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"Can I search the car?" in Google Translate yields "¿Puedo buscar el auto?", which is the phrase specified in the article. It's a case of bad translation, alth
by lazzlazzlazz 8y ago
"Can I search the car?" in Google Translate yields "¿Puedo buscar el auto?", which is the phrase specified in the article.
It's a case of bad translation, although as a bilingual speaker of English and Spanish, I think it's clear what the officer meant. (Better verbs would've been "registrar" or even "examinar".)
I agree that "¿Puedo buscar el auto?" sounds like "Can I find the car?"
- posterboy 8y agoIt's a case of weird input language, alright. When I'm searching my phone, I'm looking for it. When I find my phone, then that's the moment I found it. When I am finding my phone, then that's a very optimistic way of phrasing that I will find it. Whereas, when I browse my phone, I am looking, or searching for something else through the use of my phone. Hence German "durchsuchen" -- search through. English can be an analytic language, so there's a difference, but you might as well say the situation could be analyzed to find the intent of the policemen at the latest when they actually started rifling through the car. At which point I wonder whether there was any protest against the examination. As an aside, ironically, google with search being their main claim to fame could not translate this any differently. Also, I got a punny answer when asking someone to look at my stuff, as I wanted to leave it at the bus stop while going into a shop: "Yes, it looks nice".