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YouTube No Translation

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Re: YouTube No Translation

#31

Post by chartered_stack »

I actually appreciate the YouTube's auto-translate feature a lot because it allows me to search through videos in languages I don't know but still like to view videos and listen to videos in. For example, I listen to a lot of city pop and anime title songs on YouTube and a lot of them have titles in Japanese only. I absolutely would not find it as easy as I do to search through this content and listen to the music if the auto-translation feature did not exist. It just makes it easier for people who don't know the language to view videos in that language. Sure the translation quality might not be the best but it makes search a whole lot easier. This is why I find some of the comments on this thread surprising.

Having said that I am against the automatic audio translation that some people are reporting. I have not experienced it myself but that seems poorly thought out. It should be easier for people to search through items in a foreign language but that content should be served in the content originally intended.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#32

Post by rtpg »

chartered_stack wrote: post #31

I actually appreciate the YouTube's auto-translate feature a lot because it allows me to search through videos in languages I don't know but still like to view videos and listen to videos in. For example, I listen to a lot of city pop and anime title songs on YouTube and a lot of them have titles in Japanese only. I absolutely would not find it as easy as I do to search through this content and listen to the music if…

I do not understand how this got rolled out. Surely there are _loads_ of multilingual people working at YouTube. How is there not at least an option to flag multiple languages that you speak?

At least the audio translation I can turn off. I do not know how to get the actual title of a video or its description.

It's so frustrating that I've ended up just changing my UI language from English to another language so that at least those don't get butchered.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#33

Post by rtpg »

phantomathkg wrote: post #28
rdtsc wrote: post #8

It's surprising how hostile youtube is to multilingual users. Probably all in some attempt to show off their translation capability or to improve the experience for users who may want to access content in a language they don't speak? Or it's just as dumb as this was on some product managers "designed and implemented" line to get promoted? But, surely someone sane there has to realize there is a large number of users…

i18n and l10n are something that I have seen a company done right. It is easy developer to assume: If your IP is coming from country X, you must want the content to be served in language X. No, there are tourist from country Z, long term resident who prefer language A and people from country X want to learn language B. - If your browser Accept-Language say X,Y, then you must want all the content to be served in X. No…

> i18n and l10n are something that I have seen a company done right. It is easy developer to assume:

> If your IP is coming from country X, you must want the content to be served in language X.

I would assume there are multilingual speakers in mostly every single team at YouTube. Or at the very least enough nerds who just like some random content from another country.

People who would both want their UI to be in a language A but also to consume content from languages B, C...

I do not understand how that assumption holds in any product decision except in one where the YT product teams are entirely and totally separated from the engineering teams.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#34

Post by 0wis »

userbinator wrote: post #21
oc1 wrote: post #20

Reddit is the worst offender. I really wonder what goes through the mind of the management clerks at these companies.

I really wonder what goes through the mind of the management clerks at these companies. "More $$$!!1"

Yeah, short term. Because power users that are used to switch between languages using internet slang do not like half baked polished translation in their IP-location language. So they leave. Remain mainly low quality users who couldn’t or didn’t wanted to switch between languages. A more powerful forever September again.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#35

Post by supriyo-biswas »

chartered_stack wrote: post #31

I actually appreciate the YouTube's auto-translate feature a lot because it allows me to search through videos in languages I don't know but still like to view videos and listen to videos in. For example, I listen to a lot of city pop and anime title songs on YouTube and a lot of them have titles in Japanese only. I absolutely would not find it as easy as I do to search through this content and listen to the music if…

> This is why I find some of the comments on this thread surprising.

In general, some of the loudest voices in any given community are the ones who are dissatisfied with the thing in question. So, there are many people (or at least the two of us!) who are reasonably satisfied with this feature and find it helpful.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#36

Post by saretup »

rdtsc wrote: post #8

It's surprising how hostile youtube is to multilingual users. Probably all in some attempt to show off their translation capability or to improve the experience for users who may want to access content in a language they don't speak? Or it's just as dumb as this was on some product managers "designed and implemented" line to get promoted? But, surely someone sane there has to realize there is a large number of users…

Doesn’t it just use the primary language you select in your account settings? Unless you’re talking about using it in incognito, in which case it does get annoying when it assumes a language based on region without asking.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#37

Post by pyrale »

rdtsc wrote: post #8

It's surprising how hostile youtube is to multilingual users. Probably all in some attempt to show off their translation capability or to improve the experience for users who may want to access content in a language they don't speak? Or it's just as dumb as this was on some product managers "designed and implemented" line to get promoted? But, surely someone sane there has to realize there is a large number of users…

The worst part about it is the half-translated effect on many sites. I'm fine in my native language and in english, but having a page written in both is a purge. Add to this the disappearance of a way to select language quiclky and the web is becoming shit these days wrt i18n.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#39

Post by simongray »

kalleboo wrote: post #27
oc1 wrote: post #17

So Google assumes that its user only speaks one language and needs translation for everything else. Is this the educational standard in America?

What's crazy is the US actually does have a decent proportion of multilingual speakers thanks to its history of immigration (a quick search reveals 20% of American residents are bilingual). Even Google staff should be a pretty multicultural bunch of people as they recruit globally.

I mean... 20% is not really a lot. It's probably a lot closer to 100% in most countries of the world.
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