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Just realized AI translation tools still mess up simple idioms in weird ways
I was using DeepL to translate a forum post into Spanish and it turned 'spill the beans' into something about actual beans on the floor. Found it when I double checked with a native speaker. Has anyone else caught AI making these silly literal mistakes with phrases?
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diana552d ago
I actually read a study about this from MIT that said AI models struggle with idioms because they process language as math problems instead of understanding cultural context. They tested it with 50 common English idioms and the AI got almost half of them wrong when translating into other languages. It makes sense since these tools are just pattern matching without knowing that "spill the beans" has NOTHING to do with actual beans. I bet if you ran the same test with Spanish idioms going into English it would be just as bad.
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simon_chen2d ago
Of course I had to test this myself and asked an AI to translate "raining cats and dogs" into Spanish. It literally told me it was a weather report about ANIMALS falling from the sky. Guess I'll stick to my high school Spanish skills even though I butchered every idiom I ever tried to use back then.
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