I'm sure we've all had a few good laughs using Alta Vista's Babelfish; many of us never would have completed the language requirements in High School or undergrad without it. Google has just announced that they are switching over to their own translation service for its in-house translation needs. Prior to this announcement, Google had been using Systran, who provide the translation services behind Babelfish, for almost all of their translation needs.
The article attempts to compare translations of a passage from Guy de Maupassant's "Pierre et Jean". It is a difficult piece, and both Systran and Google have some difficulty. At first glance, it seems that Google sacrifices some complexity (both grammatical and vocabular) in order to make the piece a bit more readable.
The Google tool has one distinct advantage, however. Try entering the following phrases in the "French to English" translator (include the quotes):
"sarkozy sarkozy sarkozy"
"sarkozy is chirac"
"sarkozy chirac Kate cheney fesses amour"
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