Auto-translate feature not always accurate, says Health Ministry

PETALING JAYA: The Health Ministry says that a screenshot of one of its Facebook posts, which uses the word “empty water” in English to describe the Malay word “air kosong”, is an automatic translation feature of the social media platform.

The ministry, in a statement on Tuesday (Jan 4), asked users not to rely on the auto-translate feature as it was not always accurate and could lead to misunderstanding.

This came after a screenshot of the ministry’s post with awkward English made its rounds on social media and messaging apps.

“The screenshot that was shared around did not feature the original post. The original poster was in Bahasa Malaysia and not in English,” the ministry said.

The ministry said the user had enabled auto-translation in his app settings.

“This caused the word ‘air kosong’ to be translated to ‘empty water’ on the user’s phone,” said the ministry.

The post on Monday (Jan 3) was to encourage the public to consume sufficient plain water daily as a New Year’s resolution.

“How many glasses of plain water have you consumed today? Is it in line with the Malaysian Healthy Plate (MHP) recommendation,” the post read, while stating the recommended amount of water each person should drink daily.