Google Translate is the reason nobody hires translators anymore. It is a wonderful piece of technology capable of translating more than a hundred languages, but it isn’t without its flaws.
The flaws, although far from being a deal breaker, can be quite hilarious at times. Since Google Translate is all about conversing with people who don’t know their language, it can be even more amusing if only the person hearing it is getting the joke, while the speaker is totally unaware of it.
I have seen a number of Google Translation fails floating around on social media and it never failed to give me a few good laughs.
Here is some of the best English to Urdu (or vice versa) Google Translation fails:
1. “Let us hang out”
Try translating “let us hang out” to Urdu and see how a seemingly harmless phrase in English transforms into quite a disturbing request.
2. Mota pait
Remember the somewhat inappropriate Urdu nursery rhyme we all used to sing in our childhood? Well, Google had a spin at that and the results are downright funny!
3. The Early Bird Gets The Worm
Google may have figured out how to translate sentences, but it struggles at proverbs.
4. Khayali Plao
I didn’t know Plao is known as “Pie” in English. Thanks Google!
5. Na Rahay Ga Baans, Na Bajay Gi Baansri
Umm, what? Google?
6. A watched pot never boils
7. The movie sucked
No comments.
8. Fan is Switched on
9. What does it even mean?
10. Killing the Rhymes
The company recently introduced Neural Networks to Google Translate to make it a whole lot better in understanding whole sentences, rather than just individual words.
However, that feature isn’t supported for Urdu language yet. Once they do add support for it, it will be considerably harder to use Google’s translator to feed our need for humor.
Also note that you can also translate Roman Urdu to English using Google Translate using this handy trick.
Feel free to suggest more Urdu-English mis-translations in the comments below.
Pie in the Sky is actually the correct translation for “Khyaali Palao”.
LOL EPIC!
urdu ko samjhna mushkil hi nahi na mumkin ha :D
I don’t think idioms can be translated from one language to another. May be it’s because of my tooth pain since last one week but I didn’t find it funny.
Me too! And it’s because of us we don’t want to contribute towards translation improvement of our language.
Google translate works on native speakers input. U can help building better urdu translations by contributing on translate.google.com
https://translate.google.com/community
signup here and help google to better translate your language
I only find the #1 funny, others are just interesting but not something that you call “funny”.
Hahaha Movie Chusa
1st one is awesome “Let us hang out” = “ہمیں باہر پھانسی پر لٹکا دو” :D
These translators are not trustworthy. Bing translations are even worst. So always hire a real professional translator for the translation of important documents and books.
wrong bing translator is good than google
to tum sub kaye k liye behte ho sub kro na suggest edit. jaise abhi tak bing maps nhi ban paye Pakistanion se
Let us hang out XD
If you try to use an automatic translation tool to translate idioms, the results will always be like that. Even a human translator cannot translate most of the idioms word to word. That’s because idioms are expressions of each culture sometimes specific to countries, cities or even a small community or area. When something is culturally bound, it is hard to translate it to another language without finding other cultural references.
When I come across an English idiom while translating something which I have not heard before, I always try to understand its meaning by looking it up on the internet instead of translating it word to word. And more often than not I find plethora of good explanations on the internet. If I don’t find any explanation on internet, I always ask native speakers for its meaning on different forums. Once I understand its meaning, another idiom with different words but similar context always comes up to my mind and I use that in my translation instead.