That’s What She Said — The Google Voice Version
I’ve been an avid Google Voice user for at least 7 years now. I got my first US phone from my NY based employer. So when I moved out west I needed a quick way to get a local number without getting into bed with another mobile provider (thank God the days of cellular contracts are behind us).
After choosing a nice local number (that included my name in numerals!), I started benefiting from the other features Voice offered: call screening, email messages for every text sent, and of course, voice mail transcribing.
It’s easy to read 1–2 sentences and decide if you need to listen to the original VM. It also transcribes phone numbers pretty well.
My parents live in Israel, where almost every cell provider now throws in 300-500 minutes of free international calls with any plan (and if that’s not enough to make you envious, an unlimited data/text/voice plan will set you back about $10–20/month, with some going as low as $5/month — no contract). My mom knows my phone is off when I sleep, so she just calls whenever she wants, and leaves a message. In Hebrew, of course.
At first, I’d see Google Voice screens like these in the mornings:
I’d click the Play button, and usually hear my mom asking me to call her.
But then, someone at Google decided it’s time to try and transcribe all messages — even those not in English — as if they were in English.
And that’s when hilarity ensued, and poetry commenced:
Did you give us a call this is the mercy of him?
What she really said: nothing. It was a butt-call (my contact shortcut is on her main screen). She was speaking to my dad for 3 minutes. She did not mention any of the words, or notions mentioned in the “translation”. I was thrilled to know my mom loves the scheduling, was wishing I was still awake (at 12:47am) and had Mercy of him.
What she really said: another whole 3 minutes of butt-call, mostly indecipherable, summarized in one succinct sentence, signifying nothing.
Got that bike to send them into christ
What she really said: הי, רציתי לדעת אם הגעת הביתה בשלום. אם תוכל תתקשר אלינו. נשיקות לשניכם, אמא
Translation: Hi, wanted to know if you made it home safely. Call if you can. Kisses to both of you. Mom.
I was shocked to find out that my mom, an Orthodox Jew, is asking me to send my bike into Christ. Apparently, I also need to set up an annuity — possibly for a bike donation non-profit. The religious theme continued:
What she really said: הי מותק, מדברת אמא. רציתי לשמוע אותך. שיהיה לכם לילה טוב, ונדבר מחר.
Translation: Hi honey, mom speaking. Just wanted to hear your voice. Have a good night the both of you, and we’ll talk tomorrow.
This time, she’s attacking divinity, and someone towed her rental car???
At that point these little GV tidbits became a daily running joke for my girlfriend and me. We’d read them every morning, play the voice message, and try to figure out the connection. Sometimes Hebrew words sounded similar to the “Google Translation”. Sometimes they couldn’t be further from one another. Every time there was absolutely no connection whatsoever between source and result.
I still wasn’t 100% sure if this poetry was the result of a translation software, or were humans involved in trying to transcribe messages. In the first case, either recognize the language, and use the right dictionary; in the second, just get Hebrew speakers to transcribe.
I leaned more towards the first option — software trying to use its existing knowledge base on an incompatible data; while my girlfriend thought someone might be injecting their world-view into messages, or letting their poetic soul surface through strangers’ transcribed messages.
But then I woke up one morning to see this:
What she really said: תתקשר בבקשה
Translation: call please.
Mom? Mom? what have I done to offend you so? And when have you learned to use the F-word?
At this point, I’m leaning more towards a human-driven translation. A very frustrated human. Possibly because they don’t understand Hebrew, or had their divinity attacked, and would definitely like to see Christ on a bike.
