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This question is from the point of view of moderation.

just say this "gaman shiteimasu. jibun no chikara de gambatte hoshii desu kara."

translated this means "I'm refraining from taking (that) I want to try my best on my own.

This could mean exactly what she(?) says it does... I know translators are not perfect
Reference to answer quoted

However...

  • when I look at Bing I don't get a translation
    neither from [autoselect] ==> English
    nor from Japanese ==> English.

  • when I look at Google I get this translation from [autoselect] ==> English
    "I am intrigued. Because I would like m to get married."
    (and the result indicates that Google thinks it is Japanese)

Should I just assume the poster is correct and approve the post because I don't have the Japanese language skills?
This is the decision I chose, because in this case the OP is in Japan and can (presumably) determine if the translation is correct.

Is there another option which can help us thwart trolls?
(If it does mean, "I am intrigued because I would like to get married." then it's likely a troll.)

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    Using Google to translate the English to Japanese doesn't come very close to the suggestion (as far as I know) - result is: "Jibun de ganbaritai to omotte iru no o hikaete imasu." A couple of similar words is all.
    – J. Chris Compton
    Feb 25, 2019 at 18:41
  • Good catch! I left a comment on that answer asking for clarification from the author.
    – David K
    Feb 25, 2019 at 19:34
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    Looks like some other folks commented and clarified, and everything looks good.
    – David K
    Feb 25, 2019 at 21:05
  • Thanks to all. I was mostly looking for general advice, and DakCygnus seems to have consensus with "skip it" if you don't know. I wasn't really worried about approving a troll in this case, since the person is in Japan and could spot anything that was wrong (at least as far as "troll level" wrong vs. incorrect). Thanks also to @DavidK for the (obvious in hindsight) good move to comment on the post.
    – J. Chris Compton
    Feb 26, 2019 at 1:13
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    FYI: machine translations are notoriously poor at handling Japanese so shouldn't ever be trusted with it. And while the poster is sufficiently credentialed that it shouldn't really matter, I can confirm that the language used is correct. This does raise an interesting question on the use of non-English in answers I suppose. As I recall it's been discussed before and considered a non-issue that can be handled case-by-case if necessary.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Feb 26, 2019 at 10:20
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    @Lilienthal As the native speakers of Japanese pointed out in the comments, though, there are multiple serious problems with the Japanese in the post. Since the comments have been moved to chat and the problems remain, I'm not sure what to do. Presumably leaving the comments again isn't the right behavior, but the post does suggest saying something you should not, in fact, say. (Andrew T's edit says "clarified by native Japanese on the comment thread", but the edit doesn't take what they said into account, so I'm not sure why it says that.)
    – user38444
    Feb 27, 2019 at 3:35
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    @snailboat I imagine it's by no means perfect Japanese despite being grammatically correct, but we are not Japanese Language. Assuming it's a matter of "Well, you'll be understood but there is a better way to phrase this" and not "This is actually incredibly rude / profane" I don't see why anything else should be done on this site. If you want to open that topic for discussion it'd be best to start a separate question on that.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Feb 27, 2019 at 9:57

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Should I just assume the poster is correct and approve the post because I don't have the Japanese language skills?

If you are not certain how to handle and edit or review, the best thing to do is to skip it, in order to avoid possible erroneous actions.

If you think it's worth it, or if the edit or post is critical, consider raising a mod flag so our mods can take it into consideration and handle it properly. Otherwise, it's best to skip it and let a user with Japanese knowledge take the review (you can also come to chat and ask for users there what they think and if they can provide any assistance).

Anyways, you are right in saying that most likely OP is correct in the spelling, and that it's Google/Bing the one lacking proper translation algorithms. It's best to assume that the one answering is doing it in "good faith", as you did, instead of assuming users are trolling by default...

The good thing is that the OP from the question, as they are in Japan, can choose the best wording they consider that still conveys the same meaning as the one suggested in the answer. In case the one answering wrote some typo or mistake, the phrasing suggested is also written in English, so OP from the question can then proceed to phrase it in Japanese as they seem fit.

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    We could also ask for help from the folks at Japanese Language, but I don't know how active their chatroom is.
    – David K
    Feb 25, 2019 at 19:34
  • Good idea. I also ignore how active they are, nor have I ever joined that room
    – DarkCygnus Mod
    Feb 25, 2019 at 19:35
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    Looks like some other folks commented and clarified, and everything looks good.
    – David K
    Feb 25, 2019 at 21:06
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    Great! Seems that indeed Google/Bing was failing on this translation... and also that answer's OP posted in good faith :)
    – DarkCygnus Mod
    Feb 25, 2019 at 21:09
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    In my experience (mostly French and Spanish), google is bad but bing is truly atrocious, like google circa 1995. Please don't use bing :-)
    – user90842
    Mar 8, 2019 at 0:08

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