Thread about different languages

[Kapitalizing Every Word]

Im personally not a native english speaker since I speak spanish and I noticed a problem in the forum (specifically in the international part) The problem is no other than translators. 
Why? 
Translators aren't  100% accurate and this can be very noticeable and confusing. For example a while ago I went to a support thread in spanish and the translation said by the person who asked said "barco" (boat) instead of "nave" (spaceship) this is because in english: ship is both the spaceship and the boat.
So I made this thread to discuss about translators and words in other languages that may translate wrong . 
(also maybe this belongs in the international subforum) 

[OHara]

Computer translation has gotten much better, in the past few years, at creating output text that reads very naturally in the target language.  It still makes mistakes, but the mistakes sound fluent.

When people who have different native languages are working together, I have seen it work well to say things first in the native language, then again in the language used as the common language.  It is difficult to use a second language at the same time as thinking something through, so it helps to get your thoughts together in the native language, then repeat the same idea in the common language. 

I grew up with English, which in recent years has very often been the common language.  But hearing someone else say directly what he is thinking in his native language, gives me a preview of what he is talking about, and some idea of how he feels about  it, and that helps me understand when he briefly restates his conclusion in English.

[OHara]

Once I was in a negotiation between French speakers and German speakers.  A French speaker said in English "we expect you will give us ..." (clearly, to me, thinking "nous espèrons...") and I could see the Germans hearing "wir erwarten" and becoming unhappy.  So I asked  "do you mean that you hope, or that your require?"

European Union English is becoming its own dialect.  The most common example I hear is 'actual' to mean 'at the moment' (as the similar word means in several European languages) rather than 'in the real world, as opposed to what was hoped or planned' (which it now means in living English).

[Gargamel]

3 hours ago, OHara said:

When people who have different native languages are working together, I have seen it work well to say things first in the native language, then again in the language used as the common language.

This is why we usually try to leave the original language text in any post we add a translation too.   I don't trust computer translations any more than anybody else, and if the automatic translation is faulty, somebody who does speak the language will usually speak up and correct us. 

But for KSP, most of our discussions in languages other than English outside the 'international' subforums, center around technical issues.  Nuance is not a concern really.   A bolt is a bolt, even if you call it the wrong thing.   We'll figure out that you mean the Rhino engine even if the translator calls it a Hippopotamus. 

One weird effect of technical conversations I've discovered is that some terms start to transcend native languages.   I work as a machinist for a Croatian family, in the US.   A good number of the guys work there are from Croatia originally.   Listening to these guys babble on in Croatian, I can always tell when they start talking about work related things, as the English terms for the technical things slip into their conversation.   After hearing them discuss the exact angle that a particular chamfer needs to be cut at, I asked them what the Croatian term for Chamfer was, and none of them knew.   They just used the English word for it.   

So yeah, while nuance can get lost in translations, we are lucky to be discussing topics that usually don't deal with it.    The exact phrasing might be off, but we'll figure it out, even if we have to resort to pointing and waving.    In KSP, if it's in space, then we understand that 'boat' means 'ship'. 

[kerbiloid]

Although both Croatian and Russian are Slavic, I wouldn't understand what's the "chamfer" are they talking about, before having a look and and realising that it's a фаска /faska/ /fus-kuh/.

[AHHans]

On 10/10/2021 at 3:49 PM, OHara said:

Once I was in a negotiation between French speakers and German speakers.  A French speaker said in English "we expect you will give us ..." (clearly, to me, thinking "nous espèrons...") and I could see the Germans hearing "wir erwarten" and becoming unhappy.  So I asked  "do you mean that you hope, or that your require?"

. o O ("When we win the football cup.") I hope the Germans didn't get too huffy about that. Germans are prone to use much worse "false friends", e.g. using "when" when they mean "if".