What Google Translate can’t handle
I have been testing Google Translate, and I wanted to come up with a list of things that I think Google cannot handle, translating from both German to English, and also English to German. Here is my list, descending from the things it has the most trouble with, to the things it makes errors at, but has less problems with:
1. Plural vs. singular nouns. Google Translate (GT) seems to have a real issue here (in one EN to DE text, GT translated “repertoire companies” as “Repertoire Co.”.
2. Pronouns. He vs. she, they vs. you, etc. A real nightmare. The German language seems to promote this. The word for “she” and “they” are the same: sie, so unless you understand the context, you would have to guess which pronoun is meant.
3. Recognizing full clauses from incomplete clauses. I see lots of incomplete, dependent clauses by GT, masquerading as full sentences.
4. Basic rules of grammar in German.
5. Mood. Has a hard time with subjunctive mood. It translated one sentence from English to German, which was: “if Shakespeare were German” as: “Shakespeare is German”. Did not recognize irreal (subjunctive) situations from real ones.
6. Tense. Not recognizing past from present, etc. See nr. 5.
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play ?”.
June 3, 2010 at 10:54 pm
I hope you start blogging more.