How do you translate??

I just literally translate from language to language. I didn't realize there was a whole process to it. And I am intrigued.

Joseph K.

I usually use DeepL in addition to Google Translate to verify my self made translations.

Nathan SILBERSCHMIDT

I go back and forth between English and another language, and each time I take it back to English I copy and paste it into a Word file, or just use open emails which is a little less trouble.. I make note of any lines I particularly like from each translate cycle, and then put my favorites together into a final product. I try to use some of the more uncommon languages, but if I use more common ones I tend to do different language families instead of using a bunch of Slavic, or Romance or Anglo languages. I hope to get back to helping with the translates again soon. It would be very helpful if when you give us a translate to give us a deadline that you need it by. There have been a few times when my first free time to work on it is a few days after you posted it and I figured it was too late to submit anything. I know I have seen others when they post their translate say, "I hope this isn't too late" so having a target date would great.

Elaine Williams

I'm a developer and I started working on a Google Translate plugin that allows me to just drag/drop languages in the order I want and shows the resulting translation (and those of the steps in-between). Not quite there yet, but first tests are promising :)

Reinier van Grieken

I tend to just manually use google translate, but I would always default to the languages that are the least common (at least to me) first. I tend to use mobile too, and some of the languages on mobile have a download option, so I would first translate the lyrics into the languages that DON'T have a download option, and I would go back and forth, sometimes doubling on some of the language to increase the randomness of the outcome before then translating it in to the more common languages that I'm more familiar with, and then finally back into English

NorthMelon

Me: reading the comments Me: furiously taking notes.

I'm from Germany and I use DeepL for my translations for my business e-mails. My English is okay, but Business English is my final enemy. Sometimes it sounds very strange and I ask myself: "Is this really correct?" (I didn't us an translator for this comment xD)

Medihra

Also, a GTS idea I had that I thought would be funny: Google Translates 2020 News Headlines

Kyle Dray

I will just put it through a bunch of random languages a couple different times, and then take my favourite lines from each result. I also like to click alternate translations at random just to try and mess things up even more, especially with languages (such as Latin) where it allows you to click alternate suggestions for each individual word.

Kyle Dray

I usually just put a phrase into Google Translate, pick a language, copy-paste the result back in, have the language set to auto-detect, pick the next language in a given direction (either vertically or horizontally), and repeat until something is sufficiently mangled. Somebody on the Discord shared a spreadsheet file that does it automatically, though, so now I've also been using that.

Galactic Fey Creations

I chipped in once, and this was my process: 1: download a list of all the languages available in Google Translate and convert it into a .csv file 2: read the .csv file into program R 3: determine a number of languages to run through the Google Translate ringer 4: use the sample() function to randomly select that number of languages (I sampled with replacement) 5: Manually translate the song or piece line by line through each of the languages in that random order 6: Enjoy the resulting chaos. If desired, I can provide the .csv file and the R script I used for the Rick Roll translate

Adam Karren

I just use Google Translate manually, but to pick the languages used I a) choose a phrase and make the sequence of languages spell out that phrase (something I've seen other people do as well), b) avoid repeating languages (other than English at the start and end, obviously) unless I run out of languages for the letter I need, and c) do my best to only translate between languages from different language families and continents. I can't personally evaluate the quality of a translation directly from (for example) Sesotho to Maori, but I can't imagine there's much training data there.

Borg Lord

I just love hearing your voice. I don't much care what you do, except for the Church gig a couple of years ago. That seemed spontaneous and was unbelievable.

Robert

I Just use Google Translate and change the languages a few times then put it back into English.

Oliver- Smilliereacts

I use the Google Translate to contribute and also for fun translating Norwegian songs in to other languages, often with funny and failed results. The strangest and funniest results I got for translating Kaptein Sabeltann (captain sabertooth) through many layers of languages and back to Norwegian, becomes Kaptein Subalton??? I have no idea what that means.

Eystein Nicolaysen

I translate line by line using random languages until it sounds funny enough. I’ve also found that Latin messes things up pretty well

Maddie F

When I contribute I cheat a bit. I purposely choose bits that will translate into homonymous words in Swedish, and then use the wrong one when translating it back into English.

Stefan "MaskinJunior" Ivarsson

I just use the old-fashioned method: close my eyes, pick a language, repeat. But if you're looking to branch out, have you heard of botnik? It's not translation, but it's translation-adjacent I guess. It's similar to the predictive text keyboards on phones, and you can train it with anything. Also, its derp factor is off the charts.

Imagine Baggins

I am Dutch and if I don't know an English word I Google the Dutch word + English. The result usually has a result from Google itself, but that is not always accurate. Dictionary websites add context. Another way is to search for it on Wikipedia and check the left column for the same page in a different language. This last method appears to be extremely accurate.

Mark Elissen

I use random.org to pick the languages I use. I start with 6 and if I don’t like what I got I add some more.

Bradley Huffer

It’s honestly kind of a mess how I translate 😂. Basically I copy line by line and when I put a line into English, I basically pick the first language I see, then the next language I see, and it repeats. I never have a pattern for which languages I translate first. I’m sure I’ve used all of them in just one translation I comment here. So after a few languages, I translate it back into English. If it’s not that funny, I’ll click on the translation and see if there’s alternate translations. If it doesn’t have anything good, I go back a few translations and just pick the first language I see and do the whole process again until it finds something good

Allison Popick

The goal is to confuse the translator so less prominent meanings of a word become the prominent translated word. This happens if you switch between Western and Eastern languages, as they are not so much connected already. If you go back and forth 10 times, craziness ensured. I must admit that Google has become very well in translating itself back and forth and for that reason, it is beneficial to throw in a Bing Translate or 2 somewhere in the middle (shhh, it's a secret!). That is guaranteed to confuse Google just that tiny bit so it comes up with synonyms that are ... well, unexpected.

Peter Buijsman

It depends on the song, but I have a few methods I use. Languages are one of my loves in life so I am familiar with a bunch of "gotcha" rules in several languages which makes it a little easier to exploit the linear thinking of the algorithm. Songs that have those sort of nonsensical rhythm words like "la la la" or "na na na" are easy to exploit because they are words in other languages so you can confuse Google in a lot of ways with those if you know which languages use them, and what they mean. If you have a “la la la” translate the song to one of the Romance languages like French or Spanish, then translate it to something like Chinese where the “la” might be construed as the French word for “the” instead. The more you translate a song the more Google likes to simplify the concepts in each step, so eventually you end up with one or two words instead of a full sentence and it can sort of get meaningless. So because of this I usually limit it to 5 or 6 layers of translation so it won’t break down completely. You want to add complications to the mix. Try to avoid easy language pairings like French to German since those are well established translations, because that translation happens a lot. Use pairings that are unusual like Tatar to Hawaiian, things where Google may not have a good idea of which words are a good fit in the translation. It helps if the language is “unfinished” – for example Scots Gaelic and Hawaiian where the speak button (text-to-speech) isn’t available; or if Google only has a robotic voice available to speak the text (like Welsh for example). On stubborn ones, try flipping a translation back and forth between Latin and English a bunch of times until it doesn’t change much more; then go into other languages. Latin loves to add biblical references so it makes it far more interesting when the other languages get hold of it. You can also use language loops repeatedly like English – Latin – Hawaiian – Maltese. I guarantee you’ll get weirdness there. It never hurts to throw in some Klingon or Yucatec Mayan from Bing. Just translate them back to English in Bing before you take them to other languages. Use language pairs that don’t use the Latin alphabet like Amharic to Sinhala or Hindi to Hebrew. You want Google to jump though flaming hoops to get the job done. Another thing to keep in mind is Google is forgiving of spelling mistakes and it will make assumptions about what you really mean, and so it makes exploits easier. Songs like “Ode to Billie Joe” come to mind where there’s a southern dialect involved. Basically it boils down to make Google translate cry before you call it a success. :-)

Robert MacDonald

I usually just use Google Translate and keep shifting between languages a bunch of times. I try to go a lot between vastly different languages (Latin alphabet to Chinese to Russian back to Latin alphabet to something else, etc.). Also, I tend to use languages multiple times, if that helps any.

GomorrahQueen

While translators get better, I'm having more and more issues with my Apple's auto-corrupt (ehh auto-correct feature). Especially since it tends to auto-corrupt almost always the same words, not even hampered by language choices (Mainly English and Dutch in my case). And boring but true in most cases I use Google (I know, shame on me) English, (Nordics (e.g. DK,SE or NO), and then Dutch gives me always funny 'surprises'

Martin Schorel

I have a number of online translators I circulate through (so for one song I'll use Google Translate, the next time I use Yandex, etc.). I put the languages from the translator du jour through a list randomiser and use the first ten languages it gives me (in the order it gives me them) to translate every line manually. If there's an alternate translation suggestion function I'll use it, but I usually limit it to just one word so the sentence doesn't get *completely* unrecognisable.

Jessica Källberg

I first use Google Translate, if don't get good results, I use another translator that is even more broken then Google's (I'm keeping this site a secret) and if i somehow don't get good results from this site, I will use both sites, mixing two different translation algorithms together that I know will work no mater what.

Western Canadian Guy

I wrote a bit of software to hook into the Google Translate API, randomly select some number of languages (usually 20), and chain the translations into each other automatically, then output the final result and list of languages! https://github.com/jfiander/translate

Julian Fiander

Agreed, DeepL is the best for serious translation. Probably makes it the worst for GTS. :)

DJ Brasier

I take the real lyrics and put some through certain layers of google translate and also random one. For instance I've a habit to hit Estonian or Esperanto when I want to click on English. I also tend to include Haitian Creole, Filipino, Spanish and Scots Gaelic. The other languages I go through are random. Sometimes I'll close my eyes and click a random one. I won't lie sometimes it will go through a same language twice. I'm also weird because I don't want to choose languages that start with the same letter. Like I wouldn't do Spanish then Slovakian, etc.

Becca Notkin

For me personally, I find that languages like Latin and Maori get the funniest results, so I use them a lot. I'll particularly use Latin if the song has slang or made-up words in it, as it's always hilarious to see how it interprets them. I'll also translate one word in a sentence at a time as well, because the original meaning of the sentence is lost MUCH faster that way :D

Starai Roalanstjay

I just take the song lyrics or whatever it is I’m translating and put it through a set series of languages I have written down in a notebook. Sometimes I’ll add another language or two on the end. I always make sure to put it through Latin as it’s a dead language and likes to screw things up a lot. I always wait until the final language to put it back into English. I don’t know why, I just do.

Cam The Female Font

I usually jump between "East" languages (those spoken in Asia) and "West" languages (those spoken in Europe and Africa) to make sure that they are far apart as much as possible. The next time I am thinking of randomising all the list to make it even more random. Not sure if transliterating phrases into different scripts during transition from one language to another is allowed, but I'm really sure that it would lead to more confusions.

Pongsathon Boonrod

Here's that reply translated to Dutch, and then back again to English. Not bad: "My cousin in the Netherlands referred me to DeepL: https://www.deepl.com/en/translator#nl/en -- knowing Dutch I can say that it is probably the best of all the automated translators out there. It is not without its peculiarities, but it is convenient." - Not sure if that's as funny as what you're looking for though. :-)

Leo A. Notenboom

My cousin in Holland turned me on to DeepL: https://www.deepl.com/en/translator#nl/en -- knowing Dutch I can say it does probably the best of any of the automated translators out there. It's not without it's quirks, but it's handy.

Leo A. Notenboom