Guest pogi Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 So, I was playing around on translate.google.com today just freshening up my Tagalog. It turns out if you translate the word “Mormon” from English to Filipino, it translates it to "the people that have many wives." Unbelievable!!! It doesn't seem to work in any other language but Filipino, I haven't tried them all though. At first I started laughing really hard because it cought me off guard and I found it amusing, but now it sort of bothers me! What do you guys think? Would you consider that slanderous or a silly innocous joke? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 Google has this odd method of automatic translation using probabilities. Essentially it has a corpus of text in all the different languages and assigns translations based on the word in language X that has the most probability of being the given word in language Y. Since google's corpus is essentially the internet, odd things might crop up from time to time. The good side about this, though, is as google indexes more text in a new language, the accuracy improves. This will probably fix itself as google updates its corpus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pogi Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 Probabilities are based on statistics. For the word "Mormon" to be translated to "person with multiple spouces", the majority of the corpus of text that google uses would have to use the phrase "person with multiple spouces" in place of the word Mormon. I find that highly unlikely since "Mormon" is a proper noun and no website would place "person with multiple spouces" in place of "Mormon", let alone the majority of the websites. The only explenation I can think of is that google borrows from other translation engines that somebody has had some foul play in. Either way, this translation obviously was not a random mistake based on probabilities. Somebody, somewhere, intentionally did this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarginOfError Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 Probabilities are based on statistics. For the word "Mormon" to be translated to "person with multiple spouces", the majority of the corpus of text that google uses would have to use the phrase "person with multiple spouces" in place of the word Mormon. I find that highly unlikely since "Mormon" is a proper noun and no website would place "person with multiple spouces" in place of "Mormon", let alone the majority of the websites. The only explenation I can think of is that google borrows from other translation engines that somebody has had some foul play in. Either way, this translation obviously was not a random mistake based on probabilities. Somebody, somewhere, intentionally did this.+1 for the mormon persecution complex.Even though you think that the probability is so remote that this couldn't have been random, the fact that it happened in spite of such a low probability testifies to it's randomness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pogi Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 (edited) +1 for the mormon persecution complex.Even though you think that the probability is so remote that this couldn't have been random, the fact that it happened in spite of such a low probability testifies to it's randomness.No, I think that the probability is so remote that it is improbable. If the google translator was based on randomness, the odds of translating one word correctly would be ridiculous. It's not based on randomness, it's based on probabilities. Because I believe that the translation was intentional, doesn't mean that I have a persecution complex. I have no idea what the persons intents were. It could have been persecutory, or it could have been an innocuous joke. Either way, it was obviously intentional wether by a google employee, hacker, or by some other translator engine that google borrows from. It did not come about from comparing texts in different languages and selecting the most probable match for the word Mormon as LittleWyvern suggests. No offense LittleWyvern! I'm sure that you are right; that may be how google translator works, but it can obviously be manipulated. Edited September 29, 2011 by pogi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 If you want to go a bit more in depth about how google translator works, check out this pdf writeup from one of the lead designers. It goes into how the statistics-driven engine works.\Also, even errors of this magnitude have been known to happen in the past. For example, for a time google translated "Abraham Lincoln" as "Ivan the Terrible". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pam Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 So, I was playing around on translate.google.com today just freshening up my Tagalog. It turns out if you translate the word “Mormon” from English to Filipino, it translates it to "the people that have many wives." Unbelievable!!! It doesn't seem to work in any other language but Filipino, I haven't tried them all though. At first I started laughing really hard because it cought me off guard and I found it amusing, but now it sort of bothers me!What do you guys think? Would you consider that slanderous or a silly innocous joke? So "taong may maraming asawa" translates to people with many wives? I'm afraid I don't see that when I tried google translate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pogi Posted September 29, 2011 Report Share Posted September 29, 2011 Make sure you are doing english to filipino translation. Type in the word "Mormon" Below it, type in the phrase "person with many wife". Obviously not a very good translation, but you get the idea. They will both be translated to "taong may maraming asawa." Curriously, the plural "Mormons" translates correctly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleWyvern Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 So "taong may maraming asawa" translates to people with many wives? I'm afraid I don't see that when I tried google translate.If you put hard returns in between the words (like this) google translates them separately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
annewandering Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 It might be a good idea to send them a correction. No doubt they have place to do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mordorbund Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 (edited) No, I think that the probability is so remote that it is improbable. If the google translator was based on randomness, the odds of translating one word correctly would be ridiculous. It's not based on randomness, it's based on probabilities. Because I believe that the translation was intentional, doesn't mean that I have a persecution complex. I have no idea what the persons intents were. It could have been persecutory, or it could have been an innocuous joke. Either way, it was obviously intentional wether by a google employee, hacker, or by some other translator engine that google borrows from. It did not come about from comparing texts in different languages and selecting the most probable match for the word Mormon as LittleWyvern suggests. No offense LittleWyvern! I'm sure that you are right; that may be how google translator works, but it can obviously be manipulated.These comments remind me of a non-statistically significant xkcd comic: Edited September 30, 2011 by mordorbund Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pogi Posted September 30, 2011 Report Share Posted September 30, 2011 (edited) They probably cause cancer too! Edited September 30, 2011 by pogi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moroni10 Posted December 9, 2011 Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 I seemed to get names of people on my emails, from here if they want a response from , I do check my inbox here if they want a response, please write to me. I will respond. Don't play ghost with me I have already contacted Heather about it.Thank you, very much. :-) Have a Great Day, now Happy Holidays to you alls. Gerry Luke Jr. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vort Posted December 9, 2011 Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 I seemed to get names of people on my emails, from here if they want a response from , I do check my inbox here if they want a response, please write to me. I will respond. Don't play ghost with me I have already contacted Heather about it.Thank you, very much. :-) Have a Great Day, now Happy Holidays to you alls. Gerry Luke Jr.Victoria is someone who was beguiled by my wit and charm and now wishes to have a love relationship with me. Poor girl. Please be gentle when you let such fragile souls down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 9, 2011 Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 Pogi, it could be that the word Mormon DOES mean man of many wives in general understanding. I know that's what I usually get when a person asks me what my religion is and I answer Mormon... It used to be that Jewish can be translated to "kuripot" in Filipino... there were that many Americans using Jewish to mean that. It doesn't bother me. It used to be that in my hometown of Cebu, Mormon means "guys wearing white shirts and carrying purses". I used to walk past the LDS branch - the one and only Mormon building I've ever seen. Now, that branch is a Stake Center covering several full wards in that same town with the bright lights of the Cebu Temple visible from my house. So, I'm sure not many people remember Mormon to mean white shirt wearing, purse carrying men anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moroni10 Posted December 9, 2011 Report Share Posted December 9, 2011 I am a member of the LDV on Google Groups where I do currently reside at. If any of you are Seminary teachers, or Institute Teachers of sorts we can Help you all out there.:-) Gerry Luke Jr. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dravin Posted December 10, 2011 Report Share Posted December 10, 2011 With a statistics class under my belt that comic is much funnier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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