While working on the Categories Explained (?) posts and other mapping-categories-related projects, I sometimes stumble upon things that can be described as ‘remarkable’ to say the least. And as we should not take everything in life super-serious all the time (which definitely helps keeping up one’s spirits in these challenging times), I have therefore decided to write a post intended primarily to cause a smile upon your face (although getting more serious at the end) by coming up with ‘awards’ for some of those findings.
Greatest Translation Length Difference
You probably know the expression ‘Lost in translation’ (or might have seen the movie - in case you haven’t: you should, it’s really a good one), but in the everyday reality of translated/localized categories on Google Maps, the translated version of the category terms are often longer than the original English term. That’s then rather ‘adding in translation’, not ‘lost in translation’. If you capture this in numbers by counting the number of characters in the terms, you will sometimes see really big differences, especially in Roman languages such as French and Italian.
From what I’ve seen so far, this is the podium:
- 3rd place: Transmission shop (17 characters), translated into French as Détaillant spécialisé dans les systèmes de transmission automobile (66 characters) - a difference of 49
- 2nd place: Statuary (8 characters), translated into Italian as Ditta specializzata nella realizzazione e vendita di statue (59 characters) - a difference of 51
- And the winner is: Bankruptcy service (18 characters), translated into French as Service d’accompagnement des personnes surendettées et des entreprises en difficulté (84 characters) - a whopping difference of 66 characters!
Should you find even more spectacular examples in your language, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments!
And in case you are wondering: yes, there are also cases where the translation does lose a bit (character-wise) in translation. Just one example to illustrate is Environment renewable natural resources (39 characters) which is translated into Swedish as Förnybara naturresurser (23 characters), a minus of 16.
Most redundant category
In some cases you can wonder what exactly is the use case for having some of the categories that are currently available. No doubt the reason is often along the lines of ‘historic’ or ‘organic growth’ (perhaps there should be a project Google Team Cleans The List? 
), but the fact remains that in the current societal circumstances I fail to see a reason to still have them around.
My example here (and by consequence winner of the award) is Single sex secondary school, since both Girls’ Secondary School and Boys’ Secondary School are available as category. Obviously gender is a much debated topic these days, but I think you will agree that organizing a school only for people not identifying themselves as either boy or girl is not really a feasible option (both in terms of practical and societal reasons).
Least translated term
The award here definitely goes to Societe de Flocage.In almost all the languages I monitor this (most likely originally French) term is available in the list, but not translated, apart from minor changes (most languages, including English, have it with 2 times ‘e’ in Societe, whereas the French - and weirdly enough also the German and Portuguese - version contains 2 times ‘é’, which is orthographically correct in French). Some languages, however, do have a translated version - like the Polish Nadruki.
Most incorrectly interpreted term
The last award is actually one that you can consider to be funny, but is definitely also problematic. The category is Shipping equipment industry. The word shipping in that category term can be interpreted in 2 ways:
- Related to the delivery of goods (e.g. what DHL or UPS do)
- Related to boats
And if you look at the translation of the category term, you notice that in some languages the first interpretation was used, and in others the second.
Examples of interpretation 1 are
- Dutch: Branche voor transportbenodigdheden
- French: Industrie d’équipements de livraison
- Spanish: Sector de equipos para fletes
Examples of interpretation 2 are
- German: Schiffsausrüstungsbranche
- Italian: Attrezzature per il trasporto marittimo
- Norwegian: Produsent av skipsfartsutstyr
This really raises the questions: what exactly is the process for translating category terms and what are the instructions given by the Maps team to whoever is responsible for localizing the category terms? This particular example seems to suggest that simply a list of terms is sent without further clarification and not a lot of checks are in place on whatever is returned. How else can those different interpretations end up in the product? Surely there must be ways to improve this.
To end on a positive note again: can you think of other category awards? Or did you already come across striking examples that can be included in a future round of awards? Do please share them with the community in the comments.
