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> Text requires effort to translate Localization used to be a massive, expensive undertaking, but with all the cheap translation services we have today, I doub

by xg15 1y ago

> Text requires effort to translate Localization used to be a massive, expensive undertaking, but with all the cheap translation services we have today, I doubt it still is. I wonder of there will be a shift at some point, where more text-heavy GUIs will make a comeback if translation is cheap.

officeplant 1y ago
>cheap translation services we have today Which seemingly put out cheap translations. At least in my experience with modern Anime/Movies/Videogames. You can always tell when actual human effort was put into localization and not just machine translation.
reaperducer 1y ago
with all the cheap translation services we have today, I doubt it still is My company employs a number of full-time translators, some of whom do translations for my web site. When I talk with them, they all say that computer translations, while improving, are still terrible. They spend a lot of time fixing Google translations that make it into mockups, and sometimes try to show me why the computers are wrong. I don't speak their languages, so it's usually lost on me, though I've learned that there's about 50 different ways to say certain words in Spanish between Arizona and Tierra del Fuego. Could they be protecting their jobs? If that's all they did for the company, then maybe. But translation is only about 25% of their work, so they'd still be employed. A few long for good internet-based translation so they can do other things.
- zahlman 1y ago
  > I've learned that there's about 50 different ways to say certain words in Spanish between Arizona and Tierra del Fuego. You may enjoy: "Oh, how hard it is to speak Spanish!" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LjDe4sLER0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LjDe4sLER0) There's also a separate upload with Spanish subtitles.
  - mcswell 1y ago
    Certain words, yeah. Most words, no.
rags2riches 1y ago
I hit a link labeled "reply" to write this comment. A good translation requires context to tell if that is a verb or a noun. Providing that context is the hard and expensive part. Skip it and you get a terrible result.

by xg15 1y ago

officeplant 1y ago

>cheap translation services we have today Which seemingly put out cheap translations. At least in my experience with modern Anime/Movies/Videogames. You can always tell when actual human effort was put into localization and not just machine translation.

reaperducer 1y ago

with all the cheap translation services we have today, I doubt it still is My company employs a number of full-time translators, some of whom do translations for my web site. When I talk with them, they all say that computer translations, while improving, are still terrible. They spend a lot of time fixing Google translations that make it into mockups, and sometimes try to show me why the computers are wrong. I don't speak their languages, so it's usually lost on me, though I've learned that there's about 50 different ways to say certain words in Spanish between Arizona and Tierra del Fuego. Could they be protecting their jobs? If that's all they did for the company, then maybe. But translation is only about 25% of their work, so they'd still be employed. A few long for good internet-based translation so they can do other things.

zahlman 1y ago
> I've learned that there's about 50 different ways to say certain words in Spanish between Arizona and Tierra del Fuego. You may enjoy: "Oh, how hard it is to speak Spanish!" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LjDe4sLER0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LjDe4sLER0) There's also a separate upload with Spanish subtitles.
- mcswell 1y ago
  Certain words, yeah. Most words, no.

rags2riches 1y ago

I hit a link labeled "reply" to write this comment. A good translation requires context to tell if that is a verb or a noun. Providing that context is the hard and expensive part. Skip it and you get a terrible result.