Google Lies
Here’s a terrifying thing…
1) Go to Google Translator
2) Set English > Yiddish
3) Translate “AIDS”
4) Copy the answer
5) Paste it back in to be translated into English
6) Set Yiddish > English and translate.
7) Panic
via @MandyPandy32 and blameitonthevoices.com
And now the science bit…
It so happens I researched a Ph.D in Yiddish, so I’m here to tell you Google has misunderstood the small line (the vowel sound “a”) under the character on the far right (which is clearly where Google now positions itself). That little line doesn’t exist in the word for “Jew”. Foolish Google.
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Google Translate is quite unique in that it mainly is not an entered table of “this = that” but actually uses a form of Artificial Intelligence based upon parsing users’ web queries to infer meaning without actual understanding.
I suspect though, due to the paucity of Yiddish web queries, in this case it could be human error.
So, errr, yeah!
.-= Stefing´s last blog ..Stefing: "Protest and get arrested" doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as "Protest and survive". =-.
Muha. Google. You horribly intolerant tykes.
.-= Stephen Fairbanks´s last blog ..Alice Horton Illustration =-.
spooky, it translates it back to AIDS… am I missing something – I’m sure that’s what it’s supposed to do?
Copy the Yiddish word and paste it into the box as the thing to be translated, then do a Yiddish > English
When I paste
אַידס
back into translate it auto detects hebrew rather than yiddish. a translation from hebrew to english does in fact show aids
Don’t let Google tell you Hebrew is the only Jewish language. Fight the Auto-detect!
It doesn’t offer Yiddish as an option when I translate back… now Google have a fight on their hands
Guys , could it be a glitch or are you saying some nerd programmed the system just to wind you up specifically – I said YOU !
Erm? Seems they either fixed it or it’s a test to see how many people will do this. Got AIDS as the translation of the translation.
Just checked. Still works for me. Are you copying the Yiddish and pasting it into the box, then switching the direction of language from Yiddish to English? Tho I imagine your life has moved on by now. It seems mine hasn’t…
OK just retried because my Life doesn’t move on. And I did get a different answer. Seems the iphone copy and paste works differently to my laptop.
Just to add –
This ‘works’ if you start with lower case aids (which gets translated into אַידס). AIDS just gets translated into, well, AIDS, which I assume is probably quite a good translation.