UPDATE:
UPDATE 2: Try these three in English to Traditional Chinese:
The Diaoyu Islands are not a part of ChinaYup, three different answers.
The Diaoyu Islands are not a part of Japan
The Diaoyu Islands are not a part of Taiwan
It renders phrases with Senkakus correctly. Have fun!
UPDATE 3: Sunday night: The mess with Taiwan is not a part of China seems to have been fixed. However, just typing in The Diaoyu Islands with no further words still returns 釣魚島及其附屬島嶼. This is clearly political.
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9 comments:
Huh? It appears to do the same for other countries, at least on their mobile site. I wrote "India is not a part of Australia" and got "印度是澳大利亚的一 部分". Have no idea what is going on but.
Is it location dependent? I tried it from America and go the correct translation.
Wow. Now there's a reason not to use Google translate.
Isn't it possible to submit alternate suggestions?
In Google Translate's defense, pretty much every negative in English or Chinese, when translated to the other language, gets dropped. So you type "I'm not happy about that" in either of the two, hit Translate and get "I'm happy about that". Almost every time.
Jenna Cody wrote:
"In Google Translate's defense, pretty much every negative in English or Chinese, when translated to the other language, gets dropped."
Not true at all.
I typed your example of "I'm not happy about that", its responded translations were correct as a negative sentence: "Je ne suis pas heureux à ce sujet" (French), "Ich bin nicht glücklich darüber, dass" (German) and "我很不開心" (Chinese).
As well, I typed "The Diaoyu Islands are not a part of Japan", its translation was accurate (also negative): "釣魚島不屬於日本".
Interesting in this case is that Google Translate does not translate the phrase "is part of" ("是...的一部分"). It "intelligently" used "does not belong to" ("不屬於") in its place. That is, it intelligently changed a "be-sentence" ("is part of") to a "do-sentence" ("do (not) belong to").
Yet, when "Japan" is replaced by "China" in the sentence, the be-sentence remains a be-sentence:
That is, when you type "The Diaoyu Islands are not a part of China", it translates it into "釣魚島及其附屬島嶼是中國的一部分，" ("The Diaoyu Island and its associated islets are parts of China"), whereby
The "及其附屬島嶼" ("and its associated islets") is additional text inserted by Google Translate.
The "mechanism" is clearly intentionally planted; either by Google Translate or by some of its employees.
Well, it happens to me all the time - I'll stick a phrase with a negative into Google Translate, and get a positive back.
"I'm not happy about that" used to translate to "I'm happy about that". Maybe it doesn't anymore (they do make changes and all), but it used to.
Usually, if I'm using Google Translate, it's to decode something a friend said on Facebook that I can't read in Chinese, that I know is standard Chinese but I Just don't understand.
The example I gave came straight out of one of those situations.
The negation of Taiwan is not a part of China seems to have been fixed. But The Diaoyu Islands are not a part of China still produces the same phrase. In fact typing in The Diaoyu Islands gets: 釣魚島及其附屬島嶼
Michael
What's really funny is that as you type the English "The Diaoyu Islands are not a part of China", the program translates as you go, and the phrase remains 不属于, until you complete the word China, when that phrase magically becomes 是. Same thing happens when the last word is Japan.
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