Chat Translator

[TommyMG96]

I have a few foreign friends so it's hard for me to speak english with them, I think it would be helpful to steam if steam had a automatic chat translator. It would translate the text into the users own langauge, before it's sent to the other party.

[hannzika]

Yess

[Milkman]

they would have to go through a ♥♥♥♥ ton of trouble to translate every sentence possible to every other language because it could end of being like google translate where it would get all the words miss placed for example maybe somebody german typed "i like butter with apple pie in it" it could end up translating to "i like butter apple pie"

[TommyMG96]

Originally posted by that1dude56:

they would have to go through a ♥♥♥♥ ton of trouble to translate every sentence possible to every other language because it could end of being like google translate where it would get all the words miss placed for example maybe somebody german typed "i like butter with apple pie in it" it could end up translating to "i like butter apple pie"

Thats fine, it would need to be to be tested and corrected anyways.

[Fox]

Originally posted by ♫Sanyo™♫:

Thats fine, it would need to be to be tested and corrected anyways.

And this is the main issue : Google Translate has numerous employees to "correct" inaccuracies, and after all these years, there is still enough for people to recognize a google translate from a hand-made translation. So, Valve and its 300 employees being able to do better that Google seems less-than-realistic.
Also, consider that not all of us has perfect spelling or grammar, and you add another layer of inaccuracies.

In fact, such an option needs to be opt-in : there exists far too many cases where I found myself better with the original English text than the translated text in my mother tongue.

[TommyMG96]

Originally posted by Fox:

Originally posted by ♫Sanyo™♫:

Thats fine, it would need to be to be tested and corrected anyways.

And this is the main issue : Google Translate has numerous employees to "correct" inaccuracies, and after all these years, there is still enough for people to recognize a google translate from a hand-made translation. So, Valve and its 300 employees being able to do better that Google seems less-than-realistic.
Also, consider that not all of us has perfect spelling or grammar, and you add another layer of inaccuracies.

In fact, such an option needs to be opt-in : there exists far too many cases where I found myself better with the original English text than the translated text in my mother tongue.

They can have people contribute to it.

[ KARR™]

Originally posted by ♫Sanyo™♫:

They can have people contribute to it.

It's not so much having people contribute to it, they already have a translation team of volunteers for other languages anyway. Normally it's the way that sentences are put together.

Translations work well on sentences that are properly formed and spelt correctly. The majority of posts are spelt poorly and not put together well meaning the translator either doesn't pick up words or doesn't understand the 'lingo' that has been used.

If a translation is poor, the original meaning can be lost and what is being said interpreted completely differently from what was intended. There are a lot of posts in the forum that have had translations done on them and they make little sense.

Eg. On the french forum ther is a post that translates into :

me it is guild war 2 that do lose my steam and the trace of payment ditto !!! 40 euro and some ds baba !!!!!!!!

In this case, yes you know they are talking about Guild Wars 2 and they have somehow lost their payment, but it's not a good translation and if the thing being asked doesn't make much sense then the answer also doesn't make much sense either.

What is a ds baba?

[Fox]

Originally posted by ᴷᴬᴿᴿ:

Eg. On the french forum ther is a post that translates into :

me it is guild war 2 that do lose my steam and the trace of payment ditto !!! 40 euro and some ds baba !!!!!!!!

In this case, yes you know they are talking about Guild Wars 2 and they have somehow lost their payment, but it's not a good translation and if the thing being asked doesn't make much sense then the answer also doesn't make much sense either.

What is a ds baba?

And to add to that, the translation is flat out wrong on the second point, since, as I read the original post, it's the game that was lost : he wondered why a non-Steam game disappeared from his steam list.
So, that person would receive a incorrect answer from someone who doesn't have any bad intentions, and I'm pretty sure the following exchange would result in each one not understanding the other, despite the translator being present to "ease" comprehension.

And by the way : "dans le baba" (the words without spelling mistakes or lingo) -> roughly "in the behind".

[Keiti]

Greetings,
I'm sure someone else came up with the idea of ​​integrating a translator for the chat messages in the friends section.

It would be a dream to be able to cross the language barriers a little more in the game.