Could be. If you tell it to translate to Spanish, it says "Inglés" (which is incorrect, btw, since it shouldn't be capitalized) or "francés", depending on whether you leave the period. But, if you tell it to translate into German, it says "französisch" either way.
Re:An interesting Google Translate quirk
by alexandros on Tuesday October 21, 2008 @07:42PM
(#339529)
Yeap. In Greek we say 'It's chinese to me'. I wonder what the chinese say :)
Re:An interesting Google Translate quirk
by silentbicycle on Tuesday October 21, 2008 @07:57PM
(#339543)
Good question. After a bit of searching, I found these nation / translation tables. Neat!
* http://www.omniglot.com/language/idioms/incomprehensible.php
* http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Greek-to-me
If you're translating something like "Give it to me in plain English", you'd want the second meaning. Likewise, "It's Greek to me" doesn't hold the quite same weight when translated literally into Greek.