Google Translate - keeps switching to Japanese

[Moshen]

I am using Google translate on my Android phone to read aloud particular words or passages in a print Chinese book that I want to focus on.

 

From time to time I will highlight a couple of characters and click "listen" and then it sounds to me very much like Japanese rather than Chinese.  If I then enlarge the highlight to include a couple more characters it will then read all those characters in Chinese, correctly.

 

Is there any way to stop Google Translate from giving me the Japanese pronunciation when I am trying to have it read in Chinese??

[Demonic_Duck]

Do you mean the web version? Or the standalone app? Or a version integrated into some other app, e.g. Gboard? If it's the app version, are you using screen overlay functionality to highlight text or copy-pasting into the app?

 

I'm not aware of this issue occurring in the web version, at least if the source language is set to Chinese (as opposed to "automatically detect").

 

It'd probably also help if you gave some examples of words where you get this issue.

[cncorrect]

I don't use the application. But learning a Chinese song may be a more efficient way to master the pronunciation and rhythm of the language.

[Moshen]

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Do you mean the web version? Or the standalone app? Or a version integrated into some other app, e.g. Gboard? If it's the app version, are you using screen overlay functionality to highlight text or copy-pasting into the app?

 

On my Android phone, using the downloadable Google Translate app.  Within a "Google Lens" picture of a Chinese page of text, I am highlighting a word or phrase and clicking the button "Listen."  I will try to take a screenshot the next time it happens, but I don't think an example would be helpful because it seems pretty random.  I do this when I can't recognize a word or place name.

 

Within the web version of Google Translate I've had it happen also, but less often, even when I have the language set to Simplified Chinese.

 

OK, here is an example.  In the screenshot, I highlighted a word that should be pronounced "suoshi" but the voice - and it's not the regular Chinese voice - it's softer and more feminine than the regular Chinese voice - says instead "sashi."  However, if I then highlight a few extra words along with what should be "suoshi" in Chinese, it gets pronounced correctly.  You can see in the screenshot that I have "Chinese" selected as the source language.

 

[cncorrect]

On 11/20/2023 at 5:33 PM, Moshen said:

it's softer and more feminine than the regular Chinese voice - says instead "sashi."

I don't think it's the Japanese pronunciation of '唆使'. I believe it is just an inaccurate pronunciation generated by the web application.

[Moshen]

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I don't think it's the Japanese pronunciation

 

That was the only example I could give right away.  Other examples are much more obvious, for instance when they give a three-syllable pronunciation for a word that has just two Chinese characters.  I know what Japanese sounds like, even though I don't speak it, and I'm fairly sure they're giving me a Japanese version at times.