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Without knowledge of French, one may be claiming that they play baseball with a small blind creature, rather than a wooden club!įriends will laugh, and help you make a correction. If we were to translate “I have many bats” into French, say, there is no telling whether Google will pick “une chauve souris” (the animal), or “une batte” (the sporting object). Other examples include: “desert”, “fair”, “lie”, “lead”, “row”, “wind”, and “project”. For example, with “bat”, how is one to know the difference between the animal, or the piece of baseball apparatus? Without context, humans do not know, so neither can Google. One of the above, would be the case of mononyms (words that look & sound the same, but have differing meanings). This is especially problematic when X can equal both Y & Z, but the choice between the two, is context-dependent. It can see that X equals Y, but it cannot understand why X equals Y. Google Translate can see text, but it cannot understand it. So, why exactly is Google Translate so inaccurate.? Also, confidentiality! Whatever is put into that box, is then stored & used by Google, however they so wish. There may be an error in the translation, in a language that you do not speak, and it would go unnoticed. Secondly, there is no checking of the translation.
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In short, firstly, Google Translate cannot recognise idioms, or cases where the same word may take a different meaning, depending on the context (mononyms). No doubt, we have all received a very strange translation from time-to-time, and wondered “Why is Google Translate so inaccurate?” Well, this blog will tell you why, from top to bottom.
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No doubt, everyone reading this has used Google Translate.
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