English to Emoji – Yandex Translate • Hacker News Board

The coolest thing here is the Emoji to English translation, IMO, which builds grammatically-correct sentences from an unlimited number of emojis. Translating english -> emoji -> english makes for some interesting mistranslations.

It's good enough that I'm wondering whether they're drawing off recent english->emoji translations to reverse emojis back to the source material.

Example of Edgar Allan Poe's Tell-Tale Heart:

English:

>True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily — how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

(Emoji doesn't display properly on HN or I'd quote it here, but it's encoded into the URL here [1])

Translating the emoji back to english:

>True! — nervous — very , very afraid of a sudden I have; but why will you say that I'm grumpy? crisis has made my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them . Above all the sense of ear acupuncture . I heard all things in heaven and earth . I heard many things in heck . The question , then , I'm grumpy? please! and understand how to consume — how calmly I can tell you the whole story .

[1] https://translate.yandex.com/?lang=emj-en&text=%E2%9D%8C%20%....

Re: English to Emoji – Yandex Translate

#6

Post by Jyaif » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:37 AM UTC

Reminds me of Chrome's "Translate to emoji" April fools ( https://chrome.googleblog.com/2014/04/a-faster-mobiler-web-w... )

Re: English to Emoji – Yandex Translate

#7

Post by kingcharles » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 2:36 AM UTC

I call it something else: https://translate.yandex.com/?lang=emj-en&text=%F0%9F%90%B6%...

Re: English to Emoji – Yandex Translate

#8

Post by soheil » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 2:40 AM UTC

Happy to report all the swear words work perfectly and each have an emoji that makes perfect sense.

Re: English to Emoji – Yandex Translate

#9

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: English to Emoji – Yandex Translate

#10

Post by riversflow » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

connordoner wrote: post #3

Give it a go and you’ll see that they have a long way to go… Cool POC, though.

Yeah. “Its lit” gets translated into :hand_pointing_right::flashlight: rather than :fire:, which is actually pretty funny, and it translates :fax::person_gesturing_no::printer: to fax no printer, which is technically correct, but it would be way cooler if it translated it to something traditional like “thats a fact!”.

One of the problems with translating emoji is that their are some combinations that are references to memes, it utterly fails at translating :raised hand: :ice cream: :hand pointing right: :broccoli: (giving “hand cream this asparagus”, lol) a combination that would (very) roughly translate to someone not familiar with the drake meme to something along the lines of “I’m not about sweets/junk food, I’m about eating clean”.

Seems like a really good idea, but likely a tough problem especially because I expect emoji usage to continue to evolve rapidly.