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On the other hand, it's interesting how well Google Translate translates philosophical text. Just compare the translations below.

Gadamer's text from Truth and Method:

Die folgenden Untersuchungen haben es mit dem hermeneutischen Problem zu tun. Das Phänomen des Verstehens und der rechten Auslegung des Verstandenen ist nicht nur ein Spezialproblem der geisteswissenschaftlichen Methodenlehre. Es hat von alters her auch eine theologische und eine juristische Hermeneutik gegeben, die nicht so sehr wissenschaftstheoretischen Charakters waren, als"vielmehr dem praktischen Verhalten des durch die Wissenschaft ausgebildeten Richters oder Pfarrers entsprachen und ihm dienten.

Weinsheimer and Marshall translation:

These studies are concerned with the problem of hermeneutics. The phenomenon of understanding and of the correct interpretation of what has been understood is not a problem specific to the methodology of the human sciences alone. There has long been a theological and a legal hermeneutics, which were not so much theoretical as corrolary and ancillary to the practical activity of the judge or clergyman who had completed his theoretical trainin

Google translate:

The following investigations have to do with the hermeneutic problem. The phenomenon of understanding and the right interpretation of the understanding is not only a special problem of the humanistic methodology. There has also been a theological and juridical hermeneutics from ancient times, which were not so much scientific-theoretical in character as they corresponded to and served the practical behavior of the scientist or pastor trained by science.



Cynically, i wonder if a translation of that text was actually fed in/available to the translation process.

I mean texts already translated into other languages would presumably be one of the most obvious things to feed in as training data.


There's no need to wonder, one can be virtually certain that every "classic" work that has been translated to many languages is included in the training data of major translation systems.

MT world runs on data, it includes as much as it can, and a book translation wouldn't be included only if its translations are not readily available in digital form - and pretty much all famous books have been digitized.


Yes, I was wondering the same thing.




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