When Children Chat with Machine Translated Text: Problems, Possibilities, Potential

Abstract

Two cross-lingual (Nepalese and English) letter exchanges took place between school children from Nepal and England, using Digipal; an Android chatting application. Digipal uses Google Translate to enable children to read and reply in their native language. In two studies we analysed the errors made and the effect of errors on children’s understanding and on the flow of conversation. We found that errors of input negatively affected translation, although this can be reduced through initial grammar cleaning. We highlight features of children’s text that cause errors in translation whilst showing how children worked with and around these errors. Errors sometimes added humour and contributed to continuing the conversations.