A New Kind of Addiction?

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Clarissa

January 9, 2013

If I gave a student two Fs for using Google Translate, what would possess them to send me an email asking for a letter of recommendation translated with Google Translate?

I mean, I think he is asking for a recommendation. The email is so grabled that I have trouble figuring it out.

Is this a new kind of addiction? Are people getting addicted to Google Translate because it promises them an easy fix for the necessity to learn languages? Is the lure of an easy ride so powerful that it blinds them to the painfully obvious realization that this doesn’t work?

Seriously, it’s like some people can’t help themselves.

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7 responses to “A New Kind of Addiction?”

David Gendron

January 9, 2013

The problem is that the two F’s were not translated by Google Translate, so he can’t understand! What a fucktard… (and why he doesn’t ask that in English?)

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 9, 2013
  
  I know! I would have preferred to receive that email in English. At least then I wouldn’t be made angry.
  
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cliff arroyo

January 9, 2013

Write a glowing recommendation in Russian (or Spanish or French if that’s in your repetoire) put it through google translate and invite them to your office hours.

Show them the letter and ask if that will be sufficient – if they don’t complain go ahead and sign it and give it to them (anyone who receives it will realize something is up and will ignore it or hold it against the user).

If they don’t go through the problems and only _then_ reveal what you did. The shock is liable to make them realize what’s wrong with google translate (which can be a wonderful tool if you realize its massive limitations).

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 9, 2013
  
  This is a phenomenal suggestion!!! I love it. I will totally give this student a recommendation Google-Translated from Russian. This will be fun! 🙂
  
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  1. JaneB
    
    January 9, 2013
    
    Wow what a great idea! Let us know how you get on!
    
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Daran

January 9, 2013

As a matter of interest, how can you distinguish between a Google translation, and the work of a human with really poor command of the language?

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 9, 2013
  
  I have a lot pf practice with both. 🙂 Human Spanish may sound very bad but doesn’t sound insane. There is always some logic behind the mistakes. A computer’s logic, however, is very different. 🙂
  
  I worked in computer translation for many years, and the difference between human mistakes in translation and computer mistakes is the most interesting part of the field.
  
  If we take Google Translate, one defining characteristic is that it is very inflexible in terms of the word order. It breaks a sentence up into small clusters and translates them in the order given in the original sentence. As a result, the translated sentence always has the weirdest word order you can imagine. Human beings don’t make this mistake because the basic sentence structure is the very first thing you learn.
  
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