This is another of my little case studies relevant to languages: I took the lyrics of the French song Sans Défense (Clémence Saint-Preux) and ran them through two different machine translators – Google Translate and Translate.com – for the purpose of comparison and critique by me. Of course, I had to take the time to assimilate the content of the original. But before I head into it let me bring up this good English translation of it provided by a human translator, for reference purposes. https://lyricstranslate.com/en/sans-defense-defenseless.html
Let me mention that I didn’t specifically intend for this to be a comparison between two machine translation tools for the sake of determining which is “better”. Anyway, these are the machine translations into English of the lyrics of Sans Défense (Clémence Saint-Preux) offered by the two aforesaid machine translators, followed by my evaluation comments:
Google Translate version
Should I take apart my parents
To share with them my torments
Will they believe me if I tell them
that their little girl grew up
They always protected me
From their strong and light love
I’m feverish, it’s annoying
But so fragile
When I feel
Defenseless
Before the end of my childhood
An open book on the universe
I’m scared, I lose all my bearings
Defenseless
Fallen from the nest of innocence
I stretch my trembling hands to
A tomorrows full of mystery
But defenseless
Nobody had warned me
I am facing an unknown
I had to change, I can see it
In the eyes of my friends
The chrysalis is still hesitating
Leave this cocoon, this comfort
But impatience at the same time
Give birth
At my spring
Translate.com version
Should I take apart my parents
To tell them of my torments
Will they believe me if I tell them that
their little girl has grown
They have always protected me well
from their strong and light love
I am feverish, it’s annoying
But so fragile
When I feel
Without defense
Before the end of my childhood
An open book on the universe
I am afraid, I lose all my references
Defenseless
Fallen from the nest of innocence
I reach out my trembling hands towards
Tomorrows full of mystery
But helpless
No one had warned me
I am facing a unknown
I had to change, I see it well
In the eyes of my friends
The chrysalis still hesitates
To leave this cocoon, this comfort
But impatience at the same time
Gives birth to my spring
My comments:
OK, first of all, with the first line I see “take apart my parents” in both versions when this is obviously a mistranslation! You take apart machines and stuff; clearly it should read “take them aside”.
Only in the second line do I see at least one difference – “tell them of my torments” works fine but I think it’s beautiful that a machine translator could “think” of “share with them my torments”, to use the verb “to share” in this manner when torments are not exactly something that offer gratification. Mind you, I originally reacted to the word “torments” thinking that that was too sinister a word compared with “problems”… but later on I got to thinking that to refer to it “simply” as “problems” would be to make light of the subject matter.
I declare that the best translation of lines 3 and 4 would be “Will they believe me if I tell them that their little girl has grown up?” The present perfect tense works much better than the simple past, not least because growing up is not exactly the sort of thing one just goes and does in a moment, like make a cup of tea or go to the toilet!
To compare “They always protected me” with “They have always protected me well”: again, the present perfect tense version works much better, but I have to emphasise that the idea of “protecting someone from your own strong and light love” is just a potty and nonsensical expression. When I refer back to the original lyrics, I am surprised to find that it is better to translate “de” with “with” in this case. And while I understand the “strong and light love” bit very well, “strong” and “light” is almost a contradiction in terms; I would have said “gentle” rather than “light”, but hey, let’s not be too eager to hound the work of machine translation tools as “bad”.
Now we look at the start of the chorus. There is no better expression for the first line than “defenceless”; “without defence” is just what might have been designated a “square-wheeled” translation back when I was still at school.
After the “defenceless” bit, it’s curious how the last two lines in the chorus are exactly the same in both cases, but there are differences in the line that follows. The difference between “afraid” and “scared” is too inane to discuss. After that, I couldn’t think of a better word than “bearings”, whereas “references” only causes confusion.
Anyway, the next differing bit is the trembling hands bit, which I personally would prefer to rewrite as “I reach out with trembling hands towards tomorrows full of mystery”. I could accept “I reach out my trembling hands towards” anyway – more so than “I stretch my trembling hands to”; if you ask me, what is stretching one’s hands if it’s not just forming a moutza?
Just before the “Nobody had warned me” line, the word we want here is of course “defenceless”, and yet I see this word replaced with “helpless” in one version. I have an urge to compare these two words, however crudely: to me “defenceless” strictly means more at risk from what you are being assailed by, whereas “helpless” more suggests a person being only too weak and beyond hope, crippled by paralysis, unable to make any decision likely to restore confidence.
Moving onto the line that begins “I had to change”. I couldn’t help noting how one English version here lists it as “I see it well” while the other merely says “I can see it”. It’s not like I have done extensive research into the patterns and such applied in the work of machine translators, but it’s not hard to see that it all hinges on the word “bien” at the end of the line in question; if we accept that “bien” may be taken as to represent “I indeed see it” here, Google Translate is a smart machine translation tool to include the word “can” for the sake of that. There’s no “pouvoir” for this bit in the French version.
When I look at “The chrysalis is still hesitating / Leave this cocoon” vs “The chrysalis still hesitates / To leave this cocoon”, I consult the original French lyrics and can understand if these two bits are not meant to constitute a whole sentence “The chrysalis still hesitates to leave this cocoon” (which, I’m afraid, sounds only too literal, as easy as it is to understand what this imagery is supposed to be implying).
As I come to the final bit, I see that, for what it’s worth, “give birth at my spring” works best. It’s a song, and I guess you have to be prepared to allow for figures of speech in such material in particular, but it’s not hard to see what this hints at: a butterfly hatching from a cocoon in spring. It’s certainly not “gives birth to my spring”, as if impatience (in the line just before) would “give birth to one’s spring season” (?)!