Mastodawn

Julien Barnoin 6d ago

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.

Mitsunee | 光音

@julienbarnoin auto-translation is an accessibility nightmare for me. My native language is German, but I tend to set everything to English, which lead to native language content on YouTube being auto-dubbed with terrible AI voices and translations, even tho I can understand the original audio track just fine.

YouTube also still refuses to offer users a setting to disable this, so I still get translated titles, which makes learning Japanese through immersion impossible without a whole separate account. Reading stuff like song titles is such a simple and fun way to get started with Katakana, but I don't even get to try

@mitsunee @julienbarnoin Wait, there's an auto-DUB now?!

@mitsunee @julienbarnoin a similar thing but not as bad, I watch videos in Romanian sometimes, and YouTube will decide "oh here's a Google translated into English version of what's being said", I manually set it to Romanian (I use subtitles for everything, no matter the language or how well I speak it, helps with my auditory processing issues), and then I'll watch a video in English and oop the subtitles are auto-translated into Romanian now, time to set them to English (and set myself up for this the next time I watch something in Romanian again) 💀

greub 🐑5d ago

@hazelnot @mitsunee @julienbarnoin I use an extension to block autotranslation on youtube. Depending on your browser, you should find one without too much trouble.

@greub @mitsunee @julienbarnoin wait an app? Not a browser extension?

Yes, so much THIS! 💯 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!

dasgrueneblatt 5d ago

@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.

@mitsunee @julienbarnoin

@dasgrueneblatt
Please tell me how.
This is so fucking anoying and ruins every vid.

@janriemer @mitsunee @julienbarnoin

dasgrueneblatt 2d ago

@gulli
There's a "language of the audio track" setting somewhere, depending on how you are viewing the video. You need to find that and change it to the original.

What works for me: Open the video link with the NewPipe app (android). There the audio language setting is right there on the top of the video next to the resolution, playback speed, etc.

I wanted to tell you how to do that in the youtube player in the webbrowser and I cannot find it!

In the youtube app, which I don't have on my phone, apparently there's an entry for "audio track" in the settings menu of a video. The settings menu of the browser player does not have that entry. Apparently the app also has a setting somewhere to globally disable the dubbing with creepy, slightly wrong voices.

There's even a browser add-on for chrome for switching the language back to the original!

@janriemer @mitsunee @julienbarnoin

@dasgrueneblatt

Much appreciated.
Sadly I can't find it. Seems like a third party hack of some kind. In the "original" app or website there is no such setting. In the "Account" there are some language settings but they also dont seem to work. Or at least not every time.
Guess it's time for some addons :)

@janriemer @mitsunee @julienbarnoin

Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷5d ago

@mitsunee @julienbarnoin All of silicon valley considers the mere idea of a multilingual person abhorrent or absurd, I think.

Cecilia Mjausson Huster 5d ago

@larsmb @mitsunee @julienbarnoin The weird thing is that most people here are bilingual. And yet it’s only very recently that Apple devices allow you to set your keyboard to two languages.

CaptainMalu 5d ago

@mitsunee @julienbarnoin I forgot the translated video titles. They are often so bad I just click the video because I know the YouTuber but have no idea what the video will be about.

@mitsunee @julienbarnoin yeah hate that x.x

@julienbarnoin @mitsunee if nothing else, the assumption that people speak one language and no more is so American

Karl Baron 4d ago

@darkphoenix @julienbarnoin @mitsunee And that assumption doesn’t even hold for the US seeing how many bilingual English/Spanish speakers they have there (a google search says 20% of the population is bilingual!)