I’m a big believer in machine translation for news.

In the not-so-distant future we will be able to read any story from any source in any language.

But we have a ways to go before we get there.

One of the bigger limitations are the evocative but idiomatic headlines written by journalists.

Today I came across this headline on Bloomberg:

Speculators Running Typically Rampant in Coronavirus Small Caps

The headline is sonorous and suggestive. It made me click.

But it’s probably tough to grasp if you are not a native English speaker. And its devilishly hard to translate.

There is no training data containing that language.

Here is now Google translation rendered it:

French:
Spéculateurs fonctionnant typiquement rampants dans les petites capitales de coronavirus

Spanish:
Los especuladores funcionan típicamente desenfrenados en pequeñas cápsulas de coronavirus

Italian:
Gli speculatori eseguono tipicamente dilaganti in coronavirus small caps

German:
Spekulanten, die in Coronavirus Small Caps weit verbreitet sind

Norwegian:
Spekulanter som kjører typisk Rampant i små capser med Coronavirus