[akolbe]

What's remarkable is how good machine translation (DeepL, Google Translate) has become at handling idiomatic expressions in recent years. Still not perfect, of course (there's still the odd clanger), but anyone trying to do the same task today would fare considerably better.

[gherkinnn]

I disagree. I can't speak for Deepl, but Google remains terrible at idioms. Give the phrase "There's mud all over the shop." a try.

[pbhjpbhj]

>Give the phrase "There's mud all over the shop." a try. //

In which dialect of English is that an idiomatic expression? Never heard it before (en-gb native). What's the interpreted meaning??

[hoseja]

There's a problem that this is a perfectly fine phrase that depends heavily on context. Are you in the middle of complaining about the state the night shift left your establishment in? Probably not an idiomatic use then.

[AntoniusBlock]

`all over the shop' meaning all over the place, not literally all over a shop/store which is what Google Translate and DeepL translate it as. It's British and Irish.

[kwhitefoot]

".. all over the shop" is a perfectly ordinary British Isles idiom. Perhaps more widespread than that.

[pbhjpbhj]

Yes, "all over the shop" is an adverbial expression meaning someone/something was haphazard, lacking in control, or behaving unusually.

"Messi [a footballer] was all over the shop"

might be said if he was regularly out of position in match, or performed uncharacteristically unskillfully. The verb is implied here.

If you say "mud was all over the shop" then the only interpretation I know is that a literal shop has mud over [the inside of] it. That's not idiomatic; it's just plain language.

It could work if you were talking about mud doing something unexpected; maybe a misbehaving oil well.

What's your interpretation of the full expression "there's mud all over the shop"?

[kwhitefoot]

> What's your interpretation of the full expression "there's mud all over the shop"?

Unless the conversation already included references to a building where one buys things it would just mean "there's mud all over the place".

[pbhjpbhj]

Which isn't an idiomatic expression; my original point.

[wheybags]

Makes sense to me, I'm Irish

[Aardwolf]

What if you actually want to literally translate "There's mud all over the shop"?

[gherkinnn]

And this is where I found translation services to fall apart.

I worry a lot of language getting will be lost in an effort to reduce it to something a machine can handle.

[denton-scratch]

I think in that context, it's already literal. "All over the shop" as an idiom means disorganized, chaotic. I don't use it to mean "all over the place" in the sense of something pervading some location.

[Tade0]

Google search can't seem to find this phrase. What does it mean?

[loudgas]

“all over the shop” is another way of saying “all over the place” in the UK

Sources:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/all%20over%20the%...

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/all+over+the+shop

[nojs]

“All over the shop” means “everywhere”, maybe that’s what they mean?

[carlosjobim]

How can you disagree if you then instantly disqualify your own opinion? DeepL is on a whole other level than Google, they aren't even comparable in quality. Try yourself if you are curious.

[googlryas]

Is that your own idiom? Literally never heard it before and I collect idioms.

[loudgas]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/all%20over%20the%...

[googlryas]

Ah, ok, I thought the mud was an integral part of the idiom

[dbspin]

It's common in Ireland.

[ragazzina]

"I went inside the place/bar, and there was mud all over the shop" gets translated correctly by DeepL. With restaurant/home/office/stables, it fails.

[astrange]

The test sentence I usually use is “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”

Google EN->JP doesn’t get it right, and also oddly translates the two sentences into different politeness levels.

[moloch-hai]

"Don't stick a bee in the mud."

[akolbe]

DeepL gives you the following for "There's mud all over the shop":

"Der ganze Laden ist voller Schlamm." (German)

But if you place the cursor on "Laden" ("shop") it'll offer you alternatives including "Ort" ("place", i.e.: "There is mud all over the place"). The problem here is that what's meant depends on context: if you are a shopkeeper speaking after a downpour, your entire shop might indeed be full of mud your customers have dragged in. (Moreover, "der ganze Laden" can be used in German in much the same way as "all over the shop" in English, i.e. referring to any sort of building or establishment.)

More to the point perhaps, here is the output DeepL produces for the Portuguese phrases quoted in the table of "Phrase examples":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_She_Is_Spoke#Phrase...

1. "Walls have ears. Alternatives: The walls have ears. Walls do have ears." (1:0 for DeepL.)

2. "He rides pussycats. Alternatives: Walk with pussycats. Come on, pussycat. He's got pussy." (1:1. BIG FAIL.)

3. "Is the road safe? Alternatives: How safe is the road? Is the road safe ? Is the road safe for you? (2:1 for DeepL.)

4. "He can ride a horse. Alternatives: He knows how to ride a horse. You can ride a horse. You know how to ride a horse. (3:1 for DeepL. Note that the Portuguese can indeed mean either "you" or "he".)

5. "He who remains silent consents. Alternatives: He who is silent is consenting. He who is silent is consented. Those who keep silent consent." (4:1 for DeepL.)

6. "What does he do? Alternatives: What is he doing? What's he doing? What does it do?" (5:1 for DeepL.)

7. "I feel like vomiting." Alternatives: I feel like throwing up. I feel like puking." (6:1 for DeepL.)

8. "This lake looks pretty fishy to me. Let's go fishing for fun." (Not brilliant. 6:2.)

9. "The servant ploughed the royal ground." (Acceptable. "Earth", "land", "soil" etc. offered as alternatives when you click on "ground". 7:2.)

10. "I know what I should do or what is incumbent upon me." (Acceptable. Offers "what is my responsibility" when you click on "incumbent". 8:2 for DeepL.)

11. "I earned more than thirty thousand réis. Alternatives: I earned over thirty thousand réis. I won more than thirty thousand réis. I won over thirty thousand réis." (Perfect. 9:2 for DeepL.)

12. "Did you understand or did you understand what I said? Alternatives: Did you understand what I said? Did you understand me? (Perfect. 10:2 for DeepL. Note that the repeition is there in the Portuguese: it ask the same thing twice, in two past tense forms that aren't distinguished in English (formal/informal forms).)

13. "He's a good sport, as far as I can see. Look how I've tamed him." (I don't think the translation in Wikipedia is all that brilliant. "From what I see, he kicks"?? Alternatives offered by DeepL when clicking on "good sport" include: "He's got balls from what I can see. Look how I've tamed him." Inconclusive. Let's call it 10.5 : 2.5.)

So, not perfect, but a lot less funny than "English as She Is Spoke".

[kwhitefoot]

Shop in this context does not mean a place where you buy things, it most likely meant workshop originally but in this idiomatic phrase it just means place.

[akolbe]

Which was kind of my point – DeepL knows that (sometimes). In the above case ("mud all over the shop"), it offers you "place" ("Ort") as an alternative translation for "shop". So it seems to have some inkling that an actual shop may not be what is meant. This means it's up to the user to decide which it is, which to me seems fair enough.

(In other sentences using this idiom, however, DeepL does fail miserably. If you ask it to translate, "There's blooming flowers all over the bloody shop ...", e.g., the results are not pretty. So, yeah. Some way to go.)

[kwhitefoot]

> "There's blooming flowers all over the bloody shop ...", e.g., the results are not pretty.

Well said, love it!

[frozenlettuce]

another good test is "Steve Jobs was fired from Apple"

[akolbe]

FWIW, DeepL gets that one consistently right:

Steve Jobs fue despedido de Apple. O Steve Jobs foi despedido da Apple. Steve Jobs a été renvoyé d'Apple. Steve Jobs wurde von Apple gefeuert. Steve Jobs werd ontslagen bij Apple.

Google Translate too (very similar results).