Google Translate - trustworthy?

[GemWolf]

My job involves receiving emails from OS, and now an then I do get emails that are not in English. Now, according to our work policy, we can use an online translator to help decipher the email (taking in mind that it's preferred clients send emails in English because it's a university that requires a certain level of English to apply anyway) - so I have tried a few translator sites, and I'm not too sure on how to feel about Google Translate. 

Anyone got any experience using Google Translate  and if you don't like it, what have you found to be better?

[DrGravitas]

Google translate has unfortunately choked off most of the other free translation sites, from what I remember the last time I searched. Its accuracy varies greatly, especially between languages. It does have the useful feature of allowing users to submit corrections, so over time it improves a bit. Only if there are a sufficient number of users that speak that language, though. Latvian is going to be more error prone.

But, like most translators, it suffers especially for languages that have certain morphosyntax styles and morphology. Mandarin Chinese? May as well forget about it and hire a professional if you need high accuracy. Still, it might be enough to get by. It really depends on what you need from it. Just don't try to write back!

Edited November 11, 2015 by DrGravitas
I think I got it backwards; derivational morphemes are less of a problem than isolated particles. Been a while since I've dealt with this stuff :P

[Zerig]

no it sucks

i used to use it for my spanish homework in highschool and it just wasn't nice

[Zytan]

No one using babelfish these days?  Used to lead to some hilarious French conversations

[GemWolf]

Google translate has unfortunately choked off most of the other free translation sites, from what I remember the last time I searched. Its accuracy varies greatly, especially between languages. It does have the useful feature of allowing users to submit corrections, so over time it improves a bit. Only if there are a sufficient number of users that speak that language, though. Latvian is going to be more error prone.

But, like most translators, it suffers especially for languages that have certain morphosyntax styles and morphology. Mandarin Chinese? May as well forget about it and hire a professional if you need high accuracy. Still, it might be enough to get by. It really depends on what you need from it. Just don't try to write back!

thanks for the feed back. Yeah we always write back in English 

no it sucks

i used to use it for my spanish homework in highschool and it just wasn't nice

oh really? 

[Brass]

Can't you just learn to speak a few new languages? 

[yell0wf0x]

I use it a lot at work since we get a lot of CCC reports in Chinese. And wr also translate a lot of operating ibstructions in different languages like spanish, german, japanese, french and such. It pretty much is a hit or miss. But it does the job for just getting the most basic thought. Ye just have to do some extra effort to try and understand it in context. 

Now what we usually do is use a couple of online translators and compare it. Like 3 or 4 sites including google translate. It's gives ye more translations and makes it easier to understand. 

[GemWolf]

Can't you just learn to speak a few new languages? 

No

I use it a lot at work since we get a lot of CCC reports in Chinese. And wr also translate a lot of operating ibstructions in different languages like spanish, german, japanese, french and such. It pretty much is a hit or miss. But it does the job for just getting the most basic thought. Ye just have to do some extra effort to try and understand it in context. 

Now what we usually do is use a couple of online translators and compare it. Like 3 or 4 sites including google translate. It's gives ye more translations and makes it easier to understand. 

awesome  

[GemWolf]

Why are you being so ethnocentric and lazy. Do you raise your children to be bigots as well?

Well that was uncalled for. No need to get nasty.

The university I work for requires future students to have basic English language skills. Depending on their level of English would depend on if they need to do one of our English courses before they start their bachelor/master degree. Our Employer does not expect staff who are living in an English speaking country, working at an English speaking University to learn a 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th etc language to communicate with people wanting to study in an English speaking zone. None of our staff who are born here know a second language.

[Brass]

None of our staff who are born here know a second language.

Wow. Is this the university call center or something? If you're staff at a university you likely get a tuition waiver of some kind. Maybe use that to pick up some Spanish or something bro

[GemWolf]

Wow. Is this the university call center or something? If you're staff at a university you likely get a tuition waiver of some kind. Maybe use that to pick up some Spanish or something bro

You misunderstand. The University is huge, with many campuses. The group of 10 in our particular department consist of 6 Australian born staff and 4 Foreign born staff who DO speak a second language. There are hundreds of Australian staff university wide who have second languages but its not a requirement. And as a full time working mum I just don't have the time. Besides, the small amount of emails that we get that are not in English is like 2 or 3 every month out of the hundreds we get daily. So, chillax bro

[Brass]

 Australian

Ah. So that's why you're so racist 

[GemWolf]

Ah. So that's why you're so racist 

I am not racist at all. I'm against racism. 

[Sar]

Its fine for translating emails and web pages. But I wouldn't recommend it for writing in a different language.

[Brass]

To be a little more on topic, I've found that google translate handles spanish and german the best. Sometimes Russian. But it has limits to what it can do-- in other words it's choppy at it's best. 

[Sidewalk Surfboard]

Jesus fucking christ, Brass, Gem, just put each other on ignore if you can't stop pissing on each other

[GemWolf]

Jesus fucking christ, Brass, Gem, just put each other on ignore if you can't stop pissing on each other

I have tried to ignore but it won't work 

[Sidewalk Surfboard]

I have tried to ignore but it won't work 

That's because you're falling for his bait. Literally put him on your ignore list, you won't be able to see his posts, unless you deliberately clicking "show this post".

[GemWolf]

That's because you're falling for his bait. Literally put him on your ignore list, you won't be able to see his posts, unless you deliberately clicking "show this post".

umm that is what i meant, it won't work. I have tried to literally put him on my ignore list. What the hell did you think I meant?

[Sidewalk Surfboard]

umm that is what i meant, it won't work. I have tried to literally put him on my ignore list. What the hell did you think I meant?

Why won't it work? Explain the problem you're having.

[Kinare]

*insert my reply from the other thread* =|

Do. Not. Feed. The. Troll.

Srsly, just actually ignore him. Skip over his posts. Stop replying to him. Report the posts that are bad. Enough reports and he may even face a ban, but that's not an option if you never report any of the offensive posts and if you keep replying to him, especially in the way you're doing so, you could also possibly get into trouble yourself. He's having fun with you and you're letting him. I don't understand why you're allowing that, too much pride maybe to just back down despite how bad it's making you feel? Put your pride away and ignore him or it continues. Pretty damn simple.

Edit: and to be on topic, in my exp and as others have stated, GT is only really reliable if you need a quick understanding of what someone is trying to tell you in another language and should not be used for doing really serious things where you need 100% accuracy. In many languages a word can mean one thing in and out of context, just like in English, so that especially can screw up translations and I like the idea presented before of using multiple sources.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Kinare

[Yarra]

It's awful. Don't use it when sending email.  I only use it to get the gist of a message received.

 

 

[GemWolf]

*insert my reply from the other thread* =|

Do. Not. Feed. The. Troll.

Srsly, just actually ignore him. Skip over his posts. Stop replying to him. Report the posts that are bad. Enough reports and he may even face a ban, but that's not an option if you never report any of the offensive posts and if you keep replying to him, especially in the way you're doing so, you could also possibly get into trouble yourself. He's having fun with you and you're letting him. I don't understand why you're allowing that, too much pride maybe to just back down despite how bad it's making you feel? Put your pride away and ignore him or it continues. Pretty damn simple.

I have been reporting him, every single time. 

[Brass]

I have been reporting him, every single time. 

Yeah it's pretty great. Much like google translate, shit's pretty broken huh?

Also stop mis-gendering me it's pretty rude

[Zeke]

Yeah it's pretty great. Much like google translate, shit's pretty broken huh?

Okay, I laughed. 

 

But keep on topic, stop with the pissing contest. Things have been handled appropriately.

[Luka]

Don't expect accuracy from languages that are vastly different from your own. You'll have to struggle a bit to find context. Be very careful.

As to languages that share a common ancestry such as our Indo-European ones,however, google will get it right roughly 95% of the time.

[GemWolf]

Don't expect accuracy from languages that are vastly different from your own. You'll have to struggle a bit to find context. Be very careful.

As to languages that share a common ancestry such as our Indo-European ones,however, google will get it right roughly 95% of the time.

Yeah I noticed that lol. I seem to be doing ok so far, i was just seeing if there were better options out there 

[Zeke]

Don't expect accuracy from languages that are vastly different from your own. You'll have to struggle a bit to find context. Be very careful.

As to languages that share a common ancestry such as our Indo-European ones,however, google will get it right roughly 95% of the time.

And sometimes google will use the incorrect formal words for Spanish and use the wrong words when translated from espanol to english. Sometimes it is better to learn it than rely on a machine that will confuse cajones for pelotas..

Edited November 12, 2015 by Ozriel

[GemWolf]

And sometimes google will use the incorrect formal words for Spanish and use the wrong words when translated from espanol to english. Sometimes it is better to learn it than rely on a machine that will confuse cajones for pelotas..

Yeah, I would love to learn another language, problem is time. Also, as we get students from all over the world, I would have to learn a hell of a lot of languages. Its just not possible for me. 

 

Anyways, thanks everyone for the info  

[Phausk]

Sometimes it is better to learn it than rely on a machine that will confuse cajones for pelotas..

I'll confuse your cajones

[Nova]

Well google translator is bad, it messes up and doesnt translate well.

IT CANT TRANSLATE SONG LYRICS into GERMAN

[Caledonian]

To show how badly Google translate is I typed this in my native language and translated into English, you see the problem already? If not, I'm going for a while.T'is quite nice but I would not call it good. And this comes from Dutch, you should consider what happened in other languages. Word for word Translate be correct but not always good at making sentences. Conjugate certainly can not. I talk in riddles do not you think? You should not trust google! It's bad, gem wolf. If you do not know you can never check the grammar of a language whether it is true or not and you could sound really stupid and low gifted. I think that is not what you want. And then I have used no proverbs because you stayed quite heavily in the monkey

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Stop translate!

---

Dutch people, and probably other too have a habit of using a lot of sayings and proverbs which obscures our english talking. "You stayed in the monkey" "the monkey comes out of the sleeve" "i can't make cheese of it" "he knew of tooting nor blowing" "evening red is water in the ditches" "you never know how a cow catches a hare" "fall with ones nose in the butter" "fall with the door in the home" and many more are common to Dutch speakers and confuse the rest of the world.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Caledonian

[GemWolf]

To show how badly Google translate is I typed this in my native language and translated into English, you see the problem already? If not, I'm going for a while.T'is quite nice but I would not call it good. And this comes from Dutch, you should consider what happened in other languages. Word for word Translate be correct but not always good at making sentences. Conjugate certainly can not. I talk in riddles do not you think? You should not trust google! It's bad, gem wolf. If you do not know you can never check the grammar of a language whether it is true or not and you could sound really stupid and low gifted. I think that is not what you want. And then I have used no proverbs because you stayed quite heavily in the monkey

---

Stop translate!

---

Dutch people, and probably other too have a habit of using a lot of sayings and proverbs which obscures our english talking. "You stayed in the monkey" "the monkey comes out of the sleeve" "i can't make cheese of it" "he knew of tooting nor blowing" "evening red is water in the ditches" "you never know how a cow catches a hare" "fall with ones nose in the butter" "fall with the door in the home" and many more are common to Dutch speakers and confuse the rest of the world.

hahahaha  thanks for that!

Though I only use it to read what they have said. I reply in English 

[willow]

I use Google Translate sometimes to make sure I'm using the right syntax but generally I try to avoid it

Well google translator is bad, it messes up and doesnt translate well.

IT CANT TRANSLATE SONG LYRICS into GERMAN

song lyrics and poems are hard to translate into other languages tbh

[yell0wf0x]

There is one feature that Google translate has that's pretty awesome.  I dunno about other translators but the android app has this nifty pic translate thing. Ye can take a picture of the words yer trying to translate and it pretty much translates it for ye. Especially useful for pictures or signs or hard copy documents ye need help translating. 

[Caledonian]

hahahaha  thanks for that!

Though I only use it to read what they have said. I reply in English 

well, then apart from proverbs i think itll be alright but japanese-english is quite bad ive seen

[Sarcastic Coffeecup]

Translating sites will never be 100% accurate. They should only be used to get the general idea outbof the text. Alsp if you use Google translate, do put in a lot of text for it to translate so it can get the context and be more accurate

[Sidewalk Surfboard]

"Google translate is good for a cheap laugh"
Translated that into Japanese, and then back to English.
"Google translation is good for the cheap laugh"

[Vallium]

To show how badly Google translate is I typed this in my native language and translated into English, you see the problem already? If not, I'm going for a while.T'is quite nice but I would not call it good. And this comes from Dutch, you should consider what happened in other languages. Word for word Translate be correct but not always good at making sentences. Conjugate certainly can not. I talk in riddles do not you think? You should not trust google! It's bad, gem wolf. If you do not know you can never check the grammar of a language whether it is true or not and you could sound really stupid and low gifted. I think that is not what you want. And then I have used no proverbs because you stayed quite heavily in the monkey

---

Stop translate!

---

Dutch people, and probably other too have a habit of using a lot of sayings and proverbs which obscures our english talking. "You stayed in the monkey" "the monkey comes out of the sleeve" "i can't make cheese of it" "he knew of tooting nor blowing" "evening red is water in the ditches" "you never know how a cow catches a hare" "fall with ones nose in the butter" "fall with the door in the home" and many more are common to Dutch speakers and confuse the rest of the world.

those proverbs are awesome we need to integrat e them in the Englishes

[Caledonian]

those proverbs are awesome we need to integrat e them in the Englishes

"You stayed in the monkey" = you were scammed

"the monkey comes out of the sleeve" = now we know the (not very pleasant) truth/trick

"i can't make cheese of it" - i really don't understand it.

"he knew of tooting nor blowing" = he was very inexperienced/ had no idea what he was talking about

"evening red is water in the ditches" = if the evening sky is red it will rain.

"you never know how a cow catches a hare" = they'll come with a creative solution 

"fall with ones nose in the butter" = to arrive at the exact right time and then get lucky.

"fall with the door in the home" = get to the point directly.

because, when the cat's not home, the mice dance on the table.