Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

translate.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 94 posts

Re: Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

#61

Post by hrydgard »

zwieback wrote: post #39

Germans like to reference time relative to the half hour, e.g. "fuenf vor halb drei" for 2:25 or even "zehn vor halb drei" for 2:20, etc. Do other cultures do that? Also, google gets "fuenf vor halb drei" wrong but "fuenf vor halb zwei" correct, it seems pretty random. "Fuenf nach halb eins" is 1:35 instead of 12:35 and "fuenf nach halb drei" is 5:30 instead of 2:35!

Swedish does it but only the five before/after half case, not 10. And generally no other number than five actually. Examples: "Fem över halv två (13:35)" or "fem i halv fyra (15:25)".

Re: Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

#62

Post by Symbiote »

Other common mistakes are with measurement units and currency.

I often see things like "20 litres of fuel cost 300kr" translated to "20 gallons of fuel cost $300".

I can't reproduce this in a short sentence, it tends to happen when I translate a large block of text.

Re: Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

#63

Post by rconti »

p49k wrote: post #14
wyldfire wrote: post #9

To help my fellow English-speakers: "halb zwei" ("half two") is the German idiom for "halfway [between one and] two o'clock" "deux heures et demie" ("two hours and one half") is a much better cognate for the English "half past two o'clock" We're all used to off-by-one and fencepost errors. To be honest, this is probably a less interesting one of Google translate's mistranslations. But it's one that's very mechanical…

To make things even more confusing, “half two” means 2:30 in the UK and Ireland.

Does it? "Half two" would certainly not be common in the US, but certainly folks are familiar with "quarter of 2" which would mean 1:45. If you told me it's "half two" I would assume it means 1:30, not 2:30, as a native (american) English speaker -- although I have taken a couple quarters of German in college so perhaps the German is sneaking in a little bit?

Re: Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

#64

Post by RBerenguel »

gpvos wrote: post #49
StavrosK wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, why does "viertel zwei" mean 1:15? What's "viertel eins"?

Viertel zwei = a quarter of the second hour has passed, i.e., it's 1:15. It's a logical extension of the standard-language "halb zwei". But note that this is only used and understood in some German-speaking regions, not all!

It works the same in Catalan: un quart de dues is 1:15, as in "one quarter of the hour 2". If we go full into it, we have as valid and used constructs "un quart i mig de dues" for anything around 1:21-1:23 (one quarter and a half of 2, which would be 1:22.5)

Re: Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

#65

Post by rconti »

wibr wrote: post #17
wibr wrote: post #10

Um halb drei -> À trois heures et demie Um halb drei gehen -> Aller à deux heures et demie Um halb drei gehen wir -> A quatre heures et demie nous partons Um halb drei gehen wir ins Kino. -> A trois heures et demie nous allons au cinéma.

For DeepL: -> À trois heures et demie -> 14 h 30 du soir, -> À 14 h 30, -> On va au cinéma à 14h30. Correct for everything but the first, not sure why it added "du soir". For the a complete sentence "Um halb drei gehen wir." it's also correct ("On part à 14h30.").

No, the 3rd one is 4:30 not 14:30. Quatre, not quatorze.

Re: Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

#66

Post by md_ »

ramblerman wrote: post #23

I wonder if this is just due to a lot of translated documents getting it wrong. And thus having mis-trained the ai.

I have wondered if it's not an increasingly difficult problem for Google Translate that, as it becomes more popular, it is likely to see more and more training data which it itself helped generate.

Re: Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

#67

Post by Lev1a »

netsharc wrote: post #34
elthran wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a colloquial contraction of "half past 2". To me, the German makes no sense - half of 2 is 1. Agreed though that the French is the most easily understood internationally.

If you think of the minute hand needing to complete the full circle to reach 2, "Half two" means the minute hand has only completed half that circle, so it's 1:30. I've even heard of "three quarters (of) two" in German, which means 1:45.

You probably mean the German expression "dreiviertel zwei". This expression is however not used everywhere in Germany because in other regions it may be said as - "viertel vor zwei" (approx. "quarter to two") or - "Dreizehn (Uhr) fünfundvierzig"/"Ein Uhr fünfundvierzig" (The exact time as you would read it off of a (digital) clock/watch)

When I imagine it from the English-speakers perspective, I think "viertel" (quarter), "halb" (half) and "dreiviertel" (three quarters) are probably to be understood like this:

"halb zwei" = "half two" = "1/2 2" = (2 - 1 hour) + ((1/2) * 1 hour) = 1.5 = 01:30

Re: Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

#68

Post by rconti »

rconti wrote: post #65
wibr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For DeepL: -> À trois heures et demie -> 14 h 30 du soir, -> À 14 h 30, -> On va au cinéma à 14h30. Correct for everything but the first, not sure why it added "du soir". For the a complete sentence "Um halb drei gehen wir." it's also correct ("On part à 14h30.").

No, the 3rd one is 4:30 not 14:30. Quatre, not quatorze.

and the 4th one is 3:30. I'm also not sure why you introduced "afternoon" into this; it's not said anywhere and it's easier to understand the translation if you just pretend like this is all early in the morning.

Re: Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

#69

Post by rconti »

franze wrote: post #26

i hate this kind of time communicating in austria there is "viertel zwei" - quarter two which in one part of austria (vienna) means 1:15pm (or 1:15am), in the other half (90% of austria) it is understood as 1:45pm (or 1:45am), sometimes as 2:15pm (or 2:15am) - but never as 1:15pm/am "viertel [vor/nach] zwei" - quarter [to/after] two. the [] are optional.

you contradicted yourself by saying:

* in one part of austria (vienna) means 1:15pm (or 1:15am)

* but never as 1:15pm/am

Re: Google translates German “halb zwei” to French “deux heures et demie”: 1h off

#70

Post by wccrawford »

rconti wrote: post #63
p49k wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make things even more confusing, “half two” means 2:30 in the UK and Ireland.

Does it? "Half two" would certainly not be common in the US, but certainly folks are familiar with "quarter of 2" which would mean 1:45. If you told me it's "half two" I would assume it means 1:30, not 2:30, as a native (american) English speaker -- although I have taken a couple quarters of German in college so perhaps the German is sneaking in a little bit?

As a native (American) English speaker, "half two" is nonsense to me, but if I had to guess at a time the closest thing would be "half past two" (2:30), so I'd probably guess that first. I'd never heard anyone say "half until two" or "half to two" and they're both incredibly awkward.

"quarter after", "half past", and "quarter til" are the ones we use.

Post reply on HN