Anyone who is familiar with translation knows the dangers involved, even when expert humans do the translating. Computers provide just as much entertainment.
The most popular translation service, Google Translate, is so
easy to use, however, that we all tend to trust it, at least for small things. Google has a reputation of doing some languages better than others,
which makes sense since some languages are more complex than others -- for
example, Latin and Ancient Greek. Fortunately, I don't often need a quick and reliable translation from Latin or Ancient Greek into
English. Finnish to English is my need. And Google can serve me well at many
times; it does help that I know enough Finnish to suspect the less accurate
translations. I suspect, however, that Finnish ranks up there with Latin or Ancient
Greek….
What is one of the best Google tools? The camera app on
Google Translate comes in handy! Just point and focus, move the camera around a
bit to focus, adjust the light if necessary, move up and down, tilt slightly, wait
a few moments, and you have a translation that either enlightens you (oh, that
is what they were saying!) or leaves you wondering (er, my Finnish is not great,
but I suspect something is wrong here!).
I use the Google Translate camera for reading things in
books. For example:
I know that says "I am Samuli. My [???] wife is Sunee." I did not know the "avo" before "vaimoni" (my wife) that makes up the word "avovaimoni." So, on to Google Translate camera:
After paging through all the "avo" entries in my small paper dictionary, I saw the word "aviovaimo" (with an extra "i"), which means "wife." Can that be it? A typo in the book? I think not.
Putting "minun avovaimoni" in Google Translate returns "my unmarried wife"
Putting in "avovaimoni" returns "my stepmother"
Putting in just the stem of the word "avovaimo" returns "open wife"
OK, I can take that last translation and extrapolate and not think I have learned the Finnish word for "poop."
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