Machine translation mix-up on Ynys Môn MP website invites constituents for medical surgery

Much of the Welsh language content on a Conservative MPs website has been rendered nonsensical after it was converted using machine translation.

The Welsh language version of Môn MP Virginia Crosbie’s website has turned factories into vegetables, supporters into waste pipes, and invites constituents for medical surgery.

The headline “2 sisters plant will pay full pay to workers” has been translated into “Bydd 2 chwaer-blanhigyn yn talu cyflog llawn i weithwyr” which means “two sister-vegetations will give workers full pay”.

The website also invited constituents for medical surgery – “llawdriniaeth” – rather than a surgery meeting with the MP to discuss their concerns.

The website also translates an “amazing team of sewers” – people that sew – into “tîm anhygoel o garthffosydd” – the underground conduit for carrying off drainage water and waste matter.

The site has been translated with the Microsoft Translator Tool which has correctly adapted much of the content but, without being given any context, has also made a number of mistakes.

Untranslated

Drawing attention to the errors on Twitter, Wrexham Plaid Cymru councillor Marc Jones commented that Virginia Crosbie “seemed to have translated the site using a potato”.

The Conservative MP committed to learning Welsh before being elected as Ynys Môn’s representative at Westminster.

She is however currently the only Conservative MP who has Welsh language news content on her site.

The websites for the Conservative MPs for Wrexham, Clwyd South, the Vale of Glamorgan, Monmouth, the Vale of Clwyd, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Brecon and Radnorshire, Aberconwy, Delyn, Bridgend, and Montgomeryshire do not feature Welsh language translation.

The website of David Jones of Clwyd West is available in Welsh but the news content in untranslated.