Scratch-gui: What should `translate (join (apple) (banana)) to (<language other than english>)` do?

[kchadha]

Expected Behavior

Plugging in blocks into translate block with a language other than the viewer's language selected should translate that phrase into the selected language.

Actual Behavior

This is really a question about what the translate block should do if it fails to translate a phrase.

The following combination of blocks (composed of unchanged blocks found in the toolbox) results in 'applebanana' in English.

This feels a little broken, especially since it still translates to a string in English. Maybe this should result in the empty string, indicating that a translation for that phrase in the desired language could not be found.

[AmazingMech2418]

@kchadha That is normal since you can't translate a word that doesn't exist in a certain language like applebanana which isn't even a word in English. Only words that exist would translate. It registers as a name since it doesn't exist in the language.

[kchadha]

Update: @ericrosenbaum and I noticed during lunch that this has varying support depending on the language selected in the dropdown menu. For example:

[kyleplo]

I think if there is a translation, it should be returned, and otherwise a blank string will be returned.

[AmazingMech2418]

@kyleplo What about names then? What if a user decides to name their account applebanana?

[AmazingMech2418]

@kyleplo Also, what if a real name is in the translated text?

[kchadha]

@amazinigmech2418, that's a good point about proper names. Unfortunately, the inconsistency between languages makes it a little more confusing (e.g. the string does get translated in some languages but not in others), but yeah, I am not sure that this is something that necessarily has a better solution than what exists now.

[AmazingMech2418]

@kchadha Thank you. I think there should be a way to add settings to the extension so you can add names to the settings, so it won't translate any configured names. Also, there could be blocks for the settings if no settings menu is added for the google translate extension, or just to add to it.

Note: The edit was because I accidentally said "you're welcome" instead of "thank you".

[picklesrus]

Just a note on the technical side: "applebanana" is what the translate api returns for that query and many other made up words just return the original as well. If we did want to return the empty string instead, I don't see any score in the response that we could use to help make that decision.

This is my new favorite example of this :-D

[chexbox]

The real issue is with the join block. It should by default be (like in 2.0) (join (string ) (string)) instead of (join (string) (string)) (the second has no space after apple).

[kyleplo]

@chexbox I like that change because it forces new users to learn that the space isn't automatic.

[kyleplo]

@picklesrus In Japanese, "blorp" translates to "broken"

[picklesrus]

@kyleplo Indeed. Google translate returns "broken" spelled out in Katakana. I don't know enough Japanese to know why though. I was hoping maybe it was an onomatopoeia, but I can't find any evidence to support that.

[fsih]

That's a valid translation of broken in Japanese. A lot of Japanese words are basically English :p

[ericrosenbaum]

I've filed an issue to change the default values in the join block so they report two words with a space in between, and I'm going to close this one.

https://github.com/LLK/scratch-gui/issues/3108