# Google Translate Perfected?



## Meritorious-MasoMenos (Apr 17, 2014)

NY Times ran a major story today on Google introducing a totally revolutionized Google Translate over the weekend that uses the cutting edge developments in artificial intelligence that gives Google Translate the ability to translate even great literature.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/m...n-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

This is a high tech story that's very long and complicated to read, but if the writer and the experts he quotes are correct, it could make Google Translate a much better tool for expats living in Mexico who don't have great Spanish.

If you call up the link, you'll see by the presentation that the Times thinks this is a revolutionary change, using graphics to trick you into thinking they're taking you into a new world. (Hope not a brave one).

Well, here's the title:
"The Great A.I. Awakening
How Google used artificial intelligence to transform Google Translate, one of its more popular services — and how machine learning is poised to reinvent computing itself."

They introduced it in London, and thankfully, English-Spanish are one of the translations put on the new system.

I'm sure we all have humorous stories of howler translations by Google Translate and other such translation programs. Story starts off with a professor stunned to received perfect translations from Japanese into English but they do give a Spanish to English example:

"In London, the slide on the monitors behind him flicked to a Borges quote: “Uno no es lo que es por lo que escribe, sino por lo que ha leído.”

Grinning, Pichai read aloud an awkward English version of the sentence that had been rendered by the old Translate system: “One is not what is for what he writes, but for what he has read.”

To the right of that was a new A.I.-rendered version: “You are not what you write, but what you have read.”

It was a fitting remark: The new Google Translate was run on the first machines that had, in a sense, ever learned to read anything at all."

I'm too involved with something to try it.


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

My Spanish is getting better but I still rely on Google Translate from time to time. This morning I composed a short note and I had to make a pass through the translation to convert all the 'you informal' results into 'you formal'.


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## Perrier (Dec 18, 2016)

Google translate is the best. I've only been here a short time but it's helped me out immensely


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

Supposedly Google translate just implemented a new algorithm which is reportedly a huge improvement on the previous algorithm. I haven't used it lately, so can't say from personal experience.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

I think google translate is no t very good.. I have to write letters tof some officials and I have my letters corrected by a human who speak and write Spanish. Nothing else will do.
It is ok I guess to write a non important note or something short but I do not find google translate good enough for writing letters , I can do better than they can without their help.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Translate

"In November 2016, Google announced that Google Translate would switch to neural machine translation, which translates "whole sentences at a time, rather than just piece by piece. It uses this broader context to help it figure out the most relevant translation, which it then rearranges and adjusts to be more like a human speaking with proper grammar". The new translation engine will first be enabled for eight languages: to and from English and French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish." 

I just tried it for a few Spanish-to-English paragraphs. It is a lot better than it was. I mostly use it for German-English or English-German. But it looks like it might have improved to the point where it could be useful for checking a Spanish translation in one direction or the other occasionally.

Note added: I just realized that this thread started with a comment about the changes in Google Translate. I added my comment above because several people seemed to be commenting on past performance of the tool and I didn't realize the thread had already mentioned the update. Past performance of Google Translate would seem to be of historical interest only at this point.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

JUst tried it this week on some text I had received and it did not work well. I can do better without it..


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## Gatos (Aug 16, 2016)

Well - is there a better - free - English <-> Spanish website out there ?


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