Oy gevalt! Google Translate adds 9 new languages, including Yiddish
Google Translate already had dozens of widely used languages including English, French, German, Japanse, Chinese, and Russian as well as some more obscure languages. The latest 9 probably fall into the latter category. We're talking, Afrikaans, Belarusian, Icelandic, Irish, Macedonian, Malay, Swahili, Welsh and Yiddish.
Of course, while users can suggest translations and help make the service better, the bulk of the work is still done by machines. And that means that most translations are a bit less than perfect. If I spoke Belarusian or Icelandic I could probably tell you just how imperfect. But if you take an English phrase, translate it first into one language, then translate the resulting phrase into another and then try to convert it to English, you'll likely see what I mean. It's kind of like playing a long game of telephone.
On the other hand, machine translation is still better than no translation, and the latest addition makes it much easier to read foreign newspapers and communicate with people who speak other languages, even if your grammar is going to be a bit off.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
yuval said 4:35PM on 8-31-2009
Most Yiddish today is spoken only by extreme Hasidim, witch are not really supposed to use the Internet. the ones who does use it also using other languages (Hebrew or English) and don't really use it.
there are still some Jewish who knows this language but they don't use it daily (mostly for theater and other culture events) but there is really not a lot of them.
BTW, I just checked the term "NO SHVEIN" "נו שוין" that is Yiddish word commonly used as Hebrew slang for "I don't care, let it be this way" and google translated it as "come on now, quickly" and turn outs they are right, this is the right translation.
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The_Steven said 2:55PM on 10-04-2009
I beg to differ...
Here in Philadelphia (near Oxford Circle) it's still in common use with the "Conservi-dox"
Zaven said 5:08PM on 8-31-2009
And still no Armenian. WTF Google.
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Jeff said 5:32PM on 8-31-2009
Another gimmick by the big G. Does anyone really needs Yiddish translation today? Who speaks this language anyway?
Google just wants more and more PR and they get it.
It's funny that more and more people are discovering that Google translation is just not good enough. We use http://www.tomedes.com for our translation needs (mostly technical manuals)
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NeoPariah said 7:11PM on 9-01-2009
"But if you take an English phrase, translate it first into one language, then translate the resulting phrase into another and then try to convert it to English, you'll likely see what I mean. It's kind of like playing a long game of telephone."
What? A game? Like translationparty.com? ;P
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