Lingusitics Transliterate & translate from Roman script (online method)

[Swamp Thing]

What is the most seamless and convenient workflow to translate a couple of paragraphs in a chosen language, typed in the approximate Roman script, into English, using a good web interface -- PREFERABLY Google translate?
For example,

 "mera naam" --->  "my name"
  Hindi     ---->  English

 

[jedishrfu]

I've used ChatGPT to translate between Chinese and English. It's readable, but it's not necessarily the best way to translate. My wife laughs when she reads some translations, so I know they are not the best.

 

[Swamp Thing]

I assume you were not translating jokes or memes.

 

[jedishrfu]

No, just some English stories we wrote to Chinese and vice-versa. Jokes and memes can really get messed up.

I used to say the phrase "give me a break" in Chinese "gei wo da pau" and would always get puzzled looks because its not something they would say. But folks who were fluent in both English and Chinese got it.

My wife wants to write stories but she feels handicapped using English so she writes in Chinese and then we run it through a translation and discuss it to figure out the best wording that keeps the original meaning.

Sometimes we can use chatgpt to recommend better phrasing and the decide if anything was lost in translation.

We also have used Grammarly but feel more recently that it takes away your voice by homogenizing the sentence wording. I'm still trying to understand how to get around that issue. You know like use Grammarly to find basic stuff and not accept its more advanced rephrasings.

One reviewer said the free Grammarly plugin stopped at some point (ie asking if you want to become a subscriber to get the advanced rendering) and did better than the one for paying customers. Bottomline, use the free version and dump the subscription.

 

[fresh_42]

If you use Google Chrome then there is a "translate to English" option per right-click on the page. It works quite well even though not perfect. The structure basically remains whereas English has tight rules for its inner structure of sentences.

Alternatively, you can copy paragraphs into Google Translate and choose between all the languages you need. I used it even for larger texts that I didn't want to translate myself. It gives you a skeleton and you can adjust wordings that are too far off.

Also see https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/how-to-use-the-w-in-www.1062388/

 

[Hornbein]

If you use Google Chrome then there is a "translate to English" option per right-click on the page. It works quite well even though not perfect. The structure basically remains whereas English has tight rules for its inner structure of sentences.

Alternatively, you can copy paragraphs into Google Translate and choose between all the languages you need. I used it even for larger texts that I didn't want to translate myself. It gives you a skeleton and you can adjust wordings that are too far off.

Also see https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/how-to-use-the-w-in-www.1062388/

Google Translate translates from languages in their own writing system. The OP is asking about translating from transliterations of languages. This is harder because transliterations aren't standardized and tend to be ambiguous since they are phonetic. They are particularly bad with tonal languages since the Latin alphabet doesn't support that at all.

By the way, English is actually a transliteration using the Latin alphabet. English had/has more sounds than Latin so they kludged them in with a transliteration scheme.

 

[jedishrfu]

Yes, that's true. In Chinese, there are several transliteration schemes that have been developed and used across languages. As an example, it was/is common to use the Wade Giles scheme for many things. However an alternative, the Yale system was developed to provide better phonetic pronunciations for English speakers.

China developed the Pinyn system to be more precise at the expense of English speakers having to learn how to pronounce certain letter combinations. It was quite confusing when learning Chinese to jump between these systems depending on the textbook used.

Fortunately for me, Pinyin was really used at the time. Our books were all Yale based. Wade-Giles was used for place names in news reports.

There was also the Pinxi system that wasn't as popular but could capture the tone marks using a letter doubling scheme.

Here’s how to write “I want to buy a book” in the four different romanization systems:

Sentence: 我想买一本书 (Wǒ xiǎng mǎi yī běn shū)

1. Wade-Giles:
• Wo3 hsiang3 mai3 i1 pen3 shu1

2. Yale:
• Wó séung máaih yāt bún syū
3. Pinyin:
• Wǒ xiǎng mǎi yī běn shū
4. Pinxi:
• Woo’ sheang’ mai’ yi bvn’ shoo

Each system represents the pronunciation slightly differently, with Pinyin being the most commonly used romanization for Mandarin Chinese today.

and here's a breakdown of the sentence:

To say “I want to buy a book” in Chinese, you can say:

我想买一本书
(Wǒ xiǎng mǎi yī běn shū)

• 我 (wǒ) means “I”
• 想 (xiǎng) means “want”
• 买 (mǎi) means “buy”
• 一本书 (yī běn shū) means “a book” (yi means one / ben means "book unit of measure" used for books, magazines and bound volumes)

So the full sentence translates to “I want to buy a book.”

 

[Klystron]

... transliterations aren't standardized and tend to be ambiguous since they are phonetic. They are particularly bad with tonal languages since the Latin alphabet doesn't support that at all.

This is so true.
When I was assigned to Thailand, the State Department issued basic cultural rules and a vocabulary. Tones were indicated using little arrows and other symbols at the end of the Thai word written in Roman script to indicate rising, falling, neutral, etc.

Considering the complexity of written Thai with as many vowels as English has consonants, sentences festooned with diacriticals, and IMS all the vowels in a sentence placed at the end of the sentence, the results were woeful. Requires practice listening and speaking.

I often thought to emulate Colonel Blimp by just speaking louder.

 

[jedishrfu]

As an aside and not to derail the current thread for those who remember Colonel Blimp.

They made an old movie about Colonel Blimp. It had a lot of depth to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Death_of_Colonel_Blimp

It was more about honor in war and how WW2 created a different breed of soldier.

It's available on Youtube as free with ads: