![]() A fitting child became one who was constructing. A cardiac arrest turned into an imprisoned heart. (If you’re still not sure what I mean, read the results of an observational study published in The BMJ Christmas Issue two years ago, about why Rudolph’s nose is red.) British tongue-in-cheek humour at its best. If you’re familiar with the Christmas issue, however, you’ll know that the colourful nature of these articles is reflected more in the text than in the illustrations. The BMJ editors give just the tiniest of clues about what makes this issue special in their instructions to authors: we particularly welcome colour illustrations. I’m reviewing the article because there’s a twist to it.Įvery year, The BMJ publishes a special two-week issue over Christmas. After all, it has already been widely shared and aired on Twitter, other blogs and forums. But you may be wondering why I’m reviewing this study in this (boring) factual manner. The authors took 10 phrases, translated them with Google Translate into 26 languages (8 Western European, 5 Eastern European, 11 Asian, and 2 African) and then asked human translators (26 native speakers of the target languages) to back translate the results into English. The back translations were then analysed for errors against the original phrases. The aim of the authors was to evaluate the accuracy and usefulness of Google Translate in translating common English medical statements. ![]() Earlier this month The BMJ published an original research article on the use of Google Translate in medical communication.
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