This was perfectly summed up in Monty Python's Life of Brian, with the "Romans Go Home" scene. "People called Romans they go the house? What does that mean?"

@MrVvulf

Жыл бұрын

The scene where the legionary corrects Brian's grammar on the graffiti was awesome! Also, nice name.

As an Icelander it's a breath of fresh air to hear your takes on these sorts of things. I've been a viewer for a while now and just really love your channel. Words cannot express how happy I am that our little language is being studied by foreign experts like you. I find your takes very interesting! As a possible suggestion, perhaps you might consider doing a video on the inspirations Tolkien took from old Norse and Icelandic. Interesting for sure!

@thogameskanaal

Жыл бұрын

This comment makes me feel happy. What an ideal world we would live in if production directors and story writers would do the work of actually visiting Icelandic history museums. You guys have such a fascinating and well preserved history, it's like a time capsule of early medieval Germanic culture.

"Messing up" is one thing. Deliberately not caring about getting it right is another matter. Aggravates the hell out of me too. Cheers, Professor!

He’s always so modest and respectful, even when throwing shade

@jenubi6234

Жыл бұрын

Literally calls himself out for throwing shade, like who is this freaking angel?

You remind me of the apocryphal story from the 1970s about a computer program for translating between English and Russian which was tested with the idiomatic English phrase, "out of sight, out of mind," and produced the Russian equivalent of, "invisible insanity."

@b43xoit

Жыл бұрын

I heard it as "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" to something about the meat being rotten and a strong alcoholic drink.

@peterfireflylund

Жыл бұрын

I read it as "blind idiot".

@ziloj-perezivat

Жыл бұрын

Invisible insanity

I know it's not much of a consolation, but by airing your frustrations, I've learned a bit more; so, thank you! Also, sorry the writers butchered the language, that sucks for all of us.🙁

I was watching my oldest play this game the other day, in the climatic final battle scene the protagonists are fighting Odin at Ragnarök and Odin shouts "Dynja eitr!" for some area effect spell. Somebody who worked on this literally just plugged the words thump/beat and poison into Google translate and strung this masterpiece together. 😁 On the other hand the male choral sections of the soundtrack seem quite well done because they had locals sing them in Icelandic. Eivør Pálsdóttir sounds good as well.

@doctorsammy883

Жыл бұрын

Bear McCreary >>>> the rest of Santa Monica Studios

@SvendleBerries

Жыл бұрын

Beyond the language butchering, I couldnt take Odin seriously because all I could see and hear was Toby Ziegler from The West Wing lol

My buddy plays this game and we constantly make fun of its broken old Norse/Icelandic. Also, a nice idiomatic translation of “let’s wrap this up” is just saying “Jæja!” really loudly. That word works in almost all circumstances.

As someone who teaches University-level Spanish, I feel your pain. There's so many cases of polysemic words in English that have distinct words in Spanish, and sometimes it throws me for a loop when I hear a student use a certain word in a way that makes no sense, and I have to run it through the English part of my brain to be like "ok what were they trying to say when you translate it word for word." Hell, there are whole units in Spanish spent on distinguishing between things like the verbs Ser and Estar, which both mean "to be" but have different specific uses and meanings.

"People do not think how much of a skill and an effort it is to translate from one language to another" such true words!

With regards to if that kanji tattoo stuff actually happens, there was that famous case where the singer Ariana Grande wanted to celebrate her song "Seven Rings" by tattooing the phrase in Japanese. However, what she tattooed was 七輪 (shichi rin). Those words do literally mean "seven" and "ring/wheel/hoop" but that phrase refers to a small charcoal grill. The meaning she wants, as in "jewelry rings," would be 七つの指輪 (nanatsu no yubiwa) "seven finger rings" (Japanese numbers have two different forms depending on circumstance). In order to amend her mistake she got the character for "finger" tattooed underneath, but due to the way the words are positioned, now it looks like it says 七輪指, or "charcoal grill finger." So yes, it does happen, even if you're an exorbitantly wealthy pop singer who presumably could have hired a Japanese speaker to consult on something you're permanently tattooing on your body. The allure of Google translate is too strong I guess.

Closest thing to a "rant" I've seen on this channel. :D And a well founded one!

I want more videos to end with Jackson smoking a cigar and saying "I care about y'all".

I enjoyed how thoughtful your critique of their translations was. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise. It means a lot to me.

👍👍👍as a university trained translator let me send you my heartfelt thanks and support

Thank you for reiterating that just because someone can type into Google and get a result - it may not be correct nor make the person an expert! Happens ALL the time in my profession as a veterinarian when a horse or pet owner uses "Doc Google" and the client is sure that they have the proper diagnosis! Thanks Doc Crawford! :)

@annatraustadottir4387

Жыл бұрын

Google translation actually translates the sentences he uses perfectly (if you put in the whole sentences, I just did that). So, the video is misleading if people believe google translation is that useless for Icelandic although it will make mistakes (not though with these sentences).

If you are going to plug an English sentence into Icelandic, or any other language, try translating the output phrase back into English and see if the expression is the same!

The last minute of this video is such a total shift from the rest of the channel, and I love it

A native speaker would probably translate "Let's wrap this up" to something like "Bindum enda á þetta." (Let's tie this off.) or "Klárum þetta!" (Let's finish this.) "Hættum þessu!" while idiomatically correct is probably a bit too removed from the setting in which the phrase "Let's wrap this up" is uttered, the distinction being that there is some task or activity that should be completed/finished as opposed to just being stopped/halted.

@annatraustadottir4387

Жыл бұрын

Google þýðir þetta sem Ljúkum þessu, sem er ágæt þýðing. Hin setningin er þýdd Það eru margar gjafir undir jólatrénu. Prófðu sjálfur. Google þýðir þetta rétt, ef þú setur inn heilar setningar, sem allir myndu gera. Veit ekki hvernig Craword notaði google translate en fólk sem er að pósta hér telur greinilega að google gjörsamlega klúðri þýðingum yfir á Íslensku en í raun er google orðið miklu betra við að þýða þó að oft komi villur og ekki ætti að nota google til að þýða texta nema til heimabrúks.

Don't put yourself down by saying what you do does not matter! Language, especially forgotten languages, are important to learn in order to glean into the past. Your work is invaluable and YOU are invaluable!

Its weird with God of War because they came here to have an Icelandic choir sing the themes in the game to get better pronounciation

I loved this video. It felt like a much more candid Jackson Crawford and was really nice to see

Your title for the video reminded me of my friend, Dan, translating something from Icelandic to English using Google Translate and it was terrible but hilarious! 😆 I am also upset that a popular game used Google Translate instead of an Icelandic speaker.

@DaevaGlow

Жыл бұрын

“Egg Helmet” was the English translation. I cannot remember the original Icelandic.

@stellanathaniel3198

Жыл бұрын

@@DaevaGlow It was "Ægishjálmur" iirc

@DaevaGlow

Жыл бұрын

@@stellanathaniel3198 thank you for the reminder. I texted Dan and he sent me the screenshot again.

I'm not an active translator rn, but this is what I studied to be. You speak for us all with this video (and venting). I hope more people will understand the issue.

I can’t tell the language is bad. But when I can it drives my crazy. I wish more people would pay attention. Language is the software our brains run, it tells us so much if we pay attention.

the frustration is just so relatable, but this is just true for any aspect of language, people will quickly (rightfully so) get angry about racism or homophobia or whatever, but people mocking langunages and dialects and the way people talk, and people don't even care even tho it makes those people feel like they are somehow wrong.

When I was an exchange student in Germany, one of my fellow Texans, in addition to mastering German, took up Old Norse. At the time, I had not yet managed to assassinate my inner Philistine, and he still had influence. So, my attitude wasn't a very welcoming and curious one. But down inside, I was profoundly envious and unable to admit it to myself. The memory of it makes me ashamed.

Your frustration is relatable and understandable!

Just wanted to jump on and say thank you for doing what you do. I always had an interest in the stuff you teach from language to the myths but no access to good information I’m so grateful for your channel

I want a Julius Caesar movie where all the budget goes to getting the language right, like regional dialects and formal/informal registers of Latin, etc, but they're all just driving Fiats and eating spaghetti

You are a great person and I am thankful and happy you are doing this. I absolutely love watching your videos, which have really changed my understanding of Old Norse, its culture, its literature and its linguistic echo in a way that I could not learn about anywhere else. Thank you very much!

My biggest gripe with the game, as an Icelander, is that they didn't try to get the actors to even try to pronounce some words correctly. Imagine having actors pronounce Spanish for example by reading in as if it were English letters, it would be completely uncomprehensive. The characters in the game didnt really speak that much Old Norse, especially in dialogue, but there was one character called Birgir who said: "Deyr fé, deyja frændr, deyr sjálfr it sama, ek veit einn at aldri deyr, dómr vm dauðan hvern". which was the only example where it was understandable.

I once dealt with a romance scammer in Udmurtia who said something like "At the bottom of birth, the table was wide with an air pie with nuts." This could not have been produced by a Russian looking up words in a dictionary! but only by machine translation. The first phrase is "На дне рождения," where "дне" is the prepositional (locative, in other IE languages) case of both "день" (day) and "дно" (bottom). Someone looking up words would have written "At day of birth", which is understandable. I never did figure out what an air pie is.

This video was both informative *and* amusing! Your rant about this was seriously hilarious and at the same time you still managed to impress upon us the subtleties and nuance to be found in these subjects :D

Thanks for sharing your knowledge as always, sir. Good video.

I highly enjoyed this video and I understand your frustration. Thanks for addressing the issue!

Companies, especially the larger ones, despise spending money if they think they dont have to. The end result is lazy, cheap, fake crap. Ive never actually played the game myself, but Ive watched people play it. And even with my poor understanding of Old Norse and Icelandic, I could still tell that they didnt even try to get things right. They just copy/paste without checking with an actual person to see if it was even correct.

GoW Ragnarök mostly plays with stereotypes and misconception. A huge disappointment. Typical Hollywood Marvel movie stuff. It's sad to see the unwillingness to depict another culture

@andrewspohrer7183

Жыл бұрын

There is one good thing to remember. It at least gets more people interested. The true mythos is already out there waiting for people to look it up.

@robinj6997

Жыл бұрын

@@andrewspohrer7183 People are interesting already. That's why they put Ragnarök in the title, it sells. They are very happy to use mythos for free marketing, but when it comes to actually depicting it, not so much. For every truth about Northmen (language, culture, mythology) there are 500 lies. And after the launch of this game it now is 501 lies. It's very frustrating to see history getting swallowed by popular culture without respect. Hollywood do this willy-nilly, for all cultures.

I enjoyed this, thank you.

I couldn't agree more. Keep up the great work.

The most famous depiction of Caesar's life did have a linguistic error with "et tu, Brute," which Shakespeare completely misrepresented.

@F1ghteR41

Жыл бұрын

Would it be the case of Shakespeare's 'poor Latin and even poorer Greek', as Ben Jonson famously put it?

Jackson, use your hat as a windbreak to light your cigar

I want to see an adaptation of Julius Caesar where it's just the Shakespeare play, but Brutus always enters the scenes in a Ferrari F40. All the lines are the same, the order is correct, the costumes are accurate. The only difference is that Brutus enters every scene he's in driving a Ferrari F40.

Excellent commentary on the problems with translation programs...now all you have to do is to quit smoking, and we'll be all set.

It’s good to see that you have a sense of humor through it all. I’ve often wondered how the UN can get along at all with this same problem of translation.

Manliest man to ever man. Cowboy, cigar, viking expert.

Although I love the new God of War games and their take on Norse Mythology, I can give them a pass on getting things jumbled as it's a spin on those tales. But, I would like them to incorporate Runes and Old Norse or Icelandic a bit better in future productions. I guess it comes down to a bit of a mentality of "no one who plays these games will notice," or "our mythology isn't correct so it doesn't matter that the language isn't." Which I wish wasn't the case.

The Icelandic equivalent to „let's wrap this up “ would probably, be „bindum hnút á þetta“. Has the same idiomatic meaning but not the exact same literal meaning.

I absolutely love how you showed your actual frustration. Had my dying, especially at the end with the cigar and such. That said, I do enjoy both the GoW (2018) and GoW Ragnarok games, but how well they localized the language isn’t one of those reasons. Hel, as a Heathen, you’d think I wouldn’t like it much, at all, being that the Aesir are the bad guys (at least so far as I’ve gotten), but it’s a video game, I appreciate different view points, and I’m not super sensitive. Loved the video!

Your point about homographs in Google Translate is one I hadn't considered before! It's always better to learn or consult someone who has learned if one plans to use a language. I've noticed a trend with productions using anything foreign as a symbol of something "elevated". Characters will speak English throughout a story until a foreign language is used for an incantation. Authority figures are usually given miscellaneous European accents to make them stand out from the American English-speaking accents. The trope of archaic languages being supernatural probably adds to an already carefree approach. It's treated as something alien rather than a language among the active thousands today.

This is such a niche style of video, I'm glad somehow your video came up for me. I study Icelandic (because it's enjoyable and I visit Iceland pretty often, not sure I'm going to be fluent ever, it's been almost 10 years) and really appreciate this video. I knew google translate isn't good for this language, but it's helpful to see someone give examples of how. þakka þér.

My daughter found a silly discrepancy when I told her 6th doesn't make sense. She already loves to hear me count and say six, so she asked me to say sixth thinking I would say sexy or sexti, but I told her, she wouldn't enjoy it so much, because it is shoorty. She started laughing and said it still sounded like I was swearing, so I told her maybe my pronunciation is off. So we looked it up and the voice said something like " Shoorda" so she was upset that she couldn't make google translate swear. And I figured the discrepancy was because of that exact reason.

I just entered "there are many gifts under the christmas tree" into Google Translate, it created a perfect translation into Icelandic: "það eru margar gjafir undir jólatrénu"

"Over there we are many one gift under yon tree of Christmas" Sounds fine to me

Google Translate translations frustrate me too, especially in "big box" productions that could have paid for the human expertise if they cared to. I ran a homebrew DnD campaign based loosely on the Saga of the Volsungs, and I tried to include Icelandic names for places, NPCs, etc. to provide more Old Norse flavor. And even though my players wouldn't know the difference, I knew the translated names were clunky at best, especially for anything more than single words.

Exactly, 100% Jackson. Not quite the same point, but as a Welsh speaker don't get me started on Arthurian legends which are set in middle ages and English speaking, not in post Roman collapse and Brythonic (or modern Welsh for direct lineage). Or, The Lost Legion, a good film located in southern Scotland which would have been at the time, the Hen Ogledd (Old North, in Welsh) which were Brythonic (Welsh speaking) Kingdoms. Though, it was very good to see them use Gaelic dialogue though Gaelic probably wasn't in Scotland at the time.

@piasecznik

Жыл бұрын

TBF with Arthur people are usually (loosely) adapting Malory's Arthur rather than the Welsh sources, so an English-speaking medieval setting isn't inappropriate for that.

11:40 - Joke's on you Mr Crawford, I watched that :)

“Pack it in” is literally an idiomatic British English term for “stop doing it”. Is it also not a phrase in American English? You can use it as a request “Dave, pack it in!” “Dave stop doing that it annoys me” or you could say “I’m packing in my job” “I’m leaving/quitting my job” or “let’s pack it in for today“ “I have enough and I think we should stop doing this today”.

@kellimbt

Жыл бұрын

We understand the meaning with exposure to British media but we don't use that expression (at least not that I've ever heard).

Haha, I get miffed whenever I see a language I translate get mucked up by Google Translate. Then I remember how lousy translation pays. Kind of a death spiral, really.

Ok. I have a curiosity question. What happens when language scholars run into sentences where people are playing with the language ? Is it a positive experience, or just frustrating? For example if I change the sentence "Það eru margar gjafir ..." and write "Það er mökkur af gjöfum ..." or "Það er glás af gjöfum..." P.S. if anyone wants to listen to a whole song that is nothing but wordplay. Check out "Mamma þarf að djamma" by "Baggalútur"

Facebook also does some automatic translating, which is also pretty bad. I am in a group for the town (or rather commune) in Italy from which my great grandfather emigrated. Most of the posts are written in Italian, and Facebook automatically translates them without even making it obvious that it has done so. It loves to translate names. Sometimes this just means it translates Giuseppe to Joseph, which I think is unnecessary, but at least it will be more or less correct. But other times there are surnames that are also words in Italian, and it will translate them into English. For example, if my ancestor Adamo Quaranta were mentioned, it would call him Adam Forty. It even translates the name of the commune itself, Serre, into English. It took me a while to realize that every reference in a post to “greenhouses” was actually referring to the commune Serre!

I think Dr Crawford needs a hug after this video. 😂

Give this man a hug!

Good video. 10/10

OH MY GOD THANK YOU I REALLY NEEDED THIS VIDEO I HAVE BEEN TRYING SO HARD TO LEARN ICELANDIC THESES DAYS BUT EVERY TIME I PUT WORDS IN GOOGLE TRANSLATE TO TRY TO HEAR THE PRONONCIATION IT GIVES ME A BAD TRADUCTION + ITS THE ONLY TRADUCTOR THAT TRADUCT ISLANDIC ok now that i exhale my frustration really thank you for the video

A couple of days ago I tried to read a post in Icelandic about the archaeological finds from Seyðisfjörður through Google Translate, and among others I got this gem: "No supernatural polygamy or doomsday confusion characterizes her archaeological work." From the context, it seems that the author was praising the archaeologist's work. I think no comment is necessary ;)

I care. I appreciate being able to rely on the accuracy of translations as well as historically accurate depictions of a culture. And learning a language is my idea of fun.

A former manager (knowing full well that I'm a polyglot) used Google translate to produce a Spanish language sign asking people not to leave too much food out for the feral cats because it attracted 'bugs'-or as Google suggested-'ERRORES'.

Interestingly enough, three weeks after this video went live, Google translate is now giving "Það eru margar gjafir undir jólatrénu," and "Ljúkum þessu," as the translations (while still making a dog's breakfast of the others I checked.) This is likely because in addition to the machine translations, they have a feedback system that allows knowledgable people to rate and edit a translation. So if you think about it, it's even worse than companies simply using bad machine translations instead of paying competent translators, they are actually taking advantage of well-meaning and knowledgable people who donate their time to correct the machines.

Christmas tree in Swedish for example is "julgran", which directly translated would be Yule spruce I believe it to be the same in Icelandic as well.

@Torsteinsson

Жыл бұрын

We say jólatré

What hope have we ever got that movies will get armour historically accurate, something that costs a fortune and takes time, if they won't even pay a grad student or native Icelandic speaker to go over the script.

This is interesting. When I try reading the Eddas, I translate the old Norse on the webpage using Icelandic, of course this is for an approximations translation.

@vidarfreyr

Жыл бұрын

There are probably free versions of translations for most of the manuscripts online. Sometimes more than one translation into English. I found it interesting when I was making my own translation for one of the Sagas into English that even with 3 different translations I could base a lot of my work around, I still found that I did not agree with any of them in some cases. Translating these texts is in no means an easy task, and there may be different ways of interpreting the text also, that will make a lot of difference to how you will translate it. Because you want the meaning to come across, not just the words.

@abhiramn474

Жыл бұрын

@@vidarfreyr That is true. One challenge when translating is to preserve the literal meaning of each sentence (don’t paraphrase translations) while making it easy for English speakers to read. This is something I take into account when translating Norse poetry into Sanskrit.

I'm trying to find reliable resources in learning Icelandic myself.

@stellanathaniel3198

Жыл бұрын

This might be of use: kzread.info/dash/bejne/f3d7r5uyd8ycf6Q.html

@Sea_Bears

Жыл бұрын

@@stellanathaniel3198 Thank you!

My experience with google translate for some languages is that individual words sometimes work but any more than that and it gets weird

year 2030: we have to use google translate to be able to understand what others are trying to say using google translate:) Thanks for sharing your thoughts, knowledge and inspiration, Jackson.

I think it should be considered that it's not a question of care, but of knowledge. It's way easier for me as a commoner to comprehend, remember and come in contact with historical objects than an ancient spoken language. Considering who plays games and could notice the error, it brings the pool of people down to just a few candidates. It's problem in all sectors. A question of Material vs Immaterial, It's so easier to find cheaters or lack of professionalism on an immaterial aspect such as conceptual ideas and language accuracy. In my field of architecture It's a catastrophe because entire cities concepts fail big time or so much obsolete repetitive rubish is being "designed".

Note to self - don't put attempt to put Old Norse dialogue in my books, merely say the characters are speaking in Old Norse. It's not like my readers can read Old Norse, but there's always the temptation to slip in a line in a language for flavor. I'll should save the linguisitic seasoning for the chefs.

If I use Google translate that's only to try and find individual words. Then I always look up the word in an icelandic dictionary and try to find it used in an example of the language to verify it and use it.

From my experience trying to using Google Translate on some song lyrics from modern Icelandic bands to translate to English: yep, epic fail. Frequently, it would just plain give up on individual words or even whole phrases. I also have my suspicions that the song writers used plenty of slang, but that's just educated guesswork since I don't speak Icelandic, myself.

I only speak French and English fluently, and I think that to use Google Translate correctly, one needs three things : 1) knowing the destination grammar, 2) sticking to translating single words, 3) knowing how to recognize an idiom. If one of those things is lacking, there will eventually be errors in translation. 1) if one doesn't know the destination grammar, then stuff like "oh this is an infinitive, it should be instead", will go unnoticed, until someone who is fluent reads/hears it. One needs to be able to recognize the form of what GTranslate gives them and to transform it into the correct form for their specific use. 2) if one tries to translate entire sentences, they'll end up getting a literal translation that does not convey the idiom. I personally only use GTranslate for single-word vocabulary. I'm at a point where I know the language very well for a non-native speaker, and the only thing left for me to learn is more and more vocabulary, and more and more idioms… but I know that for idioms, I'm going to have to learn them the old fashion way. 3) if one doesn't know what an idiom is, what it does, what it looks like, then they're doomed. The only way to learn idioms is having someone explain in person. But it's even worse than that in God of War, because for the most part, and even for me and my extremely limited understanding of Icelandic pronunciation, simple things like 'ð' and 'þ' were actually mispronounced, at least in the French localization (kind of understandable because we don't have those sounds in French, but still unacceptable, just get rid of Icelandic/Old Norse language in the game then), and I've noticed some mistakes in the English localization too, so I know they not only didn't hire an Old Norse expert, but not even a Modern Icelandic speaker either.

@ivanskyttejrgensen7464

Жыл бұрын

It can also get quite bad if neither of the two langues is English as it seem that google-translate if it doesn't have a translation falls back to word-for-word translation via English leading to confusion and hilarious results. Eg. Italian "caprino" can become "goat" but in context of cooking it's goat cheese. Or "rucola" is translated via English "rocket" and then into the target language loosing the context. No, I'll not add a rocket to my dish.

@albertozino1474

Жыл бұрын

Google translate has gotten increasingly better over the years and it's all about machine learning; which means, the more a language is used on internet the better. Recently I could experience how, translating between italian and French, which are two closely related languages with a lot of matching grammar and vocabulary, it's actually beneficial to translate to English first and to the other language second. Google has just more data about english than any other language, and of course it has very little data on Icelandic than a couple dictionaries and a dozen government websites.

I suspect that if Brutus walked up and said, "Hey Y'all!" in his best Southern drawl people would care...even though that accent is exactly as for removed from Roman era Latin as British received pronunciation is.

@robinj6997

Жыл бұрын

They actually have exactly that in God of War which he is somewhat referring to. Texas, British, Scottish and generic American accents. People don't care, which is a frustration.

This highlights the difference between translation and interpretation. I've professionally worked across language barriers many times and there's a huge difference between the two.

Funnily enough, "let's wrap this up" could even be translated into Icelandic as a single word: "jæja". But that is context dependent. A more verbose version could also be something like "drífum þetta af", which is more idiomatic to modern Icelandic and is closer to the meaning of the English, but again, it depends on exactly what the context is. So it's certainly a well chosen example phrase.

@annatraustadottir4387

Жыл бұрын

Ef þú setur setninguna Let's wrap this up" (alla setninguna) í google translate kemur google með Ljúkum þessu, sem er ágætt þýðing. Hin setningin er þýdd fullkomlega rétt með google Það eru margar gjafir undir jólatrénu. Skil ekki hvað Crawford gerði kannski mataði hann bara google á einu orði í einu, Auðvitað kemur bara bull út úr því. Ekki einu sinni manneskja gæti þýtt setningu rétt þannig. Fólk verður að sjá setninguna í heild sinni.

Great work and explanations from Jackson Crawford as always. Icelandic and Old Norse have many similarities and it looks like they mostly used a mix of google translated Icelandic and Old Norse spelling in both of the God of War games. They should have hired Jackson Crawford as a consultant if they wanted consistent use of Old Norse or as he said on IGN, use consistent modern Icelandic or Swedish. But even without the consistency I enjoyed a lot seeing how much Icelandic is used in these games.

Damn, this is the angriest I've seen Jackson.

OOF! Yes, I tried that for an indie video game I'm interested in developing, currently in the world building stages of story writing. Even though it's obviously fictitious, I wanted my world to feel as real as earth in terms of history. Man... I'm so embarrassed to admit this below one of Mr. Crawford's videos, but I actually translated modern English words to Latin, Modern Greek, German, Norwegian and of course modern Icelandic, as well as translating modern English poems to Icelandic, then trying to awkwardly transliterate it using a mixture of elder, younger and Anglo-Frisian [and I guess even Turkic] runes I grabbed from Google images. I'm so glad I'm well educated enough now to not have gone through with that, at least back then... It's so cringe worthy... Man... Hahahaa

I love when my husband or mother in law asks someone to "close (or open) the light". I did learn to write French in school, my husband only learned to speak it as his first language which he can be rusty at. He did a test to be classed bilingual for work and during his refresher course I was constantly fixing his work, conjugating has a lot of exceptions and rules and mostly sounds exactly the same when spoken, and that is a known freaking language. It is sad all the languages that being lost, but more sad the ones that are being revived incorrectly, so much lost in translation.

@spellandshield

Жыл бұрын

French orthography is one of the worst ones on the planet, possibly worse than English even. That certainly does not help.

@fialair

Жыл бұрын

@@spellandshield it was worse than you think, it was French Canadian. From the late 90's and on they started to offer other languages in school so that is fortunate but I wish they would teach something that is actually culturally appropriate for larger portions of the population like Gaeilge , which is making a comeback 🎉 as well as local indigenous languages that are slower to make a comeback 😔

I have a question. Have you ever heard of Kättil the Bearsark? I have try to find a book about him sens I only have heard the saga from an old man and he died before he had tell me the whol saga. Do you know anything about him?

I understand the frustration with work and I'm sure most of your viewers/supporters do as well. I work a presumably much simpler job at Walmart (at least I hope it's simpler) and even that gives me frustration from time to time.

There is a simple and ready solution for very many problems created by machine translations and AI in general, namely adaptation of humans to software requirements. This is admittedly indistinguishable from stupefaction, but may well be hailed as progress. I believe this process is already underway in many fields.

Didn't start the video yet, but I feel like it is inspired by God of War haha Edit: 1:30 in and I got it right. It's a shame that with all their resources, they wouldn't get a proper linguist specialized in Old Norse to properly translate texts, choose runes, etc. Sure, the average person won't notice it, given the chance that they do not speak Icelandic. But it is a little awkward when a project with some much care, was so careless about the language, especially because the setting and culture are the core of the game! Much love from Brazil, Professor!

I hope you don't mind my saying this: as an amateur photographer I would recommend that if you want to occupy 1/3 of the screen and you want to look straight into the camera then you should place yourself in the side of the frame from where you look into the frame rather than out of it.

Vos var vaðkráka, er óð í tölvuhráka, sólgnasta fésnáka. Thought you might chuckle at this one Jackson.

I would love to see a companion video(s) using Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish just to see if they fall under the same issues, which I assume they do just based on the examples you gave from Spanish.

@naukumaija7056

Жыл бұрын

I would say not to the exact same extent, because the conjugation of Icelandic is (at least in my experience) slightly more complex than that of Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, which are a bit more similar to English in structure. Then again, it's been a while since my Scandinavian language studies which I never even finished, so it's probably safer to ignore me entirely and close the hatch to the cellar and leave me in my rightful place for failed ex-language students.

@demi3115

Жыл бұрын

it's a common issue with every language.

@setc12

Жыл бұрын

I am studying the Danish language. I often check Google translate against a dictionary, published in Denmark, and a grammar workbook. Even a language learning app like Duolingo makes mistakes.

@Talvekuningas

Жыл бұрын

they're far more similar to english and modern . not perfect , but not going to have nearly as much issues with it .

This shows a much broader problem beyond languages: Many people believe that they don't have to know anything because their technology has all the answers. This applies to almost any subject nowadays where a prevailing belief, particularly among students, is that knowing things isn't important (just Google it instead).

I'm honestly shocked that the people in these studios didn't hire someone like you to help with Old Norse translations, it would have made the experience so much more authentic! I do have a question, though. What would be an accurate way to say the word "Thunder?" The particular meaning I'm asking about by the way is like the sound of thunder, not the verb. When I type that into Google Translate, the word is "Þruma." Is that correct? Please pardon my ignorance as I am not a native speaker.

@vidarfreyr

Жыл бұрын

Þruma is singular for the sound of thunder. Elding is the lightning. Plural: þrumur og eldingar.

@earnestwanderer2471

Жыл бұрын

I think it boils down to ROI. 99% (ok, maybe 90%) of the people playing these games would be just as happy with characters speaking Slavic with a Swedish accent. Maybe I underestimate the audience, but based on observing my children and their friends attitudes, it’s more about atmosphere than accuracy.

As a professional literary translator, I can only agree.

Did Google translate change since this video? for the Christmas tree example it spit out Jackson's correct translation...

I do! It thoroughly PMO when people use language incorrectly! Especially when they intentionally & knowingly butcher a language. It's why I am so careful when trying to communicate with someone else & there is a language barrier. I tell them I'm not great with their language but am trying hard to communicate. I know people all over the world & it's fascinating how much of their culture is transmitted through their language in simple day to day conversations.

Speaking of christmas presents: When did 'give a gift' become 'gifting a gift' in English?