Forum: Author Hangout

Well, it's a derivative of English anyway.

Cultural appropriation!

AJ

"The wine is agreeable le, but the meat is bad."

Idiomatic speech is nearly impossible for translation software unless the specific idiom is hard-coded. Of course, I'm sure you knew that! :-)

Idiomatic speech is nearly impossible for translation software

It's more than idioms. In my real-life example, several Spanish speaking people told me Mexicans would typically start that question with "and" (i.e., "And who is that?").

And the translator correctly translated "Who is he?" to Spanish. The problem, according to several native Spanish speaking people, is that it sounded awkward or formal. They all said the "he" should be "that."

So sometimes the translation makes no sense at all (which I'm afraid my Russian translation in my first Lincoln Steele novel probably occurred), but sometimes it simply isn't the way someone speaks so it makes the author look stupid.

Actually I have a theory that Google Translate just hasn't tried to improve in yonks.

A few years ago Google made a major 'breakthrough' using neural nets to correlate various UN multi-lingrual documents, and then using that to translate arbitrary text. Very powerful and definitely better in some measurable ways to what went before.

What went before was hand-crafted.

However, since that breakthrough, and branding it Google Translate, nothing seems to have got better. Its as though the researchers moved onto other things.

I've done some commercial work that takes the translations done with neural nets and then puts them through grammar checkers that work in the old-fashioned rules-based way. The result is much better than the crazy translations that Google Translate produces.

Its a shame that Google doesn't seem to be continuing to research the problem, and combine grammar rules into their translation.

grammar rules into their translation.

My point wasn't about grammar or how correct the translation was. It translated the literal English to literal Spanish correctly.

The problem was, I was told it wasn't the way a Mexican would say those words. Since the foreign language is used as dialogue, like all dialogue it should sound real for that character.

So if a stranger walked into the house after the wife called out an "all clear," the husband would point to the man and ask, "Who is he?" (actually, probably "Who's he?") But I was told a Mexican man would ask, "And who is that?"

A translator can't take into account how the person would ask the question.

Guys, just be honest and say it;

"I'd like to, but I can't get it up."

The exact opposite of the meaning of the idiomatic phrase! In context, it means you know you shouldn't, but you do it anyway. :-)

go up to an Englishman and say

I worked with a Sr. VP who was transferred from the U.S. to the Brighton, England office. Her first name was Randy. She had to go by her middle name in England.

Another unfortunate name is Wally. A kids' supplement in my newspaper changed "Where's Wally?" to "Where's Waldo?".

AJ

For a simple $5

I find people on wattpad. There are people there from all over the world. They translate for free.

Sometimes someone is wrong (like a Dutch guy who gave me a Spanish translation that was in a dialect different than my Mexican character. He was corrected by many Spanish speaking people who knew how Mexicans spoke.

The most recent one was translated by someone from Venezuela and verified by two other Spanish speaking people.

I find people on wattpad. There are people there from all over the world. They translate for free.

Alas, not all of us are active on wattpad, and when I tried it (a few years back), if you didn't already have over a thousand followers, you couldn't get a response out of ANYONE. :(

if you didn't already have over a thousand followers, you couldn't get a response out of ANYONE

I don't have 1,000 followers. I simply start a thread in the Improve Your Writing club with the subject something like "Question for native Spanish speakers."

I don't have 1,000 followers. I simply start a thread …

The key is that Wattpad is a 'social media' site, rather than a 'writing' or 'literary' site. Thus the entire basis is on reading and upvoting other people's stories so they'll upvote YOUR stories, rather than on producing the best quality product you can.

While they do have a LOT of quality material, the focus is heavily focused on 'votes', rather than on developing skills. They still reward successful writing, but it's largely secondary to voting for your friends so they'll support you.

On a site like Wattpad, you succeed NOT by writing, but by reading (or pretending to read) others stories and voting for each others stories. That just runs counter to my 60's sense of counterculture independence. It's too much of 'being like everyone else' and not enough of 'standing by your principals'.

But then, that's just my take on it, and I'm clearly in the minority on social media sites. (Case in point, I gave up on Facebook during the 2016 election, when my 'liberal' friends were inundating me with clearly Russian fake stories supporting their positions, rather than questioning what was legit and what was bogus. And I've never looked back. I'm glad to be done with the site.)

On a site like Wattpad, you succeed NOT by writing, but by reading (or pretending to read) others stories and voting for each others stories.

That's one aspect of wattpad. I no longer write stories to post there. I participate in two clubs.

1) the Industry Insider's club where I learned a great deal about traditional and self-publishing. Most of my participation nowadays is helping others.

2) the Improve Your Writing club where I help people learn to write fiction. It's there I asked for a translator.

That's one aspect of wattpad. I no longer write stories to post there. I participate in two clubs.

Now that's interesting. Since LinkedIn kicked all of their User Forums to the curb, I've been bereft of my usual writer information sources/haunts. I may have to check those groups out.