8 ms·

It's scary what you can do with machine translation these days...

by baguasquirrel 15y ago

flipp 15y ago
Seriously.. I didn't even realize that was a translation till I finished the first paragraph.
- DrJ 15y ago
  that or we have bad grammar sentences, sometimes.
igorlev 15y ago
Not only is the translation of a surprisingly high quality, but reading the original in Russian is more awkward since a lot of the technical terms are originally English. I needed to read a particular portion 3 times before I realized it meant memory allocation.
- rdtsc 15y ago
  I though the same thing. I learned all the tech terms in English, so when I read "sborka musora" instead of "garbage collection" it somehow makes me smile.
Klinky 15y ago
Haha, I thought your reply was talking about how the V8 engine worked(translating to machine specific code), instead of the language translator used on the blog post.
spicyj 15y ago
Funny how it changed: for (int i = 0; v8::V8::IdleNotification() && i < 3; i++); to: for (int i = 0; v8:: V8:: IdleNotification () & & i <3; i + +);
- djacobs 15y ago
  He probably should've wrapped this bit in code tags. Edit: By 'code tags' i mean literal <code> tags.
  - spicyj 15y ago
    Not sure what you mean; it was in a <pre> tag.
    - long 15y ago
      Maybe a <code> tag, which is actually a semantic element?
naner 15y ago
It likely was not completely translated by machine. Google Translate lets anyone reading the translation edit it to fix errors. Highlight some text and notice the link that appears allowing you to "Contribute a better translation" for that particular passage.
- Sephr 15y ago
  It's more likely that it only helps train Google Translate, and doesn't actually apply any changes directly to the translated text. Otherwise vandalism would be way too easy.
  - Pooter 15y ago
    Right. I noticed a small translation error in the first paragraph. The Russian word "машина" - in the paraphrased Henry Ford quote - is translated as machine, but in the context of the sentence should be translated as "car." When I corrected it, the old one was left in place.
  - merloen 15y ago
    Why on earth is the comment by Pooter dead?
    - ahlatimer 15y ago
      Look at Pooter's comment history. He/she has been banned for some reason.
    - blasdel 15y ago
      Because they were hellbanned 72 days ago for no obvious reason, every contribution of theirs is DOA.
alastairpat 15y ago
I thought exactly the same thing! I still remember being able to play a game with one of my friends where we'd translate a sentence to German then back to English and laugh at how mangled it was…
- freakwit 15y ago
  http://www.translationparty.com/#9269521 http://www.translationparty.com/#9269521
  - pixdamix 15y ago
    After a bunch of English/Japanese translations: "Number of games: We, and I have learned how to use the means for translating the German text in English is still a way of encoding their friends to play with a smile. .."
coffeemug 15y ago
That's incredible. When I read the article I didn't realize I'm reading google translated version, so I thought "Igor's english is a bit broken but relatively good". I only realized I read a translation when you pointed it out. I went back to re-read the original (I'm a native russian speaker) and it's amazing how close google got to expressing the essence of every sentence.
gtdminh 15y ago
really good translation. i'm not aware google translate has this progress.
ma2rten 15y ago
Technical texts like this are relatively easy to get right. English is not my native language and when I was young I could read computer related stuff, but had trouble understanding, for example Harry Potter. If Google has an example of such a text, they can learn all the translations for all the technical terms from that data. However, a news article is much more difficult because they often have lot's of metaphors, etc. If you try to translate those, you get a lot of halve finished sentences and stuff like that.
JunkDNA 15y ago
Yeah, I actually found it so good it was distracting. After every sentence I kept going back and saying, "Wow, I can't believe it got that right too".
wazoox 15y ago
Indeed. However though Google translate quite correctly from most common languages to English, translation to other languages (even English to French or English to Spanish) often hardly makes any sense.
lloeki 15y ago
The thing that led me to it was halfway through, when I moved the cursor on top of the text and there was some popup, at which point I yelled, WTH is that crap site with some broken JS advertising! I moved the mouse away but kept moving it in by pure reflex. It took me a whole minute to realize it was Google Translate. Before I actually noticed that, "snapshot'ov" actually made me laughed, genuinely (mis)taking it for some sort of pun.

It's scary what you can do with machine translation these days...

flipp 15y ago

Seriously.. I didn't even realize that was a translation till I finished the first paragraph.

DrJ 15y ago
that or we have bad grammar sentences, sometimes.

igorlev 15y ago

Not only is the translation of a surprisingly high quality, but reading the original in Russian is more awkward since a lot of the technical terms are originally English. I needed to read a particular portion 3 times before I realized it meant memory allocation.

rdtsc 15y ago
I though the same thing. I learned all the tech terms in English, so when I read "sborka musora" instead of "garbage collection" it somehow makes me smile.

Klinky 15y ago

Haha, I thought your reply was talking about how the V8 engine worked(translating to machine specific code), instead of the language translator used on the blog post.

spicyj 15y ago

Funny how it changed: for (int i = 0; v8::V8::IdleNotification() && i < 3; i++); to: for (int i = 0; v8:: V8:: IdleNotification () & & i <3; i + +);

djacobs 15y ago
He probably should've wrapped this bit in code tags. Edit: By 'code tags' i mean literal <code> tags.
- spicyj 15y ago
  Not sure what you mean; it was in a <pre> tag.
  - long 15y ago
    Maybe a <code> tag, which is actually a semantic element?

naner 15y ago

It likely was not completely translated by machine. Google Translate lets anyone reading the translation edit it to fix errors. Highlight some text and notice the link that appears allowing you to "Contribute a better translation" for that particular passage.

Sephr 15y ago
It's more likely that it only helps train Google Translate, and doesn't actually apply any changes directly to the translated text. Otherwise vandalism would be way too easy.
- Pooter 15y ago
  Right. I noticed a small translation error in the first paragraph. The Russian word "машина" - in the paraphrased Henry Ford quote - is translated as machine, but in the context of the sentence should be translated as "car." When I corrected it, the old one was left in place.
- merloen 15y ago
  Why on earth is the comment by Pooter dead?
  - ahlatimer 15y ago
    Look at Pooter's comment history. He/she has been banned for some reason.
  - blasdel 15y ago
    Because they were hellbanned 72 days ago for no obvious reason, every contribution of theirs is DOA.

alastairpat 15y ago

I thought exactly the same thing! I still remember being able to play a game with one of my friends where we'd translate a sentence to German then back to English and laugh at how mangled it was…

freakwit 15y ago
http://www.translationparty.com/#9269521 http://www.translationparty.com/#9269521
- pixdamix 15y ago
  After a bunch of English/Japanese translations: "Number of games: We, and I have learned how to use the means for translating the German text in English is still a way of encoding their friends to play with a smile. .."

coffeemug 15y ago

That's incredible. When I read the article I didn't realize I'm reading google translated version, so I thought "Igor's english is a bit broken but relatively good". I only realized I read a translation when you pointed it out. I went back to re-read the original (I'm a native russian speaker) and it's amazing how close google got to expressing the essence of every sentence.

gtdminh 15y ago

really good translation. i'm not aware google translate has this progress.

ma2rten 15y ago

Technical texts like this are relatively easy to get right. English is not my native language and when I was young I could read computer related stuff, but had trouble understanding, for example Harry Potter. If Google has an example of such a text, they can learn all the translations for all the technical terms from that data. However, a news article is much more difficult because they often have lot's of metaphors, etc. If you try to translate those, you get a lot of halve finished sentences and stuff like that.

JunkDNA 15y ago

Yeah, I actually found it so good it was distracting. After every sentence I kept going back and saying, "Wow, I can't believe it got that right too".

wazoox 15y ago

Indeed. However though Google translate quite correctly from most common languages to English, translation to other languages (even English to French or English to Spanish) often hardly makes any sense.

lloeki 15y ago

The thing that led me to it was halfway through, when I moved the cursor on top of the text and there was some popup, at which point I yelled, WTH is that crap site with some broken JS advertising! I moved the mouse away but kept moving it in by pure reflex. It took me a whole minute to realize it was Google Translate. Before I actually noticed that, "snapshot'ov" actually made me laughed, genuinely (mis)taking it for some sort of pun.