To be clear, I’m not talking about translating dialog such as “how are you” or “can you tell me where Barcelona is?” or anything equivalent of that instead, my main point is talking about translating the following types of dialog from English to Spanish involving:
- Profanity: “F*ck You!” used as a joke, rather than to offend
- Puns: As in terms that rhyme but consist of different words.
- Slang: I’m talking about colloqial speech or idioms
- Hyperbole: exaggerated dialog not meant to be literal
Like this for example: “I nearly died of embarrassment” but the translation put out “Casi me muero de vergüenza” which is just nonsense as it’s translated too literally (died > muero) when “died” is more on an idiomatic take on feeling embarrassed and emphasizes that the social blunder was incredibly awkward or uncomfortable. (Is the translation even right?)
Can’t say if it’s good in general but in that one example “Casi me muero de (la) vergüenza” is a good translation.
Google translate is probably the worst translator in existence, I would recommend you use DeepL instead.
And regarding the example you are asking for at the end, “Casi me muero de vergüenza” would probably translate to something along the lines of “I was mortified”. Hope that helps.Its more for single words and some phrases, but Wordreference has always been my go to for translations
Yeah, Google translate works if
a) you speak the language enough to understand most things and just need help occasionally (conjugations and reflexive verbs for me in Spanish)
b) you speak none of the language but understand that the translation may be wonky so you word things carefully
c) can’t be arsed reading that whole email in your second or third language because you’re tired, and oh my dog is it time for bed yet?
Forget Google Translate. Try Deeple instead.
Wake up, deeple!
I used it extensively while flirting with a Mexican girl who eventually became my wife :) I understand Spanish a lot better now though I sometimes use a translator if she sends a wall of text because I’m lazy.
It’s not perfect, nothing really can be, particularly slang/idioms. It translates pretty literally, it’s a machine. Puns you’d have to pay attention to yourself, thr translator is not going to go “BTW did you notice she said x and then x? Clever!”
In your example it is up to you to interpret the meaning of an exaggeration. That’s pretty much exactly how you’d say it in English or Spanish in that situation.
Lastly I recommend Offline Translator by David Ventura these days. It is based on Mozilla Firefox’s tech, FOSS, no trackers, and is on F-Droid. It doesn’t take up too much space and is faster since it does it offline instead of sending to Google’s servers. I am trying to De-Google my life due to privacy concerns. Some people on this thread recommended DeepL, which I do not. The accuracy is pretty top tier, but it has an even worse privacy policy than Google.
Thanks for the tip, nabbing offline translator now.
I work in Spanish, but conversationally I really struggle with vocab and expressing personal stuff. And conjugations. Oh my dog I hate those.
Machine translation is not good at tone. So if a friendly fuck you is a different expression from one uttered in anger, I’d be very careful. Puns and slang only if it’s established enough. By which I mean is been around for a while and the model could train on it. Hyperbole will also be tough because if it’s devoid of tone how would the computer know? And even if you run instant spoken translation I wouldn’t trust any assistant to get it right.
