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> Translate "patronize" and it will give you "patrocinar", which means "to sponsor”. That translation is pretty accurate for at least one of the senses of patr
by thomasfoster96 7y ago
> Translate "patronize" and it will give you "patrocinar", which means "to sponsor”.
That translation is pretty accurate for at least one of the senses of patronise, though. Word-sense disambiguation is what’s failing Google Translate in that case.
- jolmg 7y agoEven if you translate the common phrase "don't patronize me", it still uses "patrocinar" which is the wrong sense of the word as typically used.
- thomasfoster96 7y agoYep, I’d put money on Google Translate interpreting the English wrong in the first place. I’ve just tried a bunch of variations on “don’t patronise me.” and these are the results: "Don't patronise me.” -> "No me patrocines.” “Don’t patronize me.” -> "No me patrocines.” "Don't patronise me!” -> "¡No me patrocines!” “Don’t patronize me!” -> "¡No me patrocines!” "Do not patronise me.” -> "No me patrocines.” "Do not patronize me.” -> "No seas condescendiente conmigo.” “Do not patronise me!” -> "¡No me patrocines!” "Do not patronize me!” -> "No seas condescendiente conmigo.” Word-sense disambiguation seems to work if you write “do not” instead of “don’t” and use ‘-ize' spelling, it fails otherwise.
- jolmg 7y agoNone of those worked. Remember that "condescendiente", as I showed in my first example, doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
- thomasfoster96 7y agoThat’s weird — something else must be influencing the translations. I’m aware that “condescendiente” doesn’t mean “condescending”, but I’m taking it as evidence that Google Translate interpreted “patronize” with the “to condescend” sense rather than the “to sponsor or support” sense, meaning that word-sense disambiguation works better in those instances.
- jolmg 7y agoWell, maybe, and maybe it's also interpreting it correctly when it provides "patrocines", but it also misunderstands the meaning of the Spanish word. Though, talking about what it interprets or understands of the words is also wrong. At the end of it all (including neural nets), its logic is probably still based on matching words and phrases between languages without really understanding their meaning like you or I do. Google Translate offers the option for people to correct it, but many people are probably misled by the false friends. Even I don't know of a proper Spanish translation for the concept of being "patronizing" or "condescending". I can't think of a good word or phrase, and I've never heard a Spanish speaker use anything of the sort. It's something I'd have to explain. Every online translator I check gives me "condescendiente", but if I check Spanish dictionaries, including the most authoritative one at https://rae.es/ https://rae.es/, they give no such definition. The closest words are the equivalent of "arrogant" and "to spoil" which aren't really the same. It may be that a proper translation simply does not exist. That also happens. For example, as far as I know, there's no English equivalent of "estrenar" in Spanish, which means "to use for the first time".
- robjan 7y agoIf you translate "Don't patronise me" into Chinese, it also translates to something like "don't visit my business" so it appears to be misinterpreting the English.
- yongjik 7y agoI just tried "Don't patronize me" to Korean and got 나를 애용하지 마십시오, or something like "Do not use me with satisfaction/love." Umm...