
Immigration Officials Use Google Translate to Vet Refugees - danso
https://www.propublica.org/article/google-says-google-translate-cant-replace-human-translators-immigration-officials-have-used-it-to-vet-refugees
======
jolmg
One area where I've noticed that Google Translate frequently fails at is with
what's known as "false friends"[1].

For example, if you try to translate "condescending" to Spanish it will give
you "condescendiente", but that means "to tend to adapt to the likes and
wishes of others", which is completely different from the English definition
of "to display a patronizing, superior attitude".

Translate "fallacy" and it will give you "falacia", which is kind of similar,
but different. In English it means "incorrectness of reasoning", but in
Spanish it means "false argument to trick or cause error", meaning that the
Spanish word implies malicious intent.

Translate "patronize" and it will give you "patrocinar", which means "to
sponsor". "patrocinar" can't be used in the sense of "to treat in a
condescending manner".

It's pretty hard to catch these kinds of things until you're really
experienced with both languages.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend)

~~~
thomasfoster96
> Translate "patronize" and it will give you "patrocinar", which means "to
> sponsor”.

That translation is pretty accurate for at least _one_ of the senses of
patronise, though. Word-sense disambiguation is what’s failing Google
Translate in that case.

~~~
jolmg
Even if you translate the common phrase "don't patronize me", it still uses
"patrocinar" which is the wrong sense of the word as typically used.

~~~
thomasfoster96
Yep, I’d put money on Google Translate interpreting the English wrong in the
first place. I’ve just tried a bunch of variations on “don’t patronise me.”
and these are the results:

"Don't patronise me.” -> "No me patrocines.”

“Don’t patronize me.” -> "No me patrocines.”

"Don't patronise me!” -> "¡No me patrocines!”

“Don’t patronize me!” -> "¡No me patrocines!”

"Do not patronise me.” -> "No me patrocines.”

"Do not patronize me.” -> "No seas condescendiente conmigo.”

“Do not patronise me!” -> "¡No me patrocines!”

"Do not patronize me!” -> "No seas condescendiente conmigo.”

Word-sense disambiguation seems to work if you write “do not” instead of
“don’t” and use ‘-ize' spelling, it fails otherwise.

~~~
jolmg
None of those worked. Remember that "condescendiente", as I showed in my first
example, doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

~~~
thomasfoster96
That’s weird — something else must be influencing the translations.

I’m aware that “condescendiente” doesn’t mean “condescending”, but I’m taking
it as evidence that Google Translate interpreted “patronize” with the “to
condescend” sense rather than the “to sponsor or support” sense, meaning that
word-sense disambiguation works better in those instances.

~~~
jolmg
Well, maybe, and maybe it's also interpreting it correctly when it provides
"patrocines", but it also misunderstands the meaning of the Spanish word.

Though, talking about what it interprets or understands of the words is also
wrong. At the end of it all (including neural nets), its logic is probably
still based on matching words and phrases between languages without really
understanding their meaning like you or I do.

Google Translate offers the option for people to correct it, but many people
are probably misled by the false friends. Even I don't know of a proper
Spanish translation for the concept of being "patronizing" or "condescending".
I can't think of a good word or phrase, and I've never heard a Spanish speaker
use anything of the sort. It's something I'd have to explain.

Every online translator I check gives me "condescendiente", but if I check
Spanish dictionaries, including the most authoritative one at
[https://rae.es/](https://rae.es/), they give no such definition. The closest
words are the equivalent of "arrogant" and "to spoil" which aren't really the
same.

It may be that a proper translation simply does not exist. That also happens.
For example, as far as I know, there's no English equivalent of "estrenar" in
Spanish, which means "to use for the first time".

------
cameronbrown
> Language experts caution even students against using the service.

Well duh. The whole point of studying a language is to.. be able to know it?

~~~
samfisher83
Also if Google translate was good enough it would hurt their employment
opportunities.

------
dahdum
I’m curious what a proposed solution is? USCIS is funded by service fees, and
social media analysis started under Obama with support across the aisle.
Raising fees to pay for better translation services is one way I suppose.

------
RenRav
It's fast and seemingly good enough? I wonder how long this has been going on.

