https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzJtC835sio
We all know that Google translation isn’t perfect but when it’s used by Kelly Clarkson to sing her track Stronger it gets pretty funny. The translation is simply so out there that you can’t imagine that it would be easy to sing, but she nails it perfectly without much difficulty. The translation though is something that makes it hard to fathom why certain words get replaced with others. Still, Jimmy and Kelly both make it work by adapting to the words as they’ve been given and the songs aren’t too bad even though they’re off the mark when it comes to the translation.
There’s a reason why Google translate doesn’t really work when it comes to English however. If you look at the English language you’ll see very quickly that it’s a mess. From east to west and north to south it’s just a confusing mockup of a language that takes from several other cultures and creates an amalgam of sorts that the statistics-based program can’t keep up with. English in America is so messed up at this point that different regions use so many words in different ways or use different words and phrase altogether that trying to keep up with them would mean that the program would have to be updated on a continual basis without any pause for true clarification. In terms of taking down literal representations of what’s being said and dealing with simple English the program is very capable and can produce the desired text. But when someone attempts to put abstract ideas and imagery into the system it tends to come out much different than they might expect.
Google can’t simply produce the feeling within a text that humans can since there is no machine in this world yet that is fully capable of producing its own emotions, for which we should be thankful. But it also can’t handle complex grammar, which means that it will use the best guess method and go by what it’s programming allows when it comes to translating anything. What this means is that a song like Stronger will be essentially analyzed, broken down, and then translated in a way that makes statistical sense to the program. Unfortunately it probably won’t make a lot of sense to the person reading it. That’s the difference between machines and human beings, well one of them at least, humans can think in an abstract manner whereas machines and the programs that are built into them need to think literally and follow the programming as it’s been set.
Another key point that shows the difference between humans and machines is that writing for an audience is important. Songwriters, screenwriters, anyone that writes for an audience knows that the more enticing the writing is the more likely that someone will want to read it. Google can’t write to an audience. The program doesn’t understand how to write so that people will want to listen and it can’t gauge their reactions since it’s there to translate, nothing more. But the resulting translations can be pretty funny.
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