The new Google Translate for Latin

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Stephen Carlson
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Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
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The new Google Translate for Latin

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Sometime last year, Google Translate finally upgraded its atrocious statistical Latin translator to its neural net technology. The results look much improved, as the quality seems to have gone from execrable to about as mediocre as the rest of Google translate.

I don't have any examples of the Old Google Latin translate to compare, but here is an example on a paragraph from an untranslated Latin sermon of the fourth or fifth century.
Source wrote:Quamquam dubium, fratres carissimi, non sit in omnibus fere libris veteris testamenti triplicem esse significantiam, id est prophetiae, historiae et figurae, tamen laborandum nobis est ut unamquamque rem in suo genere et statu disserere et adsignare possimus. Nam prophetia est in praescientia futurorum, historia in relatione gestorum, figura in similitudine rerum, exceptis illis quae ad aedificationem aut consolationem aut exhortationem, aut ad increpationem pertinere videntur.
Here is the result:
Google translate wrote:Although there is no doubt, dear brothers, that there is not a triple significance in almost all the books of the Old Testament, that is, of prophecy, of history, and of figure, we still must work hard to ensure that we can discuss and assign each thing in its own genus and state. For prophecy is in the foreknowledge of the future; history in relation to acts, figure in similitude of things, except those things which seem to pertain to edification, consolation, or exhortation, or rebuke.
A few, but not all, comments on the translation:
  • Most concerningly, it inserts an extra negation into "triplicem esse significantiam." I think the vocative confused it, as the error goes away when the vocative is deleted ("Although there is no doubt that there are three meanings in almost all the books of the Old Testament, ...")
  • It gets misled by false friends: in relatione is not "in relation to" but "in the reporting of".
  • Similarly, it prefers English direct borrowings of the Latin, even when they aren't quite idiomatic: genere ("genus" instead of "category"), statu ("state" instead of "status"? "position"? "condition"? not sure what's best), similitudine (as "similitude" rather than "likeness").
  • The way Latin uses adjectives for substantives confuses it: futurorum is rendered as "the future" rather than "future events" (vel sim.).
All in all, it appears that Google has upgraded their Latin translation from producing gibberish to making schoolboy mistakes. I suppose that's an improvement, but obviously no substitute for knowing the language.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
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