Yes, we have the technology, but please, I BEG you NOT to use it!
Lifehacker suggest, “The method is surprisingly simple. Just pipe in your source feed, connect it to the BabelFish module, define the to-and-from languages, and pipe out the results.“
To be fair, Webware, who posted the instructions on the method of doing this, are only suggesting it as a way to personally read feeds that are not available in your language, but the temptations of such simple automation, I feel will be likely to lead some people to believe that this can produce translations of sites or blogs to offer to readers. No way is up to it!
Just as Wolfman (hombrelobo) says in the comments to Lifehacker’s post, it is “a quick and absolutely useless translation.”
And like Alejandro who comments there also, I’m fluent in Spanish (mostly understand Portuguese and Italian (and French)) too, so I can agree with what he says that, “I’d rather learn a new language (which is fun anyway) than spend days trying to decode what the original writer intended.”
Back when I had a J.O.B. I used to translate, from Spanish to English, for the local tourist newspapers and often had upwards of 40 articles to translate in a weekend. With the speed at which I needed to complete the task, I’d have loved to have been able to get at least a first pass translation done automatically and, I did try this once, but I spent so much time referring back to the original to try to find out what the supposed English meant that I abandoned all hope on it. It’s many times faster for me to read in Spanish and type in English.
On these islands, it’s a sad fact that people do think that automated translation tools produce intelligible results. This has lead to many wonderfully comical (if rather alarming) Translation Hooters, such as this menu in Gran Canaria offering a desert dish of “yogourt of fragmentation hand grenade.”
Miguel at Canarias Bruta, who first posted the above example, commented that “He who has translated this menu into other languages (without doubt, someone called Babelfish, Systran or similar) ought to get the Nobel prize for literature for such great work.” And continued, “I am going to order the Brochette of Fruits. It ought to have an explosive flavour.”
“Fragmentation hand grenade?” Actually, they meant pineapple! 
There’s also this humping great corporation sign just down the road from me in Tenerife, amongst many other things that make the authorities and businesses that actually use these things look very unprofessional indeed.
When I first played with Yahoo Pipes, just for the fun of it and for the day - like today - when I would want an example to prove that being able to do it and doing it are two very different matters, I did mangle ABC’s Canary Island news feed through it. This reasonably conservative newspaper has a high quality of (input) Spanish grammar. So when you see what it does to that, you can imagine what it will do to average everyday vernacular.
Here’s a few snips of, actually, not that bad examples:
The tourist schools will analyze in Great Canary the importance of the knowledge of languages
The Superior School of Tourism of the Palms (Estlp) has opened the term of inscription for all those that wish to attend the communications and communications of the XLIII Congress of the Spanish Federation of Schools of Tourism (Anestur), an annual encounter between professionals of the sector that …
The person in charge of the Law of Directives requests a greater forcefulness in his application
The coordinator of the writing of the Directives of General Arrangement and the Tourism of the Canary Islands (2002-2003), Faustino Garci’a Márquez, assured yesterday that “we cannot continue wasting a little good as it is the ground”, and requested a much more forceful action “on …
Luzardo advises to Saavedra “that works” and then “I will congratulate to him”
“That is sensible and works”, Pepa Luzardo advised to the new mayor of the Palms of Great Canary, Saavedra Hieronymite…
You would agree, I think, that I could not use these translations as they are.
By all means, offer people a translation button - then it’s their “fault” if they click it and get this nonsense. In truth, I don’t even think this is particularly helpful even if it is only for reading it yourself. And please, don’t use these tools to offer even semi-serious translations of your site, because it’s only a surprisingly simple method to becoming a laughing stock!
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Sponzurz
