When translating into certain languages, #DeepL offers a switch for ‘formal’ or ‘informal’ language. I assumed that this means that pronouns like tu/du/jij etc. will be used in informal mode, whereas vous/Sie/u etc. will be used in formal mode.
Recently I encountered an ‘informal’ #translation of ‘Please complete all content above before continuing’ into German: ‘Mach erst mal das da oben, bevor du weitermachst.’ (Roughly: ‘Do the stuff above before moving on’)
What’s going on here? 
We'd love your help in translating PREreview into Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese by joining one of our two calls next week! Learn more and register here: https://content.prereview.org/help-translate-prereview/
#translation #localization #communitycall
Webpage in #Japanese and English
“Japanese Translation of Global Hibakusha by Robert A. Jacobs”
#translation #Japan #Hiroshima #hibakusha #ColdWar @histodons @sts #HPI
https://www.peace.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp/web_essay/web-essay-in-june2025/
#GoogleTranslate seems to be getting worse and worse, sometimes omitting entire sentences or ignoring meaningful words.
Hilariously, it also attempts to translate all-digits dates but then messes them up so they become a completely different date somehow. E.g. 2025-05-26 somehow becomes January 1996 
#DeepL is going the other way, getting quite good now, even at more obscure stuff like blog posts with wordplay and spelling errors.
This observation is based mostly on Lithuanian/English examples.
So pleased and proud! The Swedish Library Service's reader gave my Dunsany #translation the top grade! "... a sparklingly beautiful Swedish shape ..." 
Aperiodic reminder for you to remember to select the the correct language on your toots.
Change the default language to the one you use most often and then ensure you have the language indicator icon enabled for new toot composing, if you need to post in a different language.
Having the correct language selected for your toots means the translation feature in Mastodon will work correctly! 
Posting in German with the English language option selected doesn't work folks! 
what happened to being able to translate mastodon posts? #mastodon #techsupport #translation #mobileapp
The fire burns bright in the convent's kitchen, as Sister Avis waits for Cromwell's man in Our Lady of Sorrows by PR Woods:
https://www.fictionable.world/stories/our-lady-of-sorrows-p-r-woods/
Image: Jason Leung
#books #reading #writing #fiction #ShortStories #translation #comics #podcast #bookstodon @bookstodon
We’re close to translating animal languages – what happens then?
'AI may soon be able to decode whalespeak, among other forms of communication – but what nature has to say may not be a surprise'
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ML #MachineLearning #LLM #language #linguistics #translation #animals
When the #translation engine doesn't see context. Or perhaps when it knows full well every year #Caltrans cleans up the sign for eastbound Highway 33 coming off I-5 and every year that same night some hooligan goes up there with reflective white paint and replaces the tilde above the "n"
Reminds me of the localization efforts on Mozilla's Firefox OS several years ago.
"Ibrahima Sarr, a Senegalese coder, led the translation of Firefox into Fulah, which is spoken by 20m people from Senegal to Nigeria. “Crash” became hookii (a cow falling over but not dying); “timeout” became a honaama (your fish has got away). “Aspect ratio” became jeendondiral, a rebuke from elders when a fishing net is wrongly woven."
Found an Italian adjective "pollente" I wasn't familiar with. Collins Dictionary didn't have it, DDG thought I meant polenta, and Google translate thought it was Norwegian for "pollen tree"; when I forced GT to use Italian, it gave "chicken".
Only Kagi translate recognized it as a rare literary term meaning "powerful".
The rasp of a chainsaw triggers a meditation on permanence and change in Kent's Oak by Jeremy Wikeley:
https://www.fictionable.world/stories/kents-oak-jeremy-wikeley
Image: Marek Studzinski
#books #reading #writing #fiction #ShortStories #translation #comics #podcast #bookstodon @bookstodon
I needed to read that in two languages to make it make sense
I can only imagine how confusing it must be for end users
How can you change if your past is made of holes? Bronia Flett goes searching for missing pieces in Leopard, Spots:
https://www.fictionable.world/stories/leopard-spots-bronia-flett
Image: Ariq Naufal
#books #reading #writing #fiction #ShortStories #translation #comics #podcast #bookstodon @bookstodon
Private Eye magazine reporting on the Coca-Cola AI ad that uses my words & book rather than Ballard's.
The spelling mistake is all Coke's own, though.
Seems like there's more than one way for AI to be used for the theft of people's work.
Is there a way on #mastodon to see only posts in your native #language or to have all posts on your feed use #translation automatically?
Have you ever been in a real relationship? Fríða Ísberg talks it out in Fingers, translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer.
https://www.fictionable.world/stories/fingers-frida-isberg-translated-by-larissa-kyzer
Image: Anushka Sharma
#books #reading #writing #fiction #ShortStories #translation #comics #podcast #bookstodon @bookstodon
𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄: "𝗜𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮, 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗵" 𝗯𝘆 𝗗𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗹𝗸𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗶𝗻 -
A philologist and storyteller takes on the reconstruction of the Sumerian tale of Inanna to powerful success, replete with enlightening essays to support her work.
Moscow is milling with watermelons.
Everything breathes a boundless freedom.
And it blows with unbridled fierceness
from the breathless melonvendors…
“Commended as a Russian translator… for his rendering of Mayakovsky into Scots, Morgan gets the muscles of the English language working with similar vigour in his treatment of Voznesensky”
—Carol Rumens on Edwin Morgan’s translation of Andrei Voznesensky
