Malaysia’s defense ministry has recently used Google Translate’s free translation tool to translate their official website from Malaysian to English. As a result (of course) many of the words were mistranslated, often humorously, much to the chagrin of Malaysian officials.
Defense minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi admitted the inaccurate translations caused much embarrassment to the ministry, Malaysia’s The Star reported. “We have corrected the mistakes and translations are no longer done that way. “It is now done manually,” Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said here yesterday.
But not before many of the more humorous translations made it around Facebook and Twitter.
One such example was the phrase “pakaian yang menjolok mata,” which means revealing clothes in Bahasa Malaysia, which was translated as “clothes that poke eye.”
Another was the brief summary of the ministry’s history on the website: “After the withdrawal of British army, the Malaysian Government take drastic measures to increase the level of any national security threat.”
