Google Lens translate too clever by half

Late this afternoon (4.00-5.00) the internet connection to my router was very erratic. It happens from time to time and is sometimes caused by maintenance work at my service provider.

I am always looking for material to write about in my Spanish journal so I wrote:

Pienso había problemas a los Torres de Orpheus.

When I have finished an entry I usually check it for comprehensibilty by pointing Google Lens at the screen and getting it to translate. I was surprised to find that Google had ignored the jocular reference to Faulty towers and translated it thus:

I think there were problems with the Orpheus servers.

This is all very well but it has highlighted a problem with machine translation. The machine is too good at making sense of my Spanish. I get a false sense of security that what I have written is correct, when in fact I can write almost any old rubbish including grammatical errors, and spelling mistakes and Google will sort it out and render my words into coherent English. Whereas if a Spanish person were to read the original he might well scratch his head and wonder what I was trying to say.

You can use Reverse Translate to see if the logical translation goes back to something resembling what was originally written.

You can use Reverse Translate to see if the logical translation goes back to something resembling what was originally written.

Yup. I did that a few times when I was frequently communicating with a friend in Vietnam. Her English was pretty good* – she could make me understand quite well, but often misunderstood me. So I tried GoogleTranslate English→Vietnamese. Fortunately I tried it back again – utter rubbish nearly every time.

• And that is really her English, not Google’s: a fact I became certain of after my nephew and his (now) wife actually met the lady in question in Vietnam a few years ago.

And that is really her English

Once upon a time, people actually had to learn a language to speak it, and not just throw words at a machine (or somebody else) and hope for the best.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7702913.stm

Once upon a time, people actually had to learn a language to speak it

There’s plenty of written evidence that the trans-pondians don’t put undo (sic) effort into that, but what can you due (sic) :(