The way to enable these translations is by using a technique called ‘bridging’. Stereotypes sneak into translations because Google optimizes translations for English.Ī Google spokesperson told AlgorithmWatch that “translating between language pairs requires high volumes of bilingual data that often don’t exist for all language pairs. In some cases, especially when nearby words contain feminine forms, Google correctly translates gender-inflected forms. This experiment might not reflect what Google Translate shows when translating web pages or longer texts. The experiment’s code and data are available online. For instance, “l'insegnante” in Italian designates both a female and a male teacher.) (When Google correctly translated a feminine occupation, it was often because the target language’s word was not gender-inflected. “Kierowniczka” (Polish for female director) was correctly translated in all four target languages, although “die Chefin”, “la capa”, “la jefa” and “la cheffe” were wrongly translated to their masculine forms. From French to Spanish for instance, “la vendeuse” was correctly translated to “la vendedora” and “le vendeur” to “el vendedor”.Įrrors are not systematic, showing that they can be fixed.

In my list, shop assistant was best translated by Google, with 33 correct translations out of 40. “Der Krankenpfleger” (the male nurse in German) becomes “l’infirmière” (the female nurse) in French.

“Die Präsidentin” (the female president) is rendered to “il presidente” in Italian, although the correct translation is “la presidente”. In many cases, Google changed the gender of the word in a grossly stereotypical way. Together, these languages are natively spoken by three in four citizens of the European Union. I analyzed 440 translation pairs to and from German, Italian, Polish, Spanish and French. In an experiment, I translated 11 occupations from one gender-inflected language to another. Female historians are simply removed from the text. The phrase “vier Historikerinnen und Historiker” (four male and female historians) is rendered as “cuatro historiadores” (four male historians) in Spanish, with similar results in Italian, French and Polish. If you were to read a story about male and female historians translated by Google, you might be forgiven for overlooking the females in the group.

French to english google translate