Julia Gillard's office wants answers following suggestions that taxpayer-funded translators used the internet to prepare the Chinese version of the Prime Minister's Asian white paper.
One critic said it looked like the job was done using the Google Translate website.
Ms Gillard released the Australia in the Asian Century paper last month, urging schools and universities to embrace Asian language lessons.
But the Chinese (simplified) version of the paper contained broken sentences, grammar and syntax errors, inappropriate vocabulary and incomprehensible expressions, leading many to question how it was prepared. Some English words were translated without preserving the original meaning, regarded as an amateur mistake.
In the translation of the executive summary, the last line referring to a "highly skilled workforce" was translated into a word meaning "an army of labour".
A reference to "world-beating actions" became "only one in the world". And on page 18, a reference to pathways was translated to "leading peak"
One Chinese national studying in Australia, who asked not to be named, told The Sunday Telegraph: "It's kind of unbelievable. I was ready to cry when I read it. It just looked like they asked some random uni student to translate.
"It is reasonable to suspect that the person who translated this white paper relied heavily on Google Translate, not their Asian language skills."
"Upon a quick review of the Chinese version, it was found to be readable and understandable, although there was room for improvement, especially in the choice of word/terms," a spokesman from the Confucius Institute at the University of Western Australia said.
"In general, it is understandable. 'Simplified' refers to the version of Chinese characters versus traditional characters."
A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said the translation was done by a service accredited by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters.
"We have asked the translator to review the examples provided. If there are issues with any of the translations they will be fixed," the spokeswoman said.
(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)
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(Agencies)
近日，澳大利亞總理茱莉亞•吉拉德發布《亞洲世紀白皮書》，然而有人指出，翻譯們拿著納稅人支付的薪水，用網際網路將其翻譯成中文，導致錯誤頻出。總理辦公室正等待調查結果。
一位批評人士指出，中文版的翻譯是用「谷歌翻譯」網站做出的。
吉拉德上月發布了《亞洲世紀白皮書》，敦促中小學和大學開設中文語言課程。
但白皮書的簡體中文版裡出現了斷句、語法和句法錯誤、用詞不當和表達混亂等問題，因此很多人對翻譯是如何進行的提出質疑。一些英文詞語的翻譯完全失去了原意，屬於業餘水平的錯誤。
在內容提要中，最後一行提到「高技術勞動力」，翻譯出來的卻是「勞動大軍」。
有一句原文是「震撼世界的舉措」，中文版翻譯成了「世間唯一」。在第18頁，「途徑」被翻譯為「頂峰」，
一位不願透露姓名的中國留學生對《星期日電訊報》說：「簡直難以置信。看得我都要哭了。看起來他們是隨便找了個大學生來翻譯。」
「我有理由懷疑，翻譯這份白皮書的人嚴重依賴谷歌翻譯網站進行翻譯，而非運用他們自己的亞洲語言水平。」
西澳大學孔子學院的一名發言人說：「我大概看了一下白皮書的中文版，雖然存在改進的空間，特別是在選詞措辭上面還有問題，但還是可以看懂的。」
「總體來看還是可以看懂的。」簡體中文是對應繁體中文而言。
澳大利亞總理的一名女發言人表示，白皮書中文版翻譯工作由澳大利亞翻譯資格認可局認可的翻譯機構完成。
她說：「我們已經要求翻譯對以上問題進行檢查。如果翻譯上有任何問題，都將進行修改。」
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（中國日報網英語點津 Julie）