LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  I won´t give up. I shall never tire of exposing online and AI translators and warning all and sunder against their shortcomings and dangers. Am I a stick-in-the-mud old foggy? You judge for yourselves. Put them to the test. I have on many occasions, in fact, just now I got "palo en el barro/lodo" and "persona pegada al barro" for stick-in-the-mud. Now everything goes but not quite. Beware of AI and other online translators lest you make a fool of yourself.  

My daughter Lorraine informed me that ChatGPT also offered translation services. Being the way I am -I just can´t help it- I rushed to put that service to the test, rather more of a medieval ordeal, hell and high water. Why? Because I am mischievous, I wanted to make it tough on the program and feed it idiomatic expressions and idioms in English and Spanish. The result, as I expected, was poor, to say the least.  For "verse a la legua" ChatGPT offers this: " Verse a la legua  in English translates as to be seen from a mile away or to be obvious at a glance . It is an idiomatic expression used to describe something that is easily noticeable, apparent, or obvious from  distance or at first sight." In my Phraseological Dictionary, I offer the right equivalent: "Stand (stick) out a mile. Stand out like a sore thumb. Another example: "The equivalent expression in Spanish for there´s no crying over spilt milk is: no hay que llorar sobre la leche derramada ....

Beware of confusing computer translations Have you ever received a jumble of disconnected words and sentences in a message that defied unraveling? If so, it was probably the result of a computer-aided translation. If on a web site you read “translate this page”, cover your eyes, brace yourself, and expect the worst once you click on it because often you will not be able to make heads or tails of most of the “translation.” It will sound “weird” and “funny”, the result of a computer-aided translation. When you read the instructions or directions to a newly bought gadget from, say, China, you may end up throwing your hands up in despair at the confusing wording of the brochure, which is the result of machine translation. The now famous sign in a Japanese hotel: “You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid” was probably the result of machine translation. Millions of words are...