Zammit as seen in the advert was fed into the platform, which was asked to translate to English.

But despite the hype, the website  was largely unable to make sense of the simple dialogue in the advert promoting it.

It could not translate the very first word of the video - kedda ("an arduous chore"), which was left in its original form in the English translation.

A screenshot showing a Times of Malta exercise asking the platform to translate the advert promoting it.

And Briffa telling Zammit he is a clever man (kemm int bravu) turned into 'brave man', completely changing the meaning of the phrase.

The advert ends with Zammit telling Briffa: "Qed tara? Issa taf" ("You see? Now you know") - which the website translated to "Are you watching? Now you know".

But perhaps the most painful example was when the platform attempted to translate a Maltese expression used by Zammit to explain how efficiently the website translated his document.

Zammit tells Briffa, "F'kemm ili ngħidlek ħlistu" ("I got it out of the way in no time"), only for the website to translate the phrase to: "In how long I have been telling you I have freed him" - wrongly interpreting the Maltese turn of phrase while mistaking the word ħlistu for its other Maltese meaning: 'to free a man'.

'It's shameful'

The student association went on to say that professionals who graduate in the Maltese language, proofreading and translation at the Faculty of Arts spend years equipping themselves with knowledge about the intricacies of the language precisely to make sure some meanings do not get lost in translation.

"It is shameful that instead of encouraging businesses to invest in human talent for their translation work, it is sending out a message that people can simply rely on a website that does mediocre automatic translations."

Research shows that while tools like traduzzjoni.mt can be of great help to users, human intervention is necessary and the advert for the platform oversimplifies what it takes to produce serious translation work, the statement read.