Suggestions to Google Needed =UPDATEDX3=

Yes, that's right, if you type Taiwan is not a part of China, Google translates that into Chinese as "Taiwan is a part of China". It doesn't seem to do that for other countries. Probably need to send a letter to Google translation about this as well as a 'suggested translation'. Hat tip to Eric Pickett. For big size, go here.

UPDATE:

Maddog types in "The Diaoyu Islands are not part of China" and Google not only says that they ARE part of China but adds the phrase "...and their associated islands..." to the text. Apparently Google has been totally pwned by the 50 cent Chinese nationalist loon brigade.

UPDATE 2: Try these three in English to Traditional Chinese:

The Diaoyu Islands are not a part of China
The Diaoyu Islands are not a part of Japan
The Diaoyu Islands are not a part of Taiwan

Yup, three different answers.

It renders phrases with Senkakus correctly. Have fun!

UPDATE 3: Sunday night: The mess with Taiwan is not a part of China seems to have been fixed. However, just typing in The Diaoyu Islands with no further words still returns 釣魚島及其附屬島嶼. This is clearly political.
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Translation of Local Legal Terms: New Article

Feiren alerted me to the work of veteran translator Paul Cox, who teaches translation at the local universities. Cox has produced a wonderful piece on translating local legal terms into English, which is up at the Winkler Partners website. A taste:

The lack of authoritative translation guidelines is reflected in the inconsistent English names by which individual laws have been known in the past. For example, Taiwan's basic corporate governance law, the Company Act, has historically been referred to by various names in English, including the "Company Law," "Company Act," and "Corporate Statute." This kind of inconsistent terminology is already widely scattered across the Internet, compounding the potential for further confusion.

2003 Legal Translation Guidelines

The prospects for consistent English terminology in translating Taiwanese law brightened when the first (and as of today still the only) official guidelines relating to English legal translation were issued through a formal letter by Taiwan's Executive Yuan (Cabinet) on 3 July 2003. These brief guidelines (entitled the Table of Standard English Translations of Legislative Nomenclature and referred to as the Table of Standard Translations below) specify standard nomenclature to be used in the translated names of, and in citations to, Taiwanese legislation. The Table of Standard Translations is critical to the English translation of Taiwanese law, so I introduce some key terminology from the Table and related concepts below.

Winkler has many meaty articles like this up in the review section of their new web site.

[Taiwan]

Open Source Translation Project

Rebecca MacKinnon at RConversation, who has been important in drives to build bridges between the Chinese language and English language blogging communities in East Asia, announces the Open Source Translation Project:

Guangzhou-based blogger and Global Voices language editor John Kennedy is leading an exciting new initiative which Roland Soong has dubbed the Open Source Translation Blogging project.. and which "Letters from China" calls the Great Hall of the Bloggers.

John's idea, which started in a comments thread on LfC's blog, is similar to a dream Roland has had for a couple of years: To build a cooperative of bilingual bloggers who coordinate translation of important conversations taking place on the Chinese Internet - particularly stuff that we think will help the English-speaking world to understand China better.

Roland has become one of the most famous Chinese-English "bridge bloggers," bringing articles, blog posts, conversations, and debates from the Chinese-language Internet to the attention of the English-speaking world. But there are many other people doing this on their own blogs. They include John, LfC, the good folks at Danwei, Interlocals, the China Media Project, the team at China Digital Times and many many more bilingual bloggers scattered around Greater China and across the globe.

I'm hoping to squeeze out some time to participate in this project. Hope you can find some too.