Machine translation: some way to go yet

Lovely example from Mark Liberman:

I tried a chapter-opening from a roman policier that I was reading (Yasmina Khadra, Le Dingue au Bistouri): “Il y a quatre choses que je déteste. Un: qu’on boive dans mon verre. Deux: qu’on se mouche dans un restaurant. Trois: qu’on me pose un lapin.

Google Translate: There are four things I hate. A: we drink in my glass. Two: we will fly in a restaurant. Three: I get asked a rabbit.

Bing Translate: There are four things that I hate. One: that one drink in my glass. Two: what we fly in a restaurant. Three: only asked me a rabbit.

Should be: There are four things I hate. One: that somebody drinks from my glass. Two: that somebody blows their nose in a restaurant. Three: that somebody stands me up.

These mistakes underline some general remaining difficulties. One: the treatment of pronouns. Two: the treatment of idioms that are not common in the bilingual training material. Three: the lack of common sense.

Note that last point.

And, er, where’s the fourth ‘hate’? It’s in neither the original nor the translations.