3/5/2022

Google Translate needs work. Perhaps my expectations are too high, but I want to provide an example where Google Translate screwed the pooch.

Kia peza ŝarĝaĵo ke Dio metis sur homoj! Mi vidis tutaj da aferojn klopodis sube la suno; Ĉioj estas sensencaj, kiel ĉasado la vento.

That quote is from the Book of Ecclesiastes, first half of 1:13 and and all of 1:14.

What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Google Translate, on the other hand, returned this:

What a heavy burden God has placed on people! I saw a whole lot of things the sun was trying to do; It's all nonsense, like hunting the wind.

The first sentence is fine. Using "saw" instead of "have seen" is also fine, except using "tutaj" means "all", not "a whole lot" which would have been correct if I used "multaj" but I didn't use it.
Note the "j" is pronounced like an English "y", words are pluralized by adding a "j" at the end, and there's agreement between adjectives and nouns when it comes to whether they are plural or singular. "blanka hundo" means "white dog", while "blankaj hundoj" means "white dogs", for example.

"Mi vidis tutaj da aferojn klopodis sube la suno" should be "I have seen all the things that are done under the sun". The verb "klopodi" translates as "to undertake" which, IMO, is just a fancier version of "fari" or "to do". In this case, the sun wasn't trying to do anything.
Maybe this is my mistake for not using the accusative on "suno" to make it the object of the verb since it follows "sube". "Sube" means "under" or "beneath" and the "e" at the end denotes it's being used as an adverb rather than an adjective. Yet when I tweak it in Google Translate here's what I get:

Mi vidis tutaj da aferojn klopodis sube la sunon;

I saw a whole lot of things trying to get under the sun;

Sigh.

Mi vidis tutaj da aferojn klopodis sub la suno;

I saw a lot of things trying under the sun;

Deeper sigh.

Especially since the verbs "peni" and "provi" both translate as try, except "peni" is a stronger attempt at trying. Akin to strive which is "strebi" in Esperanto. Fun aside: the preterite of "peni" in Esperanto is "penis" except it's pronounced "peh-NEES" not like penis in English.

And then there's "ĉasado". "Ĉasi" means chase but also hunt. The "-ad-" suffix indicates an ongoing action like chasing.

Maybe my Esperanto isn't as good as I'd like to believe. Let's check out the actual translation of this Bible verse from a Bible in Esperanto! Here's the full verse.

Kaj mi decidis en mia koro esplori kaj ekzameni per la saĝo ĉion, kio fariĝsas sub la ĉielo: ĉi tiun malfacilan okupon Dio donis al la homidoj, por ke ili turmentiĝu per ĝi. Mi vidis ĉiujn aferojn, kiuj fariĝas sub la suno; kaj jen, ĉio estas vantaĵo kaj entreprenoj ventaj.

And it was in mine heart that I should seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

I attempted a literal translation. Whomever translated the most recent version was going for, pun intended(?), the spirit of the quote.

Anyway this occupied my thoughts while I worked on Friday while I was trying to keep it together since I kept having these moments where everything in life felt helpless and futile leading me to dire thoughts and getting choked up in an existential fashion.
I learned of this quote because I found myself going down a rabbit hole reading up on the Japanese concept of "mono no aware" translates as "the pathos of things", an idiom for the impermanence of things, wistfulness, or literally "the aah-ness of things".