Websites such as LifeSiteNews and Omnes offer their original English-language articles in various languages. They use a translation tool called DeepL for this purpose. However, if you consult a German translation, you will be surprised because the meaning of some texts is reversed. The same mistake occurs if you use copy/paste to translate the texts via the website www.deepl.com.

In a recent article in Omnes, which is mildly critical of pro-lifers, the following statement is made, which makes no logical sense: «Seiner Meinung nach ist die Lauheit, mit der viele Abtreibungsbefürworter (engl. pro abortion activists) ihre Ablehnung der Abtreibung zum Ausdruck bringen, ein Beweis dafür, dass sie im Grunde genommen nicht ganz an das glauben, was sie verteidigen.»

The original English version reads: “In his opinion, the lukewarmness with which many pro-lifers express their rejection of abortion is evidence that, deep down, they do not fully believe in what they are defending.”

The correct version of this criticism would be: «Seiner Meinung nach ist die Lauheit, mit der viele Abtreibungsgegner ihre Ablehnung der Abtreibung zum Ausdruck bringen, ein Beweis dafür, dass sie im Grunde genommen nicht ganz an das glauben, was sie verteidigen.»

LifeSiteNews has the same Problem

The editorial team at swiss-cath.ch also tested the LifeSiteNews website, which offers the same translation tool. We found the same mistake in several articles: “pro-lifers” is often translated English to german as “Abtreibungsbefürworter” (engl. pro abortion activists), as in the following article: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/tennessee-bill-takes-aim-at-preventing-abortion-pills-from-entering-state-through-the-mail/

“Pro-lifers warn that with the Biden administration’s complete removal of requirements that abortion pills be taken in the presence of a medical professional, meaning without any medical supervision or medical support close by, those events are certain to increase.“

DeepL translates as follows:

«Abtreibungsbefürworter (engl. pro abortion activists) warnen, dass mit der vollständigen Aufhebung der Vorschrift durch die Regierung Biden, dass Abtreibungspillen in Anwesenheit eines Arztes eingenommen werden müssen, d. h. ohne ärztliche Aufsicht oder medizinische Unterstützung in der Nähe, diese Ereignisse mit Sicherheit zunehmen werden.»

Reporting an error is not so easy

To report an error of this kind, you have to book a DeepL Pro account. Our editorial team reported it immediately. An automatic message was presumably generated by DeepL Support, which reads: “We are sorry that you found an error in your translation. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. With your feedback, our research team can further improve the translation quality of DeepL. As the customer support team, we cannot correct your translation results, but I assure you that we will forward this error to our developers for improvement.”

For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that Google Translate translates the same text passages correctly. How it could come to this serious error with DeepL must be clarified. This error does not occur with DeepL when translating into French. The moral of the story: AI tools should still be used with caution.

Update Dezember 31th

The criticized text passages are now translated correctly. However, there are still errors. For example, the title “Canadian pro-lifer arrested in 1996 still seeking justice from international commission” is translated into: "Kanadischer Abtreibungsbefürworter (egl. pro abortion activist), der 1996 verhaftet wurde, wartet immer noch auf Gerechtigkeit von internationaler Kommission". The DeepL support team asked today whether the problem has been solved. We took the opportunity to also point out this error.