Does Google Translate Output Accord with Reality?—And Remarks on the M...

Aug 17, 2015 by

Does Google Translate Output Accord with Reality?—And Remarks on the Morphosyntax of Russian Nominalizations

I have written extensively about problems with Google Translate and its many bloopers in both lexical choices and producing a grammatically cohesive output. It is thus ironic that Google Translate’s “translation” of the Russian...

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“And He said, saying”?

Jan 13, 2015 by

“And He said, saying”?

[This post draws heavily on the work of Joel M. Hoffman.] In an earlier post, I have examined a millennium-long historical connection between Old Church Slavonic (OCS) and modern Russian. Here, I will look at another peculiarity of...

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“The Game” Is On—And They Get Russian (Mostly) Right!

Dec 1, 2014 by

“The Game” Is On—And They Get Russian (Mostly) Right!

Long-time readers of my blog know that I tend to kvetch about the ways that Russian is represented in books and films. But I have finally found a show that I not only like, but can also praise for their remarkably well-done Russian...

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Islamic Fatwas, Grammatical Gender, and Translation—Or Beware of Those...

Oct 26, 2014 by

Islamic Fatwas, Grammatical Gender, and Translation—Or Beware of Those Sexualized Vegetables!

[This post was originally posted in December 2013] A recent report in India Today mentions a fatwa (Muslim religious decree) issued by a cleric associated with the Muslim Brotherhood to prohibit women from swimming in the sea. The...

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Google Translate Tackles Geography

Oct 26, 2014 by

[This post was originally published in February 2012] Google as a whole can hardly be accused of geographical illiteracy, as Google Maps and Google Earth have become standard tools for numerous professional geographers and amateur...

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“No Food”?—Or How Not to Translate!

Oct 23, 2014 by

“No Food”?—Or How Not to Translate!

On occasion, I use this blog to rant about bad translations I encounter in movies and novels, particularly those set in Russia. With over 800,000 speakers of Russian in the U.S., what is these writers’ excuse for producing sloppy...

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