Finnish language support in Google Translate!

[synni1]

Greetings,

I hope I'm not telling "old hats" for the whole of the people here!

http://translate.google.com

I can only say, Google did an EXCELLENT job with the Finnish->English translation!
This language is sooo difficult with its 15 dog-gone grammatical cases, and lo' and behold - most translations work well.

Only if some difficult special plural forms are not recognized, Google Translate fails:
"Oli yhtye kaupungissa" looks very simple, but it chokes with "kaupungissa", claiming the band to have played in many cities. (pl.: kaupungeissa)
Also the difficult sub-meanings of the translative case are not (yet) supported:
Ostin hänelle puukon lahjaksi. (I bought him/her a knife as a present [or gift]).
However, you can become a teacher (it already snaps tulla opettajaksi - wow!)
And lo' and behold, it supports substantiated -MINEN forms!

Tupakoiminen on kielletty. - Smoking is prohibited. -

Even the mandatory ablative for "kysyä" works!!!
Olen myös kysynyt muilta ihmisiltä. - I have also asked other people.

Or the strange forms of "liukua" (to slide)
sinä liu'ut - you slide

WOOW! All in all - I see something very solid comin' up! (note it's still beta)

[Varislintu]

Olen vaikuttunut!

I'm impressed!

[Narbleh]

I noticed it tends not to decline adjectives properly :/ It just does the nominative adjective pretty much consistently, regardless of the case of the noun it modifies.

[synni1]

Hmm .. could you please give an example of this?

The moduses work great too ... positive, comparative, superlative - everything there (pitempi, parempi, helpompi) - even for ADVERBS (which are a pain to build with some verbs)

Some things it simply CANNOT guess: the instructive and the superlative being equal, e. g. suurin. I think this will never work or they will have to include each and every fixed idiom e. g. suurin silmin (freely: "with eyes wide open")

[synni1]

Following up my own thread...

They've become so DAMN good in translating ... except for the numbers in some cases.
That the partitive is always singular after distinct cardinal numbers, is really something they seldom get right.

Look at that, this is funny...

"She wears two necklaces."
Hän pukeutuu kaksi kaulakorua.

Partitive singular, fine.
Now we add up one...

"She wears three necklaces."
http://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wT#en|fi|She%20wears%20three%20necklaces.
Hän pukeutuu kolme kaulakorut.

OUCH! We went from "kaksi" to "kolme" and now the case changed automagically from partitive singular to accusative (!) plural. This is really odd.
I strongly hope they did not think of Russian or Polish and "remembered" that cases do change there depending on the actual number that precedes the noun??

If we change the bling into ear rings, then even two are enough to get it wrong...
"She wears two earrings."
Hän pukeutuu kaksi korvakorut.


"Waiter, please bring us five beers."
Tarjoilija, tuokaa meille viisi oluita.

Awww, in terms of correct case (partitive) it's OK now, but wrong number (plural instead of singular)

"They have eight children."
Heillä on kahdeksan lasta.

Ah yeah. Now it magically works fine.
I guess it's implemented correctly with some verbs, with others it isn't, though.

[Mars]

It's a great tool to get you started, but you still need the knowledge of the finnish grammar usually to make sense of it. It helps me from time to time, but I still need to use my brain . I'm happy it's not working perfectly because then I should stop studying to become a translator.

[Moniqiili]

I used Google Translate into Finnish a lot my Finnish is absolute Beginner I listen to and read Yle Puhe but I find it quicker and better than my own writing but even my native language is bad ! Mac OS does not have Dictionary or spell checker.I translated this with Google into

Käytin Google Käännä suomea paljon minun suomalainen on Absolute Beginner kuuntelen ja lukea Yle puhe, mutta en löydä sitä nopeammin ja paremmin kuin oma kirjoitus mutta vaikka äidinkieleni on huono! Mac OS ei ole sanakirja tai loitsu checker.I kääntänyt Google

And

klikkaamalla tekstiä näet vaihtoehtoisia käännöksiä ja voit muokata niitä

into clicking on the text you see alternative translations and you can edit them

Uutta! What's New!

Katso vaihtoehtoiset käännökset ja muokkaa niitä klikkaamalla yllä olevaa tekstiä.
Alternative translations and edit them by clicking on the above text.

Reject
Hylkää

we can get the basic understanding but bi lingual natives have to refine it.