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Machine Translation

SteveAitch

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SteveAitch
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I was trying to find the name of a deceased female cookery writer (Jane Grigson) and did so by searching Amazon for the book in question - English Food. While there I checked out the reviews.

One was in German.
Leider ist das Buch superlangweilig, die Rezepte sind 08/15 und animieren in keinster Weise zum nachkochen. Leider ist auch kein einziges Foto drin und für mich persönlich macht das ein Kochbuch eher uninteressant. Ich liebe es in schönen Kochbüchern zu schmökern und für 15 Euro gibts weit bessere Bücher.
Ich bin nur froh, daß ich's gebraucht für 3 Euro gekauft hab, so tuts auch ned weh es zu entsorgen.
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Amazon' translator gives this
Unfortunately, the book is super boring, the recipes are 08/15 and do not animate to cook in any way. Unfortunately, there is not a single photo in it, and for me personally this makes a cookbook rather uninteresting. I love to browse through beautiful cookbooks and for 15 euros there are far better books.
I'm just glad I bought it used for 3 euros, so tuts also ned hurt to dispose of it.
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Google translate gives:
Unfortunately, the book is incredibly boring. The recipes are completely generic and don't inspire me to cook them at all. Sadly, there isn't a single photo, which makes a cookbook rather uninteresting for me. I love browsing through beautiful cookbooks, and for 15 euros, there are far better ones available.
I'm just glad I bought it used for 3 euros; that way, it won't hurt to throw it away.
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I can see why certain words may be different in the translations (those in italics), any thesaurus will explain that, but some sections in the Amazon translation (in bold) are just weird. And the re-arrangement of the second part of the second sentance is interesting

Can anyone (possibly a fluent German speaker) think of an explanation - possibly Google connecting their translator to their AI, whatever it's called?
 
The word "ned" is colloquial and 08/15 is idiomatic, so the Amazon translator probably doesn't have access to the translation of those words, while Google does.
 
I've noticed Google translate altering the way it deals with words due to very slight changes in context.
 
As recently as maybe 5 years ago or certainly 7 years ago, machine translation was still pretty terrible overall.
 
Puppycow said:
Can you explain "08/15"? I assume that represents a fraction?
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Nevermind, I looked it up.
In German, 08/15 (Nullachtfünfzehn) is a colloquial idiom meaning something is mundane, average, run-of-the-mill, or nothing special, often with a slightly negative spin, like "plain vanilla" or "cookie-cutter". It comes from the MG 08/15, the common WWI machine gun, and signifies tedious routine or standard, uninspired quality.
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A couple of months ago I came across four additional verses in a Gaelic Christmas carol, the first four verses of which I had already translated by hand. I just wanted a rough rendering of the extra verses so I put them into Google translate. I was handed an almost-finished piece of poetry.
 
Puppycow said:
As recently as maybe 5 years ago or certainly 7 years ago, machine translation was still pretty terrible overall.
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5 years ago it was already very good, particularly things like DeepL. Maybe Google Translate hadn’t caught up yet. My understanding is that that was when they really started to use the type of training that LLMs use.
 
angrysoba said:
5 years ago it was already very good, particularly things like DeepL. Maybe Google Translate hadn’t caught up yet. My understanding is that that was when they really started to use the type of training that LLMs use.
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Well, the Google translation above makes more sense than the Amazon one, so it seems to be fairly competent.
 
In the carol I mentioned, one of the things I was impressed by was the translation of "geibh". Literally, that is "will get". The line is "Geibh sibh an t-Uan", which absolutely literally means, "you will get the Lamb". But the capitalisation of the word for lamb is a slight giveaway, also that this is a Christmas carol. We are not talking about baby sheep here, but about the Baby Jesus.

Google translate handled that one as "You will find the Lamb", which while not strictly correct is correct in context. ("You will find the Lamb" would actually be "Lorgaidh sinn an t-Uan".) Whether for reasons of metre, or (more likely) because of common usage, the writer used geibh and not lorgaidh, and Google totally got it and translated it accordingly.
 
I ran the passage through DeepL, and the translation was better to either Google's or Amazon's. It translated "08/15" as "run-of-the-mill" and it wasn't thrown by the dialect-specific "ned."

DeepL's translation:

Unfortunately, the book is extremely boring, the recipes are run-of-the-mill and do not inspire you to try them out. Unfortunately, there are no photos in it either, which for me personally makes a cookbook rather uninteresting. I love browsing through beautiful cookbooks, and for 15 euros you can get far better books.

I'm just glad I bought it secondhand for 3 euros, so it doesn't hurt to throw it away.


Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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