Bugs / Misuse in Google Translate

Replies

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  Gandalf

  I think you should help google by reporting it offensive
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  Kaustubh Katdare

  Okay, what does that translate to? Can someone tell? I discovered bugs in Indian Government's translation system few months ago. I think the QA at Google needs to work really hard.
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  PraveenKumar Purushothaman

  Gandalf

  I think you should help google by reporting it offensive

  I have done that Gandalf!
  
  

  The_Big_K

  Okay, what does that translate to? Can someone tell? I discovered bugs in Indian Government's translation system few months ago. I think the QA at Google needs to work really hard.

  It is supposed to translate from English to Tamil. But in this case, it is translating to the CM's name for the abbreviation of our State! Weren't you able to see the image Biggie?
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  silverscorpion

  Hmm.. As far as I know, Google translate works based on some sort of crowd sourcing.
  
  i.e., if a human were to go by translating a document, he/she needs to know both the languages - viz., the word and sentence structures, grammatical constructions et all in both the languages. Porting the same system to a computer, ideally, for translating from one language to another, we should actually have a large database with all words and grammatical patterns of language mapped to those of the other.
  
  Since such a database is practically impossible, I think Google uses the text indexed by it to do the translation. i.e., whenever there appears a word or sentence to be translated, it searches for the same in its index, and returns the best match, since both the original sentence and its possible translations would have been indexed. I am not clear with the exact mechanism, but somehow, the current trending topics are probably associated with each other in the translation index.
  
  So, it's not really a QA issue, I think. Basically, the translation engine learns. I think, in a few days from now, this error will not be present.
  
  A few days ago, a similar screenshot did the rounds in facebook. In that, the sentence "Don't see idiot movie" was translated from English to Tamil.
  The translation showed something in Tamil, which read "Don't see Vijay movie". Needless to say, Vijay is a Tamil actor, and that was the time
  when a new Vijay movie was released. Try the same now, and it translates correctly.
  
  Hence, if we report the mistakes and suggest better translations, it learns and keeps getting better at it. 😀
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  PraveenKumar Purushothaman

  Exactly. But at the same time, people will be adding to the Google's translation database, thereby making it really interactive. It works on the principle of how many same kind of translations for the particular phrase. And, based on the weights, it suggests the top 5. 😀 This is been highly misused!!! 😔
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  KenJackson

  silverscorpion

  In that, the sentence "Don't see idiot movie" was translated from English to Tamil.
  The translation showed something in Tamil, which read "Don't see Vijay movie". Needless to say, Vijay is a Tamil actor, and that was the time when a new Vijay movie was released.

  Reminds me of this classic picture.
  
  
  
  A few years ago I started noticing that phrase everywhere: "Do not want". Odd.
  
  But Star Wars Episode Iii: Revenge Of The Sith Leaked Workprint the phrase arose from a bootleg English to Chinese to English translation of Darth Vader saying "Noooooooo!".
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  PraveenKumar Purushothaman

  KenJackson

  But Star Wars Episode Iii: Revenge Of The Sith Leaked Workprint the phrase arose from a bootleg English to Chinese to English translation of Darth Vader saying "Noooooooo!".

  Are you by any chance talking about this site? #-Link-Snipped-#
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  KenJackson

  Praveen-Kumar

  Are you by any chance talking about this site? #-Link-Snipped-#

  Incredible! A whole website devoted to a single-word sentence in one movie!
  
  But yeah, that sounds like it.
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  PraveenKumar Purushothaman

  KenJackson

  Incredible! A whole website devoted to a single-word sentence in one movie!
  
  But yeah, that sounds like it.

  Right! Use it in dire situations!!!