GoogleTranslate and Dutch

Sun Feb 12 22:33:23 UTC 2012

Since users of Google Translate are able to make modifications to it
with greater ease than they can to Wikipedia, if I find a translation
that I know to be incomplete or incorrect, I don't hesitate to take
steps.

Why complain? GT isn't the OED. It's meant to be only helpful, not definitive.

BTW, cross-referencing among translations into languages other than
English can be helpful, unless you're monolingual in English, as can
googling the word.

E.g., dekkids ago, I read in EBONY that _kurambo_ was the
Japanese-language equivalent of "nigger." Naturally, having grown up
in the United States, I had no reason to accept an assertion by some
random black dude about a language as exotic as Japanese as fact. Over
the years, I'd been unable to verify this in the usual lexical sources
or even on this listserv. When GT became available, it was no help.
So, I googled _kurambo_ and found out not only that this word is
indeed used to mean "nigger," but also that, in Japlish slang,
_(numba) ten_, in addition to meaning "the worst," means "Jew,"
punning on the fact that _ju_ [dZu:] is the Japanese word for "ten,"
in one of that language's counting systems. Back in the '60's, a white
acquaintance who'd been stationed in Japan in the Air Force told me
that this was the case, but, because of his own, over-the-top
anti-Semitism, I thought that he might well have just made that up
himself and then attributed it - or even taught it; youneverknow - to
the Japanese.

So, if you GT _kurambo_, you will now find "nigger" as a translation,
based on my research.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: GoogleTranslate and Dutch
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> <font size=3>By coincidence, I was just trying Google Translate
> on:<br><br>
> Naukeurige beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche gewesten van Egypten.<br><br>
> It asked me:<br><br>
> Did you mean: Naukeurige beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche gewesten van
> <b><i>Egypte</i></b> <br><br>
> and gave me the translation:<br><br>
> Precise beschrijvinge of the African provinces of Egypten <br><br>
> I learned what Naukeurige and gewesten mean, and knowing some German I
> can figure out beschrijvinge and Egypten.<br><br>
> Joel<br><br>
> At 2/11/2012 09:50 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:<br>
> <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">On Feb 11, 2012, at 4:46 PM,
> Joel S. Berson wrote:<br><br>
> > At 2/11/2012 07:25 PM, Dan Nussbaum wrote:<br>
> >> I have found some German words on Google translate that were not
> in<br>
> >> my 979 page German-English dictionary.<br>
> >><br>
> >><br>
> >> However, I would not use it for anything longer that a
> phrase.<br>
> ><br>
> > I've used it profitably to get the general sense of a passage,<br>
> > recently quite well on two long paragraphs from Buffon<br>
> > (1766).  However, I would not rely on it for specifics, details
> (it<br>
> > got some misleadingly in the Buffon passages).<br><br>
> I frequently use Google Translate for helping with vocabulary and
> sometimes phrases. It's accuracy continues to surprise me. On occasion,
> I'll use it on a paragraph to learn what the general subject is, but
> place no faith in anything longer than a collocation or phrase.<br><br>
> Another nice tool is Wiktionary. Many or most entries have a hidden
> translation section and you can look at the foreign language version of
> the page if available as well. To complement Wiktionary and the other
> Wiki projects on my iPhone, I like Fast Wiki.<br><br>
> Benjamin Barrett<br>
> Seattle, WA<br><br>
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> http://www.americandialect.org</a></font></blockquote></body>
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>
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