4 ms·

I remember using phrasebooks in the early 2000s in Europe. They were better than nothing, but never as useful as you hoped. If you were totally new to a languag

I remember using phrasebooks in the early 2000s in Europe. They were better than nothing, but never as useful as you hoped. If you were totally new to a language and didn't know any phrases, they best you could hope for was to point out a phrase in the book to someone as a way to communicate. And even if you managed to say something intelligible, you'd have no idea what the other person's response meant. They mentioned it in the article, but these days the Google Translate app completely replaces that role. I've had complex interactions (work, baby sitters, house cleaners, repairs, etc) with people who spoke zero English through Google Translate's interactive translation mode across multiple languages and it works amazingly well. On the other hand, I have a lot of funny memories about phrase books and things going wildly wrong. So I guess we will miss out those stories in the future.

blowski 4y ago
A common problem was they got the level of formality wrong. I had a Portuguese one which translated “hi” to the equivalent of “Good day, Sir”. While a Polish one translated “great, thanks” to “fucking brilliant!”.
- contingencies 4y ago
  Sounds like Polish people contributing to the training corpus are simply happier than the Portuguese contributor population, who perhaps also lived 100 years prior...
triyambakam 4y ago
I think Google Translate is still struggling with Thai language as I often get a lot of funny looks when I translate something into Thai and the English I get back sounds like a strange poem. Example: in my favorite coffee shop and the barista asks to use my phone to translate something. The English that comes out is "Drugs are high in the mountains" But maybe that was what he was actually trying to say, as that does seem appropriate for Thailand... However I was not inquiring about drugs, and when I was confused and translated just "drugs" he vehemently denied talking about that.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Slang is still something that confuses the translation apps, especially if you have a simple phrase without much context clues.
tomcam 4y ago
> I remember using phrasebooks in the early 2000s in Europe. They were better than nothing, but never as useful as you hoped. I had the opposite experience. I found the phrase books to be by far the best way to get by, because I didn’t have to worry too much about conjugation, word genders, and so on. One of them was the way I bootstrapped my way into speaking Polish with a girlfriend who spoke no English.
russellbeattie 4y ago
≥ I have a lot of funny memories about phrase books and things going wildly wrong Exactly this! Phrase books give you just enough of the language to get into trouble, but never enough to get you out of it. Like third-year Spanish students on a class trip to Mexico.

blowski 4y ago

A common problem was they got the level of formality wrong. I had a Portuguese one which translated “hi” to the equivalent of “Good day, Sir”. While a Polish one translated “great, thanks” to “fucking brilliant!”.

contingencies 4y ago
Sounds like Polish people contributing to the training corpus are simply happier than the Portuguese contributor population, who perhaps also lived 100 years prior...

triyambakam 4y ago

I think Google Translate is still struggling with Thai language as I often get a lot of funny looks when I translate something into Thai and the English I get back sounds like a strange poem. Example: in my favorite coffee shop and the barista asks to use my phone to translate something. The English that comes out is "Drugs are high in the mountains" But maybe that was what he was actually trying to say, as that does seem appropriate for Thailand... However I was not inquiring about drugs, and when I was confused and translated just "drugs" he vehemently denied talking about that.

bombcar 4y ago
Slang is still something that confuses the translation apps, especially if you have a simple phrase without much context clues.

tomcam 4y ago

> I remember using phrasebooks in the early 2000s in Europe. They were better than nothing, but never as useful as you hoped. I had the opposite experience. I found the phrase books to be by far the best way to get by, because I didn’t have to worry too much about conjugation, word genders, and so on. One of them was the way I bootstrapped my way into speaking Polish with a girlfriend who spoke no English.

russellbeattie 4y ago

≥ I have a lot of funny memories about phrase books and things going wildly wrong Exactly this! Phrase books give you just enough of the language to get into trouble, but never enough to get you out of it. Like third-year Spanish students on a class trip to Mexico.