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YouTube No Translation

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Re: YouTube No Translation

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have all of my language settings configured to en_US. I've explicitly configured YouTube's country setting as well. I still get autotranslated titles for the local language in the search results. There are so many irrelevant results that YT search has become unusable. I'm increasingly noticing similar behavior in Google search, especially around news and current events.

But sometimes you actually have to search for something in your native language. Plants and mushrooms for instance: I know them by their Norwegian names, I wouldn't often not know how to search for them in English. But then Google serves up wikipedia articles auto-translated from English, often with made up (but plausible looking) domain terminology: "Russula cyanoxantha, ofte kjent som kullbrenneren eller spraglete…

Another specialty seems to be a half page of "related" questions. I'm not a stickler for grammar, but I frequently find questions here with a syntax suitable for a cartoon caveman.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#282
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think apps just should have a sorted list (/tiers) of languages they support, and pick whatever first has a match in the user preferences. If the app supports two languages equally well, then choose the one first in the user's preference list. So for me having no,en (in the future where this works I would dare to have no first): app is in english, has auto translated norwegian: choose english app is in norweg…

People figured this out when they specified HTTP 1.1 in 1997. A prioritized list of the languages the user knows. They even allow a q-factor weighing so the user can specify a factor of how comfortable they are with a language. All modern browsers already support this, but 99% of websites fail to use it properly including Google. It's like modern apps have forgotten all lessons learned about internationalization. Sam…

Indeed.

Google is notorious for ignoring browser language preferences not only in Youtube but also in its main product, and inferring from the (often faulty) geolocation.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#284
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been learning a new language, and I’m constantly encountering language-learning videos that get translated entirely into my native language, effectively useless until I revert the audio track. Annoyingly, there’s not a native way to revert the translated description and title as far as I know. And this seems to be done without the knowledge of the creator! I watched a language-learning YouTube short today that w…

I've seen a bunch of different shorts which have the same AI-generated horrible voice. I always assumed this was just the author preferring to script the audio and generate the voice. Can I assume this is actually big-G auto-dubbing the short? If so, then I'm guilty of (incorrectly) complaining to the author of several shorts.

Those are likely uploads from Tiktok where that voice is everywhere.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#285

I honestly can't wrap my head around what some users do just to have the "stock" experience. In order to get a vaguely usable stock YouTube, you need to install at least UBlock, SponsorBlock, No Translation, and arguably DeArrow as well. And this only works for browsers, many people will cope with their mobile YouTube experience being hell on earth. Why do all this when you can get an alternative cross-platform clien…

> In order to get a vaguely usable stock YouTube, you need to install at least UBlock, SponsorBlock, No Translation, and arguably DeArrow as well. UBlock: Solved by using YouTube Premium SponsorBlock: Solved by not watching low-quality channels with sponsors. Also YouTube has started rolling out their own version of SponsorBlock to skip these segments. No Translation: Yeah, this is a pain in stock YouTube DeArrow: Wh…

What's your argument here? That if you don't pay you shouldn't get a decent user experience, and paying solves every issue so we might as well give into the enshittification?

The SponsorBlock and DeArrow argument only works some times: clickbait and sponsors can be an indicator of poor quality (see Linus Tech Tips), but they aren't always: even Tom Scott video thumbnails and titles used to get DeArrowed, and I bet no one here would argue that Tom Scott used to push low quality content.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#286

Autodubbing is probably the worst feature Google has ever implemented. It's OK if they want to offer it, but at least let me disable it for specific languages. And for those languages which I don't understand, let me choose a default autodubbing language. Because I assume that auto-generated translations from French to English will be far better than those from French to German or Spanish. Also, the voices they use s…

I'd say that dubbing in general is the worst ever. Where I'm from (Belgium/Dutch) nothing is ever dubbed, we just read the subtitles, much better like that.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall my British colleague’s disbelief when I told her there are many people in the US whose first language is not English…

Similarly, plenty of folk born in the UK whose first language isn't English. I have many friends who grew up speaking Scots, and a few whose first language is Gaelic.

> whose first language is Gaelic

Is that really true though? I think it's a bit optimistic to say "first language". I know that many people do speak Irish, but the number of people who can speak Irish better than English is abysmal.

No Béarla[1] is one of the saddest documentaries I've ever seen. It follows a native speaker who tries to do mundane tasks in Ireland using only Irish, but can barely get anything done.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyll-bBZzyk

Re: YouTube No Translation

#288

It is insane to me that you cannot turn it off in the setting even as a premium user. Or better yet, make this opt-in for everyone. I live in a German speaking country, yet my native language is other and German is almost never preferred when I watch some content. All my UIs are in English. Yet, I open a video by a Brit and he is autodubbed to German. There really isn't any similar UX decision by any other reputed co…

Remember this is YouTube that (in the web browser) refuses to make a proper setting for turning off the annoying video previews, instead having a locally-stored setting that keeps reverting to off for me (it’s either because I am logged in across devices and some off them move between three or four networks daily, or my browser security settings, or that I have a few Google accounts, or some combination of those). I end up having to re-set this stupid thing at least every week on one of my devices (sometimes on two or three).

This is a Premium account too. If the apparently best and brightest software engineers in the world can’t be bothered to fix that then how can we expect anything more?

They’re so lucky to have enough of a monopoly left over to keep all the creators on their platform while they further encrapify it, otherwise it would have died already.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order to get a vaguely usable stock YouTube, you need to install at least UBlock, SponsorBlock, No Translation, and arguably DeArrow as well. UBlock: Solved by using YouTube Premium SponsorBlock: Solved by not watching low-quality channels with sponsors. Also YouTube has started rolling out their own version of SponsorBlock to skip these segments. No Translation: Yeah, this is a pain in stock YouTube DeArrow: Wh…

What's your argument here? That if you don't pay you shouldn't get a decent user experience, and paying solves every issue so we might as well give into the enshittification? The SponsorBlock and DeArrow argument only works some times: clickbait and sponsors can be an indicator of poor quality (see Linus Tech Tips), but they aren't always: even Tom Scott video thumbnails and titles used to get DeArrowed, and I bet no…

It's normal to pay for products and services which you use and which gives you value. But I also know that hackers have time to argue for at least 13 hours per day why they shouldn't have to pay.

YouTube offers the option to not pay, and instead have horrible interruptions with ads. Maybe in the future they will stop this nonsense and put everything behind a paywall, who knows?

But for normal people wanting to watch YouTube on their TV, there's really no option besides Premium. And it's really an incredible bargain compared to the value you get from it.

> clickbait and sponsors can be an indicator of poor quality (see Linus Tech Tips), but they aren't always

Agree. But I'd rather see a clickbait thumbnail from one of my subscribed channels than be fooled by a cleaned up thumbnail from a clickbait channel.

Re: YouTube No Translation

#290

Autodubbing is probably the worst feature Google has ever implemented. It's OK if they want to offer it, but at least let me disable it for specific languages. And for those languages which I don't understand, let me choose a default autodubbing language. Because I assume that auto-generated translations from French to English will be far better than those from French to German or Spanish. Also, the voices they use s…

Google has had ample time to figure out I speak more languages than Swedish. Auto-translated subtitles. Translated video titles. Reddit posts. I hate it. I hate hate hate it.
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