Google Adds Latin Translation: Now You Can Swear in a Dead Language!
September 30th, 2010
While I did have to take Latin in 7th and 8th grade, most of it has either been stashed away deep in the recesses of my brain or forgotten. Probably the latter. However, I really like the fact that Google Translate can now translate into Latin, which is considered a dead language.
It’s probably of limited use for most of us, but I’d also like to see Ancient Greek, and other dead languages in Google Translate. It’s important to keep these languages alive in some form. Plus, you can get all these crazy swear words in Latin, and translate all those Latin sayings that you find on your dollar bills and whatnot. Maybe the kids will start using Latin again instead of the shortcodes they use in all their text messages.
You can try it out here.
[via Read Write Web]
Comments (1):
Post a Comment:
Categories: Software Strange + Wonderful Websites Weird Science
It’s great that Latin has been added to Google Translate…
…as far as it goes. These “machine translations” can be useful for getting a gist of a text. But it would be dangerous to think they necessarily provide good (or even, understandable) translation. To be fair, Google admits as much.
Unless you speak the translated language, can you know how accurate the result is?
I’ve had a look at some of its limitations on my translation blog.
It may be free … but one would still have to warn “caveat emptor”!