BOSSES at internet giant YouTube last night admitted its video subtitles are translating Scots into GIBBERISH.
The file-sharing site’s automatic caption service has been bamboozled as it tries to interpret the twang of stars like footie’s Sir Alex Ferguson and funnyman Kevin Bridges.
In one clip, the machine-generated text shows First Minister Alex Salmond calling his deputy Nicola Sturgeon “Necklace Thompson”.
And a routine by comedy legend Billy Connolly, changes Pollokshaws, in Glasgow, to “pork choice”.
Last night, a YouTube spokesman admitted: “Auto-captions work best for clearly spoken American English. Different dialects present interesting challenges that we’re working to address.”
But Paul Redfern, of the British Deaf Association, said: “It’s symptomatic of a larger problem. Lots of internet services are not accessible to deaf people.” Read more.
See: The Scottish Sun
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Local time: 19:08
Italian to English
Hmm. The definition of dialects is always contentious, but isn’t even the idea of a uniform "American English" somewhat problematic?
France
Local time: 19:08
French to English
The name of the district in question could have given rise to something much more likely to raise a laugh surely!
Spain
Local time: 19:08
Spanish to English
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Er... "machine-generated text "... I rest my case, m'lud.
I already have enough trouble myself getting Dragon to recognise my Scots vowels and confusing things like "found/phoned" and "or/are"...
[Edited at 2013-03-12 10:18 GMT]
Portugal
Local time: 18:08
Portuguese to English
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...this wonderful youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFRoYhTJQQ
Canada
Local time: 13:08
English
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Their automatic English subtitles are often very wrong. Of course it can’t get Scots…
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:08
French to English
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...this wonderful youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFRoYhTJQQ
...not viewable in England (Scotland too?)
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