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habineroyesterday at 9:09 PM4 repliesview on HN

> Translation from one language into another

Bad example, because translation is deeply creative. You can't blindly mill one language into another, because words and phrases and concepts and cultural references in one language frequently don't map 1:1. You have to find a way to convey meaning as closely as you can and not necessarily the words.


Replies

darksim905today at 5:50 AM

I think you meant that translation is, case in point, based on inference. The person doing the translating is inferring, based on context, intent and meaning and imparting that on what their output is. That's generally not desired from a taxonomy perspective.

fc417fc802yesterday at 9:51 PM

Amusingly I absolutely abhor translations done by people who think the way you do. I want a translation that's as literal as possible and which provides the necessary commentary for me to understand any alien concepts, idioms, customs, etc. I absolutely never want "translated" cultural references. At that point the "translator" is nothing more than a shitty fan fiction author as far as I'm concerned.

Of course the above requires actual work on the part of the consumer. I realize many don't want that, particularly when it comes to entertainment. So I appreciate that the other sort of "translation" exists but I think it's important to realize what exactly those are.

Thankfully LLMs are more or less to the point of providing what I'm after in near real time.

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OroPlatoday at 9:05 AM

That's called localizing and I can't stand it.

I prefer when things are kept 1:1 as is and maybe there's an explanation for things that don't quite make sense as a footnote.

kwarcodeyesterday at 10:04 PM

Did you hear the one about Scots Wikipedia?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/26/shock-an-aw-...