The following is a quote from Microsoft’s own documentation (archive.org link in case that one goes missing).
As you consider using LLMs for localization tasks, remember that LLMs need to be used responsibly.
As I have written about previously, Microsoft seems to not adhere to this guideline they set. At least that is the only way I can explain why I have now encountered the second blatant German localization error in a place where there used to be correct, idiomatic translation.
The above image shows the digital signature settings dialog in my German Outlook. The button that probably says “Cancel” in English says “Absagen” in German. Now similar to the “free as in beer” and “free as in empty calendar” situation from the other post, “Absagen” does actually translate to “Cancel”, just not in the correct sense. Instead, you would use “Absagen” when talking about cancelling calendar appointments.
This raises the question for me: Why did Outlook engineering break this? The only reason I can come up with is that they decided to throw the initial guideline Microsft set for themselves completely out the window and decided to re-do the localization of some of their settings dialogues. This would answer the first question, but immediately raise new ones:
- Why did they not bother to check their translation?
- Why didn’t they use tooling that properly translates things in the first place?
- Why are they fixing something that ain’t broken?
Sigh. After all, why shouldn’t they use the hammer to drive the screw?