Fòram na Gàidhlig

Halò a h-uile duine! Fhuair mi post-dealain mu Gàidhlig ann an Google tr*nsl*t*:

Help improve Google tr*nsl*t*

We've heard your feedback about adding Scotts Gaelic to Google tr*nsl*t*. You can now improve Scotts Gaelic translations and help us get closer to our goal of adding it.

To get started, simply visit Google tr*nsl*t* Community and invite others to participate.

Thank you in advance,
Google tr*nsl*t* Community team

Maybe you've all already gotten this, but I wanted to post it here just in case this is new. https://tr*nsl*t*.google.com/community (FYI, they spell "Scots Gaelic" correctly on the actual website. )

No! No! The bright shiny thing burns -- stay away!

Or more seriously, Scottish Gaelic will not be a viable target for Google tr*nsl*t* (or any similar statistical tr*nsl*t**n engines) for a long, long time to come. Google's tools for translators feed into the Google tr*nsl*t* engine, but they are a tiny part of it. The amount of input we could give would be a drop in the ocean compared to the data Google has for (eg) Irish, and even that produces utterly nonsensical results.

A friend of mine has great fun when she uses Google tr*nsl*t* from German to English and the source text includes the word "geil". It usually should tr*nsl*t* as "great" or "awesome" or something like that, but Google will always pick the core meaning, which is "horny"

tr*nsl*t**n quality for Gaelic will be a lot worse, because there is a not less data for Google to analyse. Now imagine this tool in the hands of an English monolingual who wants a quick and cheap Gaelic tr*nsl*t**n to stick on a sign... the mind boggles.

GunChleoc wrote:tr*nsl*t**n quality for Gaelic will be a lot worse, because there is a <<lot>> less data for Google to analyse. Now imagine this tool in the hands of an English monolingual who wants a quick and cheap Gaelic tr*nsl*t**n to stick on a sign... the mind boggles.

Just to prove the point, I fixed a minor typo in this sentence and run it through Google tr*nsl*t*, English -> Irish -> English...

Gaelic tr*nsl*t**n quality will be a lot worse, because the data is a lot less Google to analyze. Now imagine the tool in the hands of the English monolingual Gaelic tr*nsl*t**n seeking fast and cheap to stick a sign ... boggles the mind.

And the Irish appears to be even worse in some respects (although I don't really know much Irish).