Im speaking to some guy online who is from Brazil (he doesnt know English) so I'm using Google translate to speak to him in Portuguese. Do you think he will suspect i don't speak Portuguese and that I'm using a translator?
>>220700915Of course. No matter how good the translator is, you’d still be lacking in idiomatic expressions, slang, or even the way sentences are built. The biggest mistake monolinguals trying to learn a language make is assuming that the target language is just your own language translated word-for-word.
>>220700915Yes. Chatgpt is better
>>220700915Google Translate can make coherent sentences but there may be faults in it
>>220700994I've found Google translate has improved in regards to idioms/expressions and even offers suggestions of what or how to say something differently.Although yeah any more complex translation can fail.
DeepL is way better for Swedish at least.
>>220701303You cannot translate idioms. There may exist idioms or just generic expressions in the target language that are never used in your language. For instance Germans love inserting the word “genau” (exactly) everywhere as some kind of tacit agreement, whereas an EFL would never use it to nearly the same extent.
>>220700915ime, it has trouble with pronouns when you are translating verbs, which sucks when the language is highly inflected
>>220700915Yeah. Way too many accents and slangs, even AIs sound unnatural at times
>>220701366>For instance Germans love inserting the word “genau” (exactly) everywhere as some kind of tacit agreementBasically how unitedstatians use literally
>>220701366German also has modal particles that non-native speakers struggle with.
>>220700915Lets speak in portuguese about anything, me and the other zilians will reply like brazilians usually talk to people on the internet, e ai falamos se o português q vc fala parece de tradutor ou nn, e vc fala se consegue entender oq estamos falando de boas, blz?
>>220700994Just use Gemini.
>>220700915Google translate sounds robotic and you can spot it within a few words
>>220700915hes using a translator too
>>220700915It's very likely he knows you're not a native speaker. Now, whether he thinks you're using a translator or not, that's hard to say. Google translate is decent for basic stuff, but it struggles a lot with more obscure expressions (both in english and portuguese).ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok do a way better job at translating stuff, but they aren't perfect either. The issue is that, even if you order these AIs to write in very informal portuguese, it will sound a bit too stiff. You have no idea how bad the portuguese of the average brazilian is. So, unless you write like a monkey, yes, brazilians will notice you're not a native at least.
>>220705956I tried translating the following English phrase to Malay: I'm hungry, let'd go out to eat.>Google translate & Gemini gave the same output:Saya lapar, jom keluar makan.The use of "jom" is interesting as it is a semi-slang used for "let's". The formal word is "mari". This means even with no extra prompting, it is already ok. I then asked Gemini to modify it so that it sounds like what a native speaker would use on Whatsapp.>Gemini output modified for slang:Lapar la, jom kuar makanThis is very natural and typical how I would write it among friends. The use of "la" and "kuar" makes it slangy. Conclusion: use Gemini to translate with prompts to tell it to use current slang.
>>220706142>Estou com fome, vamos sair para comer.It'd be more like "tô com fome, bora sair pra comer." Nothing wrong with the translation, we just tend to shorten words a lot in speech, like "cê", "tá", tô," tê"....
>>220703877Tá bom, claro. Como você está? O que você fez hoje?
>>220706513Yeah, that sounds super stiff.Personally I'd say: blz, sem problema. como estão as coisas? que vc fez hoje.
>>220706450>>220706513>Dont people in Brazil speak a different dialect of Portuguese than people from Portugal for example?Yeah, but the most popular Portuguese accent is usually too obvious for us because of grammatical changes. And even though African portuguese speakers generally have closer accents to Portugal, they use mix their own words from other local languages, so we can usually spot them.>Also isnt there different dialects spoken within Brazil? Many, even within the same region or state>So would the difference be noticeable enough that he will think I'm not a native Portuguese speaker?It's not that it's impossible, it's just that most of the variance comes from influence from other cultures, local slangs and unique grammatical changes. Whenever these translation tools or AIs try to immitate they end up coming off as too rigid or sometimes formal. >Tá bom, claro. Como você está? O que você fez hoje?No one speaks like this for example, it'd be something more like- Beleza. Como tu tá? Fez o que hoje?- Claro. E você, ta bem? Fizesse o que hoje?- De boa. E tu? Bem? O que rolou hoje?- Suave. Como cê tá? E aí hoje?- Tranquilo. De boa, tu? Qual a boa hoje?And these are just semi-formal ways of speaking that I've heard. I'm sure anons from other regions would find some words I used weird or uncommon. And I tried keeping grammar kinda regular, but in a normal conversation between friends that wouldn't even be considered, specially over text. Like this is how I would usually type that- blz. td dboa? iai hoje?>Tá bom, claro.Is the biggest problem. It's not that it's not used, it's just rare.>Como você está?Not too formal, but feels too rigid, like I'm reading something off of a textboox.>O que você fez hoje? Makes sense, not too formal, not too rigid, but comes off as a bit creepy. Like too direct. Most Brazilians aren't too direct, we rarely say the word 'no', often finding an alternative. There are exceptions ofc (South, I heard)
>>220706648If you say "tu" to me I will automatically assume you're a merdestino.
>>220706715Funny, here "tu" is mostly associated with Sultroons
>>220706715>>220706724Reddit map moment
>>220706724Mainly gauchos and nordestinos use tu. Most catarinenses, paranaenses and the rest of the country use você/vc.
>>220706648>brazilians are too shy to directly say noHehe, cute :3
>>220706760Oh, I didn't know they used 'tu' in Spain
>>220706756>>220706760The tu/você is a fucking mess. I'm from São Paulo and I mainly use você, but when talking to friends I use tu.I've been to several places in the northeast where in a town everyone used tu, and then in the next town over everyone use você. It's fucking chaos.
>>220706822I'm from Alagoas and I mostly use 'tu', but there are certain phrases where I use 'cê'. I think I only use 'você' in the work environment, mostly with people I'm not close to
>>220700915idk i used google translate to talk to a chinese goldseller on world of warcraft and he didn't believe i wasn't chinese when i told him i was using google translate, so maybe it is good?
>>220706845I went to Recife and everyone used você, then I traveled to Garanhunhuns a bit deeper into the state, and everyone used tu.
>>220706874Can confirm, I visited family there and noticed it too. Same in João Pessoa and Cabedelo
>>220706626>>220706648Okay, this is what I sent to the guy:Você sabe onde foi a localização deste show? Qual edifício?Do you think this sentence sounds weird? Do you think he knew I used a translator for this? He responded to me normally.
>>220706894A bit awkward but some old people speak like that, so I guess it's passable
>>220706764But instead of saying no outright we come up with small excuses like “I can’t, I’m taking my grandma to jiujitsu"
>>220706894>Você sabe onde foi a localização deste show? Qual edifício?Again, perfect portuguese. That's the issue.The worst offender is "deste" is sounds extremely robotic, the vast majority of brazilians would use "desse".
>>220706894>sabe onde foi esse show? Qual prédio?Ftfy :)
This is not proper Dutch. This can only mean " Give me a slap daddy" and nothing else. And in the Netherlands papa is spelled pappa.The real translation is:>Geef me billenkoek, pappa.
I'm reading this thread and getting reminded of how terrible our day-to-day portuguese really is, to the point we have to advise people to deliberately speak it wrong.
>>220706874The_Reef is a bizarre place
>>220707353This is true for all languages thoughbeit. At one point the most formal of Portuguese was called Vulgar Latin
>>220700915deepl is better but LLMs are best>>220700994solved since gpt3
>>220709141It really isn't, that's macaco cope. One thing is speak your language less formally, other is speak it in a completely broken manner like we do.
>>220709696Have you ever listened to Americans speaking English?
>>220700915Recently I tried to translate a bit of Latin into English and it got everything wrong
>>220709696Vira-lata cope
