Google Translate speaks in (more) tongues
Adds 10 new languages
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Google has announced the addition of ten new languages to its Google Translate feature, bringing the total of available tongues to 23.
The newcomers are Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Swedish, as trumpeted here.
All fine and dandy, but just how does Google Translate perform? The search monolith admits: "While our system is quite good, we know it's not perfect. Machine translation is a hard problem, but it plays an important role in helping people access content they might otherwise be unable to read."
Well, since this hack is no slouch in the Spanish department, I decided to put the thing to the test. Here's a snippet of news regarding a drugs bust from today's El País:
La Guardia Civil de Huelva detuvo anoche a 29 personas e intervino 4.000 kilos de hachís en la mayor operación contra el tráfico de drogas desarrollada en la provincia. Fue necesaria una macro-operación dividida en dos acciones distintas y la colaboración del Servicio de Vigilancia Aduanera. Entre los detenidos, se encuentran 16 rusos y el resto procede de España, Polonia, Rumania, Ucrania y Marruecos, según informó ayer la Guardia Civil.
Here's Google Translate's English take on that:
The Guardia Civil de Huelva last night arrested 29 people and intervened to 4,000 kilos of hashish in the largest operation against drug trafficking developed in the province. It took a macro-operation divided into two separate and collaboration of the Customs Surveillance Service. Among those arrested are 16 Russians and the rest comes from Spain, Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Morocco, as reported yesterday by the Civil Guard.
Actually, that really isn't a bad effort. Now, if you'll excuse me, since I've just said something positive about Google, I need a quick siesta in a darkened room. ®
COMMENTS
Finnish
Finally, they did Finnish - by far the toughest european language, mostly because it doesn't resemble anything else... hell, even Swedish sounds almost understandable compared to Finnish - mostly because some words look and sound like their German or English counterparts.
Re: real reason they hate the english...
>>if you TRY to say a few words, no matter how badly, they will be very pleased that you TRIED... and usually will reply in perfect english!!! :)
Um, not in my experience. Whenever I've tried (not completely ineptly) to speak French to the French, they have looked at me with such utter disdain that it's like a whole new level of disdain like you've never seen before. But then I know Paris is 'different'. (If anyone posts that icon after this I will punch them to the ground.)
My friend was going to learn how to perfectly say, "I shall not sully your beautiful language with my clumsy tongue, please may we converse in English?" Well, it's got to be better than pointing at pictures in a book and doing Looks and muttering "mercy bo coo".
real reason they hate the english...
"they are so ignorant that they know nothing of the above, and talk about how they brought civilization to the globe..."
trouble is, anyone acting like this will make you angry...
The french are more vocal about it, that is all...
If you TRY to say a few words, no matter how badly, they will be
very pleased that you TRIED... and usually will reply in perfect english!!! :)
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