I'm just wondering if they would allow a 'panel' of trusted competent translators who would be willing to help them fix it!

Little by little, so to speak... just to get it up to something decent...

They could gradually add the amendments and after a while we'd actually have a fairly accurate effort.

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Bí cinnte de go nglacfaidh triúr le gach aistriúchán a thabharfar.
Be sure to get three in agreement with a translation given.

The thing is, Google Translate uses statistical translation as it's method. It tends to be a lot better for other languages. The problem with Irish, specifically, I think, is that there is a lot of terrible, terrible stuff on the net, which gets absorbed by Google's translation software.

I believe you but what is wrong about what I got as a response?
I guess I'm asking will you please break it down? What I got and what you got and tell me what is right, what is wrong, and why.....

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Níl mórán Gaeilge agam (fós). Is foghlaimeoir mé...agus is breá liom é!

Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste, ná Béarla cliste.

"I bhfuil" just doesn't make sense. "Bhfuil" is the dependent form of the verb "bí." If you're saying "I have _____," you use the simple present tense: "tá." And I have no idea at all what "i" (in) is doing there.

I'm downstairs on dog-tending duty, and don't have my big dictionaries with me...can anyone out there think of a circumstance in which one would use "i bhfuil"?


You would use "bhfuil" if you were asking IF someone had a toothache, for example: "An bhfuil tinneas fiacaile ort?"


Another problem with the two responses you got are that the first one fails to translate "toothache," and the second fails to put "tooth" in the genitive (you can say "pian i m'fhiacail" or or "pian fiacaile," but "pian fiacail" doesn't work).

Wait for more input on this...as I said, I don't have all my resources to hand.

Redwolf

I appreciate your patience with my ignorance. I've been playing around with the googler with these two simple sentences and it seems the more I try to make it say what it's supposed to say the WORSE it gets... at this point when I put in "I have a tooth ache" what I get is:

Tá tinneas tinneas droma orm fiacaile orm tá tinneas orm

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Níl mórán Gaeilge agam (fós). Is foghlaimeoir mé...agus is breá liom é!

Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste, ná Béarla cliste.

Seán, I think the point here is that Google simply can't translate irish properly, so it is futile even trying to expect it to. One interesting flaw it has is that adding in a full stop at the end of a sentence or a capital letter at the beginning often results in a different translation being returned.

In the above examples, it looks suspiciously like parallel pages in Irish and English were out of synch so that line one in the Irish was equated to line two in the English.

Another problem with the statistical method is that a lot of web content has been translated erroneously by the nascent Google and is now being fed back into the statistical engine, reinforcing the errors.

Google does have a system for humans to input corrrections but after years of trying to fix "meacan dearg", I gave up.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Yeah, I didn't think even think about the feedback issue. I imagine it's fairly prevalent.

Bhuel, so I brought this up ar rang anocht; agus...Bhí sí iarraidh orm níl filleadh a rang Gaeilge aici...

Not begin-ery enough I guess...On the bright side they did start up an intermediate-ish class recently that they asked I put myself in...

So, my reward for asking questions...four hours of grammadach...anois

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Níl mórán Gaeilge agam (fós). Is foghlaimeoir mé...agus is breá liom é!

Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste, ná Béarla cliste.