Something very strange has been happening with Google Translate and the Finnish language. Finns are trying to figure out why it is that when they translated their names into English in the last few days, they were getting some pretty weird results, as City.fi and other Finnish sites noticed.
BuzzFeed News was alerted to this problem – which now appears to have been at least partially fixed – by Kari Haakana, podcaster, columnist, and the head of services at Yleisradio, part of the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
This is what happened when he typed in his name.
It should say: "I'm Kari Tapani Haakana." But instead it says:
When BuzzFeed News last checked Haakana's name we got the equally strange "I dread my habit".
Something similar happened with a friend of Haakana.
One Finn translated her name and it came out as "I'm a whore."
There's a Finnish meme to let google translate your name, and, well.... google dislikes me apparently
Another got "I'm a joke" although when we tested it, it appeared as "I'm a roaring", which is just as strange.
When you translate your name from finnish to english.....this is bullying google
A whole bunch of Finnish first names got the same treatment.
Definitely not a wise idea to translate Finnish personal names to English with Google Translate 😬 (thanks to… https://t.co/DgHU0hh6jR
This is what happened when someone put in some leading Finnish politicians' names.
Haakana said: "There's no reason anybody can understand. Our names are not dirty in English or anything. I think this is mostly funny/wtf, because there seems to be no reason for this."
Google would not offer an explanation for the problem, but a spokesperson said in a statement: "We're aware of the problem and are working to fix it."