4 ms·

Why not automate this and remove the human factor? Google probably has an API for Translate.

by rsendv 12y ago

mrborgen 12y ago
I highly doubt it. At least for the screenshots. People will get very sceptcal if they see grammatical errors in their native language. What I do think can be automated though, is the act of finding search phrase equivalents for different languages. And if you have some humour or poetic fomulations in your description, it probably wont give you a very good result.
dturnbull 12y ago
Don't overestimate automated translation. My girlfriend is a native Japanese speaker (and professional translator) and she laughs when she sees the results of Google Translate. Especially for a language like Japanese, nothing's going to beat a human being who takes pride in their work.
- mrborgen 12y ago
  Agree! I got really surprise when I tried to translate to my native language via Google Translate. It made me realise how crappy their translation really is.. :P
- aikah 12y ago
  But with a collaborative effort and machine learning,you can make a translator learn the subtilities of a language.The situation in 10 years regarding automated translation will be quite different from today.This is true with a number of "impossible tasks to automate" today.
- xorcist 12y ago
  My native language is a germanic one, Swedish, which is globally speaking pretty much as close to the English family as it gets. I know for a fact that Google Translate butchers it completely and it's sometimes hard to even understand the results. I can only imagine what it would do to Japanese or Chinese, which are much, much farther from English. If you want a hint of what Google Translate does to a language, do it full circle. Translate a text from English to for example French, and then input the result for translation back to English. The resulting experience is pretty close to what the French user would get. (It also doubles as comedy.)
melling 12y ago
I'm not a fan of machine translation. Gosh, it's hot, I need a fan. Then you've got all sorts of idiomatic expressions. It's often not as simple as plugging into Google. I've been working on iOS language apps for a few years. They are localized in a dozen languages. It's a lot of work. For example: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-lite/id388918463?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-lite/id388918463?... Is there any interest in maintaining an open source list of common words and expressions? GitHub? Google Spreadsheet? I could seed it with some of my data. I already have some common words for a dozen languages here: http://thespanishsite.com http://thespanishsite.com
- mrborgen 12y ago
  I think an open source list of common words and expressions is a very good idea. Ideally, that kind of tool also plugs into Google's Adwords tool, so you'll get the amount of searches each expression gets.
  - melling 12y ago
    Actually, I started something a while ago. Maybe I'll pick it up again. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArVkFagUZg7bdHB0MTNuMDJySGpnazFpWVZMVUVVNmc&usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArVkFagUZg7bdHB... If anyone would like to contribute, let me know.
    - melling 12y ago
      Here's the link to bookmark: http://thespanishsite.com/dictionary http://thespanishsite.com/dictionary
edpichler 12y ago
We can't do that. Localizing is more than translating.
xorcist 12y ago
So instead of serving a useful description to your prospective customers, you think it's a good idea to serve translated words in random order, which the intended recipient may eventually work out the meaning of? I can only speak for myself, but there is a special place in hell for any and every one who butchers my native language into an indecipherable mess and have the guts to serve it back to me.
gambiting 12y ago
Because Google Translate is absolutely horrible? You can kind of understand what it's trying to do, but most of the time it's not something you would put nowhere near a professional product.
realusername 12y ago
The quality automated translation is not really there yet and Google translate won't have the context of your app anyway. There is also lots of other small details on how people are going to use your app. For example in some countries, the last name is supposed to be put before the first name and if you put it the other way around, you would still have ~15/20% of people which would put their last name on the first field anyway regardless how it's labeled.

Why not automate this and remove the human factor? Google probably has an API for Translate.

by rsendv 12y ago

Why not automate this and remove the human factor? Google probably has an API for Translate.

I highly doubt it. At least for the screenshots. People will get very sceptcal if they see grammatical errors in their native language. What I do think can be automated though, is the act of finding search phrase equivalents for different languages. And if you have some humour or poetic fomulations in your description, it probably wont give you a very good result.

dturnbull 12y ago

Don't overestimate automated translation. My girlfriend is a native Japanese speaker (and professional translator) and she laughs when she sees the results of Google Translate. Especially for a language like Japanese, nothing's going to beat a human being who takes pride in their work.

mrborgen 12y ago
Agree! I got really surprise when I tried to translate to my native language via Google Translate. It made me realise how crappy their translation really is.. :P
aikah 12y ago
But with a collaborative effort and machine learning,you can make a translator learn the subtilities of a language.The situation in 10 years regarding automated translation will be quite different from today.This is true with a number of "impossible tasks to automate" today.
xorcist 12y ago
My native language is a germanic one, Swedish, which is globally speaking pretty much as close to the English family as it gets. I know for a fact that Google Translate butchers it completely and it's sometimes hard to even understand the results. I can only imagine what it would do to Japanese or Chinese, which are much, much farther from English. If you want a hint of what Google Translate does to a language, do it full circle. Translate a text from English to for example French, and then input the result for translation back to English. The resulting experience is pretty close to what the French user would get. (It also doubles as comedy.)

melling 12y ago

I'm not a fan of machine translation. Gosh, it's hot, I need a fan. Then you've got all sorts of idiomatic expressions. It's often not as simple as plugging into Google. I've been working on iOS language apps for a few years. They are localized in a dozen languages. It's a lot of work. For example: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-lite/id388918463?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-lite/id388918463?... Is there any interest in maintaining an open source list of common words and expressions? GitHub? Google Spreadsheet? I could seed it with some of my data. I already have some common words for a dozen languages here: http://thespanishsite.com http://thespanishsite.com

mrborgen 12y ago
I think an open source list of common words and expressions is a very good idea. Ideally, that kind of tool also plugs into Google's Adwords tool, so you'll get the amount of searches each expression gets.
- melling 12y ago
  Actually, I started something a while ago. Maybe I'll pick it up again. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArVkFagUZg7bdHB0MTNuMDJySGpnazFpWVZMVUVVNmc&usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArVkFagUZg7bdHB... If anyone would like to contribute, let me know.
  - melling 12y ago
    Here's the link to bookmark: http://thespanishsite.com/dictionary http://thespanishsite.com/dictionary

edpichler 12y ago

We can't do that. Localizing is more than translating.

xorcist 12y ago

So instead of serving a useful description to your prospective customers, you think it's a good idea to serve translated words in random order, which the intended recipient may eventually work out the meaning of? I can only speak for myself, but there is a special place in hell for any and every one who butchers my native language into an indecipherable mess and have the guts to serve it back to me.

gambiting 12y ago

Because Google Translate is absolutely horrible? You can kind of understand what it's trying to do, but most of the time it's not something you would put nowhere near a professional product.

realusername 12y ago

The quality automated translation is not really there yet and Google translate won't have the context of your app anyway. There is also lots of other small details on how people are going to use your app. For example in some countries, the last name is supposed to be put before the first name and if you put it the other way around, you would still have ~15/20% of people which would put their last name on the first field anyway regardless how it's labeled.