Google Translate pronounces 'rooster' in Spanish | Hacker News Reader

Google Translate pronounces 'rooster' in Spanish

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238 pointsik8s105 comments

Could be some kind of joke/Easter egg.

In spanish "Gallo" is also used to refer to that high pitch that sometimes comes randomly when speaking, more commonly in male teenagers. Which is similar to what's happening here.

In English that’s called a voice crack.

Also called "Passaggio" if it's on purpose :)

As a side-note, "In English" is too broad as the English spoken in the US, Australia and the UK is all different. I always felt it would be better if people specified their location rather than the mother-language when talking about what something is called in English. Same for Spanish as well, as different words mean different things depending on if you're in Spain, Argentina or any other Spanish-speaking country.

As a non-native. Isn't it assumed 'english', means uk english, and anything localised is 'australian english....indian english', etc? I've even heard of 'scottish english'.

It really depends on where you are, I think in Europe the English taught at school and considered the regular one is British English, but if you take movies/series/music, the broader one is US English.

In Romania at least, the English taught in school is American English, not British English.

I think it's the same in Scandinavia.

I suppose this depends on your school/teacher. Our English teacher went out of her way to always teach proper (British) English and point out any differences with American English sometimes with an history lesson added.

How many differences are there really?

Quite a few. Spelling and pronunciation are quite different, and also a bunch of words and idioms that don't match.

Not enough to prevent mutual understanding, but it can get close. As an American, if I haven't watched any British TV for a while and try, there's a good few minutes where I have to listen to most of it twice to be able to understand what was said.

Considering that the English-language web is almost completely occupied by USians, it would be hilarious if they were required to finally declare that they speak ‘American’ and not ‘English’.

> Considering that the English-language web is almost completely occupied by USians

"Almost completely"? Nowhere close. About two thirds of native speakers (maybe a little more of those on the web, but not much), and not even half of all English speakers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s...

This is self-reported. Consider that 90% of Croatians reported they speak English, but this is mostly the level required to guide a tourist to the closest bar around ;)

EDIT: my bad, you were talking about native speakers.

EDIT2: well, no, my point still stands: the Total includes self-reported and vastly inaccurate additional language speakers. But based on how US is 2/3 of all native speakers, and that there's definitely many fluent-English secondary-language speakers out there, US is definitely not dominating English-language web.

Try searching for any life knowledge on the English web without specifying the country. E.g. home repairs: I'm pretty sure Brits don't live in those funny cardboard houses.

The underlying distribution doesn't matter when there's more activity from one stratum. The same way how it doesn't matter that the ‘average age’ of a Reddit user is in the twenties, when each teen on there posts and comments every ten seconds.

I don't know where Brits, Australians and English-speakers from all other countries are hiding, but they probably just use local communities away from the annoying USians. English web that you find by default is US-centric. English Wikipedia even has a special maintenance plaque for articles that are US-specific and should probably be rewritten someday—could as well just slap a sign like that on the whole English web.

When I see complaints on this very site about Californians assuming by default that everything is in California, I laugh heartily, tingling all over with schadenfreude.

> Considering that the English-language web is almost completely occupied by USians, it would be hilarious if they were required to finally declare that they speak ‘American’ and not ‘English’.

For what it's worth, I have always described the language I speak as 'American', and it confuses people no end. ("Don't you mean 'English'?")

I find a similar response whenI say United Statesians either. The sentence "United Statesians speak American" could trigger a few people I know.

Gotta say, I can see the dissonance there: you use the specific ‘name’ for the country, but the two continents for the language.

That's a good point. Even as someone who calls my language American and refers myself a USian in conversation, I do think I'd have trouble calling the language I speak USian—but, as you point out, calling it American is painting with a very broad brush indeed. Maybe "USian English" is clearest.

Not at all. It usually means that the person writing that assumes it's a common thing globally.

UK English being "proper" hasn't been a thing for decades now. Compare news reports in former British colonies from the 60s to now and you can literally hear the change in attitude toward's the "Queen's English".

No.

English has always been gloriously open source, and anyone can fork it. It is not owned by anyone and words mean exactly what you intend them to mean, and no-one can tell you otherwise. And you can spell or pronounce words just how you like, despite what they told you at school.

That said, your social group may set its own expectations, and you may want to fall in line, say in your job application.

So if what you speak is based on English, it's English (in my opinion - and by the way I am English).

Oh, and Shakespeare would have spoken with an accent more like an American than I do. But don't tell film makers, our actors need the work.

> Oh, and Shakespeare would have spoken with an accent more like an American than I do.

Would you explain what you mean by this, I'm very curious.

AE conserves features of early modern English, like rhoticity.

I read about the reasons somewhere, but basically it is a general phenomenon where colonists lock in the habits and culture of their homeland as they remember it, and are more resistant to natural change.

There is also some conjecture that certain regional English in america, namely the Ozark region retained some Shakespearean/Elizabethan words and pronunciations and phrases due to its geographic seclusion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_in_Original_Pronun...

Is there anywhere in the English-speaking world where a voice crack is called differently?

In general, the various flavors of English that you showed are extremely close to each other, especially when looking at the standard/official language from each country (which is implied when you say American English or Australian English). There is much more variation in more localized versions of the language, such as Cockney.

This explanation matches what my Mexican wife just said to me when I showed her the link.

Same in Greek (though we use the Greek word for "rooster", obviously). I've found that Greek and Spanish oddly share many, many idioms.

Greek is one of the bases of most western languages. You'd be surprised by the amount of words that derive from Greek in Portuguese. Here's a thousand of them for starters:

https://www.dicio.com.br/palavras-origem-grega/

But it's not just the words, it's the idioms. There isn't much of a basis for voice cracks to be called "roosters" in both languages.

Worth pointing out that modern Greek has borrowed a lot of words from other languages, including the Romance languages. For instance, the color grey is 'γκρίζος/grizos', from the Romance language words for gray (the more ancient alternatives would be πολῐός/polios and φαιός/fios, with only the latter surviving to modern times). I assume 'γαλάζιο/galazio' is somehow related to Spanish/French azul/azur as well, but can't find any sources.

And as an Spanish speaker, I've found that, oddly, Greek people "sound" exactly like Spaniards. In the sense that you would swear they are Spanish and yet you don't understand a word, it's uncanny! Is it the same for you guys, the other way around?

Yep, nobody in Spain ever believes that I can't really speak good Spanish, because I sound like a native. I had a friend pronounce Greek words transliterated to Spanish, and he sounded like a native as well.

There are a few minute differences, like the "s" sound being a bit farther forward in Spanish, or the "rr" in Spanish being rolled twice (in Greek it's only rolled once), or Greek having a "z" sound (which Castillan accents don't have), but largely it's more or less identical.

Langfocus: Why Does Greek Sound Like Spanish?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPMqoHPJzac

He also has one about Portuguese vs. Russian/Polish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pik2R46xobA

And extreme syllable-timed language family (opposite of these) are languages Tagalog, Malay, Indonesian. EVERY syllable is pronounced and it becomes a mouthful but there's a strict cadence that comes from it. Foreign words break it a bit but native words are "ma-ka-ba-la-bu-sa-ng-ah-ga-ta-na..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6BtThH53PQ

In the same way, Brazilian Portuguese sounds eerily like a made-up language pronounced in Russian, for a Russian ear. Many Indo-European languages are very similar phonetically, despite being completely different in every other way.

It's nice how similar our pronunciation is. Even if you don't understand the words, you feel like you could write them and make few mistakes.

It is exactly the same for me (native spanish). I hear greek and it takes me a second to be sure it is not Spanish.

Even talking to greeks in English sometimes a random Spanish word pops out in Spanish (rarely happens in general).

In Mexico high schools we have a class that is called "Greek/Latin Ethimology" (Etimologías Grecolatinas, and most people in high school go through this book: https://www.amazon.com.mx/ETIMOLOGIAS-GRECOLATINAS-DEL-ESPA%...)

There's a huge amount of influence of Greek in Spanish, so I am not surprised idioms are shared as well. (Spanish is kind of amazing in that it has Latin and Greek roots, but also has a lot of Arabic words like Ojalá, Camisa, azúcar, guitarra, blusa, pantalon, fulano, rehen, tarea, etc...

Albahaca is my latest favorite.

Isn't that from Arabic?

Yah. Their last sentence was trailing off a list of Arabic loan words.

Ahh okay, I somehow missed that, thanks.

Same in Russian, rooster (petooh) is used for high pitched voice crack. "Made a rooster".

I am from Latin America and I never heard it. Is this something used in Spain?

At least in Mexico it is used.

As a Mexican male, I heard that a lot during puberty. The expression is usually "se te salió un gallo" ("you let out a rooster").

I have heard "gallito" in Latino America.

it's used in Colombia too

Try the English pronunciation: https://www.google.com/search?q=cock%20a%20doodle%20doo%20in...

The Spanish translation is amazing

There are two Spanish pronunciations. What am I missing here?

"polla un garabato doo" is the literal translation. "garabato" means "doodle", "doo" doesn't have a translation, "polla" means "cock", but surprisingly, the totally slang way of "cock" as in dick or penis.

The correct translation is "¡qui-qui-ri-quí!" which is the sound a rooster makes.

This is fun. meow, argh, moo, chirp, ribbet.

What the hell: boom, bang, kaboom, ahoy, yippee ki yay.

Is it just me or does it seem to last a bit longer on every second play?

Just tested with a few common languages, and it seems like the pronunciations alternate. Both sound silly in this case, but one much more so.

I think it does that for any translation term, I guess so that people can click again to hear it pronounced very clearly.

I think this is a Google Translate feature, and one of my favorite examples of "Do what I mean" UX. If you click again, for any word, it guesses that you didn't get the pronunciation the first time, so it speaks slowly. This is what humans would do too, in this situation.

what a marvelous bit of UX.

Yes, the second one is slowed down to help you hear it better. It does this for all playback in Translate.

It sounds right if you open it in google translate: https://translate.google.com/?sl=en&tl=es&text=rooster&op=tr...

(The original link ends up trying to translate the actual English word "rooster" from Spanish to Danish when I open it. Thanks Google.)

strange, so they're not using the same voice model depending on the page. This model sounds more "mechanical", even though it's definitely better here

That’s hilarious and I don’t often stumble across something that makes me giggle out loud.

Seems to use the same uh, emphatic pronunciation so long as "gallo" is at the end of the translation sentence. Any text with something after "gallo" sounds more normal.

Reminded me of Señor Chang

He was at least an excellent spanish teacher, who can't be killed.

A spanish genius

What's interesting about this? I don't know Spanish.

It's pronounced correctly but she seems to be pronouncing it in a kind of strangely enthusiastic sort of lilt

The TTS sounds drunk on the spanish side.

The tone is really...enthusiastic? Try listening to gallos ("roosters") for comparison.

In Spanish, voice cracks in male teens are called "gallos". The AI sounds just like one :)

That’s hilarious! Totally intentional.

Doesn't happen unless on desktop website. App and mobile won't play it

There's some videos where it seems to reproduce in the mobile version of Google Maps. See:

https://www.portaldecadiz.com/provinciacadiz/63098-video-est...

Thank you. I was listening to a normal pronunciation on mobile and was very confused until I saw this video.

It does the same for "pico de gallo", with comic effect. (But not "gallo pinto".)

translating pico de gallo into various languages is fun. Most are untranslated other than a different accent. But a few are unique... Like french https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&sl=es&tl=fr&text=pico+de...

Weird, making the english side be "Gayo" makes it pronounce correctly. As does adding a ? at the end of Rooster.

If you make the english side 'rooster house' the glitch is still present.

It's not a double LL problem either. 'Shut up' works fine.

The mobile app doesn’t do this (and sounds totally normal).

I wonder if it's a real person or an AI?

Probably a person?

If you extend the query [0], the pronunciation seems right (not a speaker, though) and it seems to be a different voice.

EDIT: A sister comment mentioned it is due to it being the end of a sentence. The bug (?) does indeed persist if the word is at the end of a sentence.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=rooster+eating+a+pizza+in+sp...

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=pizza+eating+a+rooster+in+sp...

Try clicking the speaker icon (to play audio) a few times, it's alternating the voice/accent/tone (I don't know the term).

It's actually just slowing down the audio the second time you click it. I assume so that you can hear the pronunciation a bit better.

It's an AI. You can see that the endpoint is TTS. Also, props to Google for getting it so good that people think its a human voice.

For another Easter egg: google “recursive’

Did you mean [Recursion]: https://www.google.com/search?q=Recursion

I don't hear anything special for both words?

He wrote "google" instead of "translate" so I think he was referring to the fact that Google keeps asking

> Did you mean: Recursion

when you search for "Recursion" so you can click on that search suggestion and follow it forever.

Just my interpretation of the comment and what I found though.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Recursion

Google "askew" :)

Thank you for mentioning that, made me smile!

Edit: Is there a list of such things?

Google ”anagram”

Here is one list of Google search Easter eggs: https://searchengineland.com/the-big-list-of-google-easter-e...

(Some might be obsolete.)

Not a direct comparable, but Yahoo! used to show a second search box in the results above the "real" results" for the (shockingly many; I don't recall the numbers, but when I worked at Yahoo 2003-2005 it was a not insubstantial number) users who would do a yahoo search for Google to do their actual search, to try to get them to do their actual search at Yahoo instead of clicking through.

The notion of some of them getting stuck in a loop is more amusing to me than it should be.

If you type in chicken it will give a different annunciation.

I didn't expect to laugh midnight like this. Thanks.

It is in japanese for me because that is my default setting.

Google translates politically correct sentences only: https://photos.app.goo.gl/KzyMWvVyJDLo3DC58

I was wondering about that. I was trying to translate the equivalent of "What the fuck did you just fucking say about me" the other day, and it came out surprisingly wholesome when reverse translated.

Is there an urban dictionary equivalent of google translate anywhere? Maybe whatever Microsoft does...

Google seems to have locked common swear words to their real meanings. It was popular pasttime to teach Google to translate them into politicians' names. For example "Dickhead" was the longest time "Kekkonen".

Can't reproduce. A link to your google translate page would be nice. I get "As a general murmur and some clown trial would end in time petty embarrassed"

https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&text=Yle-m%C3%B6...

And here the archive.is snapshot https://archive.is/hXIEW which shows yet something different...

First word was a (leftist) trigger-word. Somebody made a great effort to teach Google to not translate any sentences containing it. This issue has now been corrected, when it became public.

Ahh ok thx for the info

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