this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2026
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Is this supposed to be a meta comment to show that machine translation can't help us read it?
Edit: If it is, well DeepL manages a pretty coherent translation:
I'm guessing "sub-rhythm" should be "algorithm" and "pros" probably means software and not people. The last sentences could use some more context. But otherwise this sounds kinda logical.
Now Google Translate…
…yeah.
Yes.
If it was unclear, the point is: pick a random finn from the street and they can translate that pretty much from word to word, even if they are from a complete different dialect speaking area, whereas even at best AI could give you only something towards it. I can only use obscure things, like this as an example, as I do not speak that many other languages, but if the languages do not have much written record online, they are not going to be properly translatable. We are still surprisingly far from not needing human translators.
//And yes, Google was hilariously shit. I managed to make couple normal sentences, without even trying, that it just gave up completely and did not translate at all, only removed some random letters.
Actually lets break it down, so it is clearer what the accuracy was. I will not talk about the mistranslations, though.
I have come to the same conclusion as the previous poster. DeepL identifies correctly I agree with them, but fails to pick up the nuance of it. Pretty good.
I am indirectly taking part in mocking techbros for thinking AI has solved language learning. This is referencing the previous post, so DeepL could not know that without context. It somewhat picks up I am saying AI-stuff has not solved anything.
It correctly picks up I learned something about language yesterday and that someone fails at it, but it fails to identify I am talking specifically about dialects and fails to clearly convey it is AI that fails. It translates correctly I mistakenly thought the previous thing was true.
I am saying AI could not properly answer to talking in dialect, referencing indirectly I am talking in dialect in the message. DeepL picks up that I am saying something is failing, but does not convey anything else correctly.
I'm telling Google was the worst at translating, and that I found that hilarious. DeepL fully fails to translate the meaning, but translates the word "shit" acceptably, and conveys correctly something is funny.
So what was lost in translation?
Talking in dialect, and AI failing to translate dialects properly - Core part of the message, so really bad, that it was about dialects, was not conveyed.
I am laughing at Googles translation abilities being the worst - Fails to convey this completely. Not a core part of the message, but still relatively important information.
Nuance about thinking before agreeing - Leaving that out does not matter in casual conversation. If this was translation for a more "proper" thing, this could be bad though.
Mocking techbros - This required context that wasn't offered.
Okay, so it was in dialect. I honestly would not have expected translation programs to be able to do that at all. Or are Finnish dialects actually written language? In German they aren't, but there are books written in a phonetical way in dialect, so there may be something for the AI to reference.
No, they are not usually written except people sometimes doing it casually in social media, but because our lettering system is almost fully phonetic, it is very easy to write and read them if you just speak finnish. Also if you are native speaker, you kind of learn the certain fluidity in the core of the language, so you can pretty much understand the words even if they vary a lot (except people from Rauma, nobody understands them).
I really thought it would have been cracked by AI because it can translate finnish pretty accurately (not always...) and if you can do that dialects aren't hard at all, but I was surprised to find that it still cannot! I am assuming it really is just because there are not enough written sources to teach from.
//Oh, and as a summary my main points were, that AI most definitely has not "solved" learning and translating languages as it yet cannot even translate a lot of things, and I guess also, that you cannot trust AI translations if the text translated is some obscure language you do not know. They can sound convincing and form coherent sentences, but the meaning can be fully incorrect.
I was just at a networking/research technology conference in Helsinki (TNC26) where the topic of nordic languages— especially minority ones—being under-represented by current automated transcription/translation tools came up in one of the side talks I attended. There's some effort by various European NRENs and universities to train models on these languages so those tools can be more widely available to students, academics, and the public. The talk was about "Scribe" by SUNET (Swedish Research Network) hosting whisper models for this purpose.
That said, I do believe that learning a language by studying, immersion in the culture, and actually having conversations with people who speak it natively is the only way to really experience another language. There's always something lost in translation if you can't internalize a language by living it. In some ways language is one of the parts of the human experience that's unique and irreproducible by LLMs (despite the name). Language is more than rote communication of information; it conveys ideas, emotions, the weight of memory and history.
Also, Finnish is fucking hard lol. I can usually pick up a bit of language wherever I travel, basic phrases usually. But DAMN trying to nail the epiglottal sounds of even "Hyvää yötä" threw me!
I only got to see Helsinki, but it was a beautiful city. The Finnish people I met were lovely with a great dry sense of humor, and I would love to visit again someday.
Kippis
That should be especially good for things like the multiple sapmi languages! At least in finnish you can already write in the proper "book language" and get pretty accurate translations, even though the dialects still escape that.
It is usually especially hard to learn for indo-european speakers, so it is not just you struggling! Haha :)
Well, it is always fun to play with the balls and the girls.