Okay, I feel the need to share this because people who only speak english may not realize it.
As a french speaker, I'm seeing more and more websites auto-translating their content, because I guess now there's #AI translation and people think it works?
Guess what: the translations are still shit. It was not okay to publish Google-translated websites without a native speaker checking it if you didn't want to be ridiculed, and it's still not okay now, despite all the hype.
Please don't do this.
I wonder if there's a website out there like the Engrish one that mocked bad japanese t-shirts, where we could publicly shame websites that feel it's okay to publish terrible translations.
It's got really bad recently, it's a daily occurrence at this point to read horrible AI-translated content and makes the website look really unprofessional.
@julienbarnoin I could add the five star review of an apartment I saw a while ago that for some reason mentioned Kakerlaken (roaches, cucarachas) 
The original word in English was "aproach". π€¦
On the bright side, this made me reflect on the fact that in french "Γ revoir" can mean two opposite things, which I never really considered π
It's true that in some other context it could mean "Worth seeing again", but that's just why you need human translators to get accurate results and auto-translated content is often worse than no translation at all.
@julienbarnoin, FWIW, here's what Firefox's built-in translation makes of the relevant part of the alt text:
βAlmost nothing to do with no interest. Collection was greatly reduced and the temporary exhibition contaminated the whole. Really to be reviewed.β
Let's name and shame: Kotaku has been auto-translating their articles and presenting me with a garbage french version instead of the original.
Here's two screenshots from just a single article. Unprofessional and unreadable. And when it's not plain wrong, it often just sounds awkward and dull.
This shit is all over the place now and being forced upon us on all sides.
Feel free to share what you find too, if you're like me every day is a cringe-fest recently.
@julienbarnoin the worse is
Google: "we know everything about you"
Me: "so you are not gonna translate languages I understand?"
Google: "No, not like that"
Google: we know you grew up in Sweden and lived there for almost 30 years, and that your account still has Swedish set as main language
Me: *searches Swedish term*
Google: no results
Me: *changes search region to Sweden in advanced search settings*
Google: this page is in Swedish, do you want to translate it?
youtube's autodubbing: somebody called my name?
βYes, so much THIS! π― You've just written down my exact thoughts/experience!
Also, another frustrating thing about auto-translation of YouTube video titles is the fact that you can't really share or search for it meaningfully anymore.
When I share a video with someone or on Fedi, I always include the video title (so one can search for it) - when it's translated and _I can't disable it_ (WTF!?), this is not really possible anymore!
Urgh, so frustrating!
@janriemer
Oh yes! I got an autotranslated youtube video with a horrible, slightly wrong, artificial voice this week, and I took so long for me to figure out how to get back to the original!
I speak several languages. I cannot set my preferred browser language to all of them.
@dasgrueneblatt
Please tell me how.
This is so fucking anoying and ruins every vid.
@julienbarnoin If the original page is in English give me English. If thereβs something I donβt understand I can figure it out.
If you translate to Dutch or Norwegian with AI I wonβt understand. And I canβt easily figure i out.
@jornane Exactly. I set up my Firefox language priorities to say "Show me french if it's available, otherwise show me english."
It does not mean I need english uselessly auto-translated to french, since I can read it fine, this was meant to apply to content actually authored in french or translated by a human.
Now it's making me reconsider these settings because every second page displays in crap-french and the first thing I do is hunt for the language button.
@julienbarnoin Itβs also flat out wrong use of the Accept-Language header.
I have the auto translators blocked on my Firefox, so that helps
@aetios Well, I can't blame them for believing they can get results without having to actually do the work.
Oh wait, actually I can blame them and I do.
@julienbarnoin one thing I noticed: depending on source and target language quality differs substantially.
To English tends to be ok-ish, from English to eg German too - depending on translation service. Tried from polish to English on a longer social media post - the result was just barely readable and understandable.
yeah i switched my browser language from German to English to get rid of this behavior.
Downside is that many German websites apparently have an English language version (usually not a full AI translation of all content though, but only generic parts like the menu being translated), and for online shops I have to manually switch it back to β¬ sometimes.
Worst part was the occasional AI audio dub on youtube with no option to switch it off.
@julienbarnoin I HATE auto translation. My first language is English, but I live in the Netherlands, and I hit these translations in both directions. Some sites auto-translating English to Dutch, and others doing Dutch to English.
Really annoying.
@xinit I had that problem on Google today. Speaking fluently English, searching in English for something English, I got only French gibberish because of my IP. And I don't know where to change it, because English is my saved language on Google.
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