Thursday, January 26, 2012

How come when you translate from english to french, it transfers back to english differently?

For example, I typed in:



Like I'd tell you.



As English to French on google translator and I got:



Comme je vous le dirais.



But, when I typed that back in as French to English, I got:



As I would tell you.



Why is it that it translated back differently?How come when you translate from english to french, it transfers back to english differently?
"Like I would tell you" is more properly said, "as if I would tell you".



And I'll tell you now, that "Comme je vous le dirais" has NONE of the meaning of what you wanted it to say in English. In English what you say has the meaning "it's none of your business, why do you think I would tell you something like that?", "Comme je vous le dirais" has none of that meaning. DO NOT USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE, it's a piece of **** that doesn't even know how to say "my name is" in French. Go ahead, try it, type "my name is__" and it will give you "mon nom est___". Of course we know the answer is "Je m'appelle___". Don't trust google translate.
Most English can be translate into several French words. Likewise for French translated into English. Actually this translation is very good: The meaning is preserved very well. Not always true.



An old example of English to Russian then back toe English.



"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."



came back as



"The wine is good but the meat has gone bad."How come when you translate from english to french, it transfers back to english differently?
Slang is always hard to translate, doubly so for a computer. The most common use of "like" is in a comparison, and that's how the program translated your sentence. I know people who would mangle it even worse.

Also, do not use abbreviations. The program did not know whether 'd corresponded to "would" or "had".



By using "As if I would tell you" I got "Comme si je voulais vous dire", ie "As if I wanted to tell you": not perfect, but closer to your meaning..
It's just a loose translation. They mean pretty much the same thing. English has so many different ways to say the same thing, unlike other languages- like French or German. In French, they use different ways to say things- and usually, they have one way to say four different things. That's the beauty of the language:)How come when you translate from english to french, it transfers back to english differently?
"Like I'd tell you." is more American English, "As I would tell you." is the same in British English. It looks as if the translator you used has a slight preference for British English when translating from another language. Maybe a safe choice for a simple online translation application.
I had the same experience too.



What happen is that the translator on internet translate word for word.



That's why.



I would go to my teacher and ask her to translate it.
because in french you wouldnt say it like that. we americans use 'like' where it shouldnt go in a sentence

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