Just a reminder to never trust Google Translate

Current translation:

OP’s version is more poetic
- I agree. Translation is much better these days and I am sure someone else was going to be curious about what the actual translation was.
Good they fixed it but I wouldn't be surprised if it broke again. Once I was doing a coding project that involved Google Translate and I was using the same sentences for testing. In a week translation has changed 3 times, from bad to good to bad.
- Out of curiosity, did it change back to the previous bad translation, or create a new bad translation?
The different Google translate frontends have different translations sometimes, it might be that. I think it's the web result and the website being different? Or the app and the website/web result? Idk.
- Or maybe they didn't use Google translate at all? There are other ways to translate things.

Might not be an accurate translation but it still speaks the truth. Unfortunately there aren't many ways of avoiding the future.

Good thing I'll never reach the future, there's only the eternal now
There's one way that I know of which while not technically evading the inexorable grinding misery of entropy, will ensure that you remain blissfully unaware of it.

This problem stems from この先 being able to mean “ahead from here in space”, or in time which (mis)translated to “the future”. Without proper context (that it is a sign on a road) the translation software had to make a guess, and it guessed wrong.

It may be possible to infer from 前へ行く in the second sentence that it is more likely referring to space than time, but I still think it is possible to construct some similar sentences which even humans might misunderstand.

Google Translate is generally hot garbage. I've actually found DeepL surprisingly good especially with more "niche" languages like Finnish, although it does definitely sometimes get things hilariously wrong

It seems like the sign is trying to kill me in this translation.
- Is that DeepL's app? I've never used it so I have no idea what the UI looks like and I didn't try to translate the sign's text with the web version.
  Edit: out of curiosity I tried out how the web version handles this sign:
- I distrust DeepL ever since I found out it translates "irritating" into german as "irritierend" (which means confusing, and is a common mistranslation for obvious reasons). Though I'm sure google translate does similar dumb things.

The AI in the machine is crying for help.

Seppuku mode: activate!

I can read some of those characters. The only word I know in there is "please" though. However, I've only been learning for 13 days.

Those are rather common words so depending on your learning source you should be able to read most of it (enough to understand meaning) in a month or two.
From this picture definitely worth learning first are those words imo:
行く - to go
先 - ahead, first
前 - before, in front (of)
ない - not
この、これ - this (I recommend to look it up because it's little more complicated than 'this')
Remember to be consistent in your studies, it's better to learn for 10 minutes every day than an hour every week.
Good luck in your journey!
- I'm using Duolingo. That should be good enough to start learning, right? I don't expect to be able to read and write all 50,000 kanji through it, but I hope to at least eventually be able to watch Japanese media without subtitles.
- I agree about being able to grasp the gist of the message with some basic Japanese, but IDK about being able to actually read the message.
  　お願い
  　この先は危険ですので、これ以上前へ行かないようお願い致します。
  There are some parts of the message that I don't think is included in basic Japanese lessons:
  危険 → dangerous
  以上 → exceeding, beyond
  行かないよう → probably related to the V+ようだ construction, which with the following bit, might be a polite way of making a request.
  お願い致します → probably some polite way of saying ‘please’
  If I were to translate the message with my meager self-taught Japanese, I'd probably render it as something like
  Request
  Because of the danger ahead, not going beyond here is humbly requested.
  Though I don't think that fully captures the nuance of the message itself.

Me directly addressing reality.

I know Lemmy despises artificial intelligence but how's it fare at this sort of thing?

- Hadn't tried it for Japanese before now but in my experience it's pretty good at European languages, at least the ones I know how to speak.
Lemmy despises artificial intelligence
Nah. A lot of people here are OK with it. It's just that the haters are really vocal about it.

I mean, Japanese is pretty complex, and those tools are not. It'll give an ok translation, but you need an interpreter to really iron these things out

@hypertown

It has gotten better since the days of me posting various "Engrish" I would see that were posted officially on wayfinding signage in places like Tokyo and Shinjuku stations, Haneda Airport, rest areas along the national expressway system and so forth.

When I finally go to Japan I'll be on the quest to collect as many "Engrish" signs as possible! I'm sure some are left!
- @hypertown
  It’s gotten better but only because the translation algorithms are better. But the rabbit hole gets deep real quick too.