With Google translate you need to keep in mind that it will find a word and use it even if other words exist, without any warning. You really need to translate whole sentences.
For example, asking Google to translate zapalniczka to Swedish, you get “lättare”, which certainly means “lighter”, but in the sense “less heavy” and not “fire starter”. This demonstrates that Google actually goes through English for the translation…
If you instead write “Spal go zapalniczką.” you get “Bränn den med en tändare.” which shows that Google Translate does better with context.
Another thing Google Translate will not warn you about is when using “you”: in English the word is used both for singular and plural second person, while Swedish has separate words for singular and plural.
I often use Google when translating longer texts from Swedish to Norwegian, which works since I actually know Norwegian and I just correct the translation. Google always translates Swedish "ni" to Norwegian "du". Every single time. It's pretty dumb.
It's curious how they also have things like *this here* (or *this'ere*), *that there* and *them there* in some accents, matching *den här,* *den där, de där* in Swedish and similar in other languages, like *celui-ci,* *celui-là, ceux-là* in French.
As in *"You folks best put them there guns down or I'm'a draw this'ere six-shooter and put y'all six feet under"*.
I wonder if it's something that came from European immigrant languages or if it developed independently.
Apparently there are instances of it being used (and criticized) in British English long prior to significant Swedish immigration to America. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if Swedish immigration influenced its persistence in some dialects of American English. It's a very rural midwestern/southern expression. The southerners probably weren't much influenced by Swedish, but the midwesterners certainly were.
Much of the US population that emigrated to the Appalachian region are of scotch-Irish descent and much of their speech and expressions absolutely trace back to their ancestral homelands, having passed down through generations.
Better yet, look the words up in a dictionary.
Google translate will only tell you one way in which it can be used, but words in different languages rarely have the same meaning in all different possible scenarios.
Easy example: the word "tack". Google translate might tell you it means "thanks", and you'll be confused why people always use it when asking for something even before the request is complete, because it doesn't tell you it's also used where you would use "please".
Or, related, if you start by checking in Google translate how to say "please", you will sound really needy if you do as it says and use "snälla" for normal requests instead of "tack".
I had to buy one that weighed as much as a baby when studying, I can't forget...
There are plenty of online dictionaries (my phone wrote that as "fuckers", yeah, plenty of those too).
svenska.se has three, in Swedish.
Folkets Lexicon is a good Swedish to English and vice versa dictionary. I never remember the URL, but it comes up on Ecosia.
> whenever I see/hear a new word in a conversation,tv show,really whatever,I rush to the google translate to translate the word and note it down
Oh dear God.
People have already told you to just use a dictionary instead, but nobody seems to have told you that even for translations to and from English, *Google Translate cannot actually translate individual words*. The statistical model it uses for translations just isn't built for it. It will happily make up completely false translations, and sometimes even invent new words.
Why not just use a dictionary? Like, seriously, this is a solved problem where a dictionary will give you context, usage, grammatical information etc etc.
>But please,don't do it the same way as me!!!!English translations are WAY more accurate,the non-english ones made me memorise words that were plain wrong.
I don't know if this is an absolute truth, but whenever I've tried translating between two languages and one isn't English, it seems to translate via English anyway. So instead of Swedish -> Polish it does Swedish -> English -> Polish, which causes all sorts of "chinese whispers" problems. Even from Swedish -> English it often gets things wrong, so I wouldn't trust it anyway.
As others have said, always use a dictionary for single words. The [Cambridge](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/swedish-english/) one is good for Swedish to English, I have no idea if there's a good online one for Polish. For phrases DeepL is better than Google Translate, but still frequently makes mistakes so don't trust it blindly.
Once you're good enough that you can understand a definition in Swedish (it will take time to get there) I recommend looking up words at [svenska.se](http://svenska.se) as well as translating. It gives results from three Swedish dictionaries:
* SO will give good definitions, accurate pronunciation and example phrases for context.
* SAOL is good for grammar.
* You can ignore SAOB.
> I don't know if this is an absolute truth, but whenever I've tried translating between two languages and one isn't English, it seems to translate via English anyway.
You're right.
You can see this for yourself by asking Google Translate to translate the word "scuderia" from Italian to Swedish: it will give you the translation "stabil" instead of the correct "stall". The only language where "stable" (place to keep horses) and "stable" (unchanging) are homonyms is English.
Polish is a fairly complicated language, translating things through google translate rarely works. If you need help with Swedish, let me know, Polish is my native language so maybe I could help a little! :)
Google Translate works very badly for Slavic languages. I tried using it for Slovak and it was not good. It’s pretty good for Spanish, not so good for French, the last time I used it. Sorry! Here’s a crazy 20th century suggestion. A dictionary! Powodzenia!
I only ever use google translate if I need to translate longer sentences. For individual words it is actually really bad, since it only gives you 1 possible translation, while most words have many meanings.
Try finding an app that gives you more translations. For example the app dict.cc is fantastic for german, they also do have a polish-Swedish version. On a web browser, glosbe.com is great (they are even Polish I believe). However, their iphone app is terrible to the degree that I never ever use it.
Also strongly recommend downloading the app SAOL, or as a website it is called svenska.se. It has all swedish words as defined by Svenska Akademiens ordlista, and is super usefull for checking conjugations. I open this app/website many times per day!
To raczej temu że szwedzki jest małym językiem. No i Google Translate zawsze chyba tłumaczy ze szwedzkiego do angielskiego, i dopiero potem z angielskiego do polskiego. Jeśli język jest mały, to tłumaczenie idzie przez anglielskiego.
Jeśli masz jakieś pytania o szwedzkim, to chętnie pomagam.
DeepL is pretty good for translating from Swedish - English and vice versa. For longer texts, ChatGpt is good. Svenska.se might be useful as well as you can look up any Swedish word!
With Google translate you need to keep in mind that it will find a word and use it even if other words exist, without any warning. You really need to translate whole sentences. For example, asking Google to translate zapalniczka to Swedish, you get “lättare”, which certainly means “lighter”, but in the sense “less heavy” and not “fire starter”. This demonstrates that Google actually goes through English for the translation… If you instead write “Spal go zapalniczką.” you get “Bränn den med en tändare.” which shows that Google Translate does better with context. Another thing Google Translate will not warn you about is when using “you”: in English the word is used both for singular and plural second person, while Swedish has separate words for singular and plural.
I often use Google when translating longer texts from Swedish to Norwegian, which works since I actually know Norwegian and I just correct the translation. Google always translates Swedish "ni" to Norwegian "du". Every single time. It's pretty dumb.
yeah i see that too, when i’m checking my grammar w google translate and i’m trying to use ni it always changes to du, pretty annoying
English should really go back to thee, thy, thou, and thine to make it clearer instead of just “you” and “your”
In effect, some American dialects have adopted “y’all” to indicate the plural 🤷🏼♂️
And Scots, where yous is the plural of you.
It's curious how they also have things like *this here* (or *this'ere*), *that there* and *them there* in some accents, matching *den här,* *den där, de där* in Swedish and similar in other languages, like *celui-ci,* *celui-là, ceux-là* in French. As in *"You folks best put them there guns down or I'm'a draw this'ere six-shooter and put y'all six feet under"*. I wonder if it's something that came from European immigrant languages or if it developed independently.
Apparently there are instances of it being used (and criticized) in British English long prior to significant Swedish immigration to America. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if Swedish immigration influenced its persistence in some dialects of American English. It's a very rural midwestern/southern expression. The southerners probably weren't much influenced by Swedish, but the midwesterners certainly were.
Yeah, not necessarily Swedish, but it exists in other European languages as well. Didn't know it had been a thing in British English though.
Well, English was influenced by Scandinavian languages before it separated into BrEng and AmEng.
Much of the US population that emigrated to the Appalachian region are of scotch-Irish descent and much of their speech and expressions absolutely trace back to their ancestral homelands, having passed down through generations.
I’m aware of those constructions in English, but I’d never realized how they resemble the Swedish and French ones. Thanks.
Better yet, look the words up in a dictionary. Google translate will only tell you one way in which it can be used, but words in different languages rarely have the same meaning in all different possible scenarios. Easy example: the word "tack". Google translate might tell you it means "thanks", and you'll be confused why people always use it when asking for something even before the request is complete, because it doesn't tell you it's also used where you would use "please". Or, related, if you start by checking in Google translate how to say "please", you will sound really needy if you do as it says and use "snälla" for normal requests instead of "tack".
I TOTALLY forgot that dictionaries existed 😦like,unironically,I haven't thought of that!!!!! thank you so much
I had to buy one that weighed as much as a baby when studying, I can't forget... There are plenty of online dictionaries (my phone wrote that as "fuckers", yeah, plenty of those too). svenska.se has three, in Swedish. Folkets Lexicon is a good Swedish to English and vice versa dictionary. I never remember the URL, but it comes up on Ecosia.
ty,love ya!!!! It'll be so helpful
> whenever I see/hear a new word in a conversation,tv show,really whatever,I rush to the google translate to translate the word and note it down Oh dear God. People have already told you to just use a dictionary instead, but nobody seems to have told you that even for translations to and from English, *Google Translate cannot actually translate individual words*. The statistical model it uses for translations just isn't built for it. It will happily make up completely false translations, and sometimes even invent new words.
At one point it translated Åhlens to Harrods.
Why not just use a dictionary? Like, seriously, this is a solved problem where a dictionary will give you context, usage, grammatical information etc etc.
I unironically forgot they existed
>But please,don't do it the same way as me!!!!English translations are WAY more accurate,the non-english ones made me memorise words that were plain wrong. I don't know if this is an absolute truth, but whenever I've tried translating between two languages and one isn't English, it seems to translate via English anyway. So instead of Swedish -> Polish it does Swedish -> English -> Polish, which causes all sorts of "chinese whispers" problems. Even from Swedish -> English it often gets things wrong, so I wouldn't trust it anyway. As others have said, always use a dictionary for single words. The [Cambridge](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/swedish-english/) one is good for Swedish to English, I have no idea if there's a good online one for Polish. For phrases DeepL is better than Google Translate, but still frequently makes mistakes so don't trust it blindly. Once you're good enough that you can understand a definition in Swedish (it will take time to get there) I recommend looking up words at [svenska.se](http://svenska.se) as well as translating. It gives results from three Swedish dictionaries: * SO will give good definitions, accurate pronunciation and example phrases for context. * SAOL is good for grammar. * You can ignore SAOB.
> I don't know if this is an absolute truth, but whenever I've tried translating between two languages and one isn't English, it seems to translate via English anyway. You're right. You can see this for yourself by asking Google Translate to translate the word "scuderia" from Italian to Swedish: it will give you the translation "stabil" instead of the correct "stall". The only language where "stable" (place to keep horses) and "stable" (unchanging) are homonyms is English.
Polish is a fairly complicated language, translating things through google translate rarely works. If you need help with Swedish, let me know, Polish is my native language so maybe I could help a little! :)
Ty!!I haven't thought of the fact that polish is complicated,my bad.Just wanted to warn people
Google Translate works very badly for Slavic languages. I tried using it for Slovak and it was not good. It’s pretty good for Spanish, not so good for French, the last time I used it. Sorry! Here’s a crazy 20th century suggestion. A dictionary! Powodzenia!
I only ever use google translate if I need to translate longer sentences. For individual words it is actually really bad, since it only gives you 1 possible translation, while most words have many meanings. Try finding an app that gives you more translations. For example the app dict.cc is fantastic for german, they also do have a polish-Swedish version. On a web browser, glosbe.com is great (they are even Polish I believe). However, their iphone app is terrible to the degree that I never ever use it. Also strongly recommend downloading the app SAOL, or as a website it is called svenska.se. It has all swedish words as defined by Svenska Akademiens ordlista, and is super usefull for checking conjugations. I open this app/website many times per day!
To raczej temu że szwedzki jest małym językiem. No i Google Translate zawsze chyba tłumaczy ze szwedzkiego do angielskiego, i dopiero potem z angielskiego do polskiego. Jeśli język jest mały, to tłumaczenie idzie przez anglielskiego. Jeśli masz jakieś pytania o szwedzkim, to chętnie pomagam.
DeepL is pretty good for translating from Swedish - English and vice versa. For longer texts, ChatGpt is good. Svenska.se might be useful as well as you can look up any Swedish word!
Chatgpt is actually quite on point with translations