Home›Support›English Support›[Waiting for user feedback] No matter which translation engine selected, WPML seems to translate with Bing
[Waiting for user feedback] No matter which translation engine selected, WPML seems to translate with Bing
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Background of the issue:
I am translating from Polish to English using WPML. My main translation engine is Google, followed by Deeplearn and Bing. I expected WPML to use Google Translate for Polish-English translations.
Since all three support Polish to English translations, I expected only Google Translate to be used.
Symptoms:
WPML seems to translate with Bing instead of Google. The translation quality was poor, and it matched Bing's output, not Google's. I checked it manually. I took the same paragraph and used web version of Bing Translate. And to my surprise the output text was identical. So I took the same Polish text and this time inserted into web version of Google Translate. The output was high quality and different. It looks to me that Bing is used even if Google Translate is the first engine.
Questions:
Can you check on your end which engine is actually used when translating any test from Polish to English? (Use Google for primary, Deeplearn for second, Bing for third)
If it is actually Bing being used anyway, how many credits are charged?
The report is not clear, but it is irrelevant. On my end I selected Google, but the output comes from Bing. So even if the report says Google it does not change anything.
By checking on your end I meant the code, not my account.
And the fact you are advising me to disable the engine "to be safe" means that you are actually unsure. So please make sure insted.
If indeed Bing is used instead of Google, when Google in switched on and set as first, then logically I cannot be sure Bing will not be used even if I switch it off...
What if there is a problem with code and both or all 3 engines are named Google, DeepLearn and Bing, but by someone's mistake all of them send data to Bing?
This is what I ask you to check, not my account, not my website, but your code. The output I got was from Bing instead of Google, so please check how this happened, not advise me how I can setup setting on my websites.
I’m here to help you achieve the results you’re looking for.
The report provides a clear and precise way to identify each translation JOB ID and the corresponding post or content. It’s part of the code as it comes directly from the translation management servers, not from your account. It shows what API was executed for each job while using out code.
Regarding your mention of "The output I got was from Bing instead of Google," could you share more details on how you tested this? For example, did you verify it manually with Bing or Google translation tools?
To clarify what I meant by "to be safe," I was suggesting that, in the future, if Bing might be used (even though it’s unlikely), you can avoid this possibility by removing Bing from the translation settings. And it will be removed, it is certain.
Here’s a bit more on how the code prioritizes translation engines:
- The system only defaults to another engine if the primary one is busy or unavailable or if it doesn’t support the chosen languages.
- In your setup, if Google isn’t available due to issues like too many requests or service downtime, DeepL will be used instead.
- Only if both Google and DeepL encounter issues, which is very rare, would Bing be used.
- If you do not have Bing active at that rare occurrence, then the translation will not go through.
Do not blindly belive everything works... This is one of the problems here at this support forum. Each time I report a problem, I need to spend a week convincing one of you guys that there is actually a problem. You are the SUPPORT, you are supposed to be supportive...
1. Test it, before you tell me I am not right.
Set up a page, where you have text in Polish. You can generate it with AI, does not matter.
Set the only translation engine to Google, switch off the rest. Translate it.
Then go to the Polish text and copy each paragraph to web version of google translate... Each time you get a different output that from your automatic translation, open also Bing Translate (Polish to English) and copy the same paragraph. See the output there. If Bing output for a specific paragraph is just as WPML translated, but differes from Google Translate output, then something is wrong... I get it all the time..
2. The report only shows that some text was sent to a piece of WPML that is called Google Translate engine queue. Have you checked the right API is connecteted in that module? Perhaps at some point someone made a mistake and all these WPML engines have the same BING API?
Or, perhaps the APIs are ok, but the problem is in the selection or order of engines. Perhaps there is a bug there and no matter what I select, the text goes to Bing anyway, because some algorythm wrongly determines that Google or DeepLearn have issues. Perhaps switching off only greys out the boxes, but for WPML they are still as active as if they were on... These are all potential issues that may be made by small coding errors. And WPML issues erratas and updates on a regular basis, as a whole you guys understand that sometimes you make mistakes.
So why don't you personally understand that?
Is your job to tell me I am not right and deny there is a possibility for a bug? Or is your job to support me and find out more about the issue to fix it? I think you need to be more open-minded about bugs. They always happen and this may be a bug. Se the history of reports. How many of them were not bugs?
I apologize, it was not my intention to doubt your concerns,
I could dig deeper on this but I would need little more information first.
1. Could you please share an example of one of the pages from the site that was translated from Polish to English that you think used Bing.
2. I will select 3-4 sample texts from that job and verify them using Microsoft and Google online tools to validate this.
So please share a few examples of content from the you believe were translated incorrectly.
3. Create a new test site using the same content to check if the translations vary, please share access to this testing site.
You do not need any example of any page from me to do that. The only reason you would ask that is if you are still trying to imply the problem is on my end. I just want you to test your end independently from any of my pages. So to do the following:
1. Open chat GPT.
2. Ask the chat: "Write a 1000 word blog article in Polish about why intelligent people hate talking to online support agents".
3. Then paste it onto a page in your sandbox wordpress.
4. Install WPML with real translation engines. Set the main language to English. Set Google Translate as the first and only engine to use. Make sure all others are switched off.
5. Translate the page automatically.
6. Open the Polish version of the page in a separate tab.
7. Open the English version of the page in a separate tab.
8. Open Google Translate page in a separate tab.
9. Open Bing Translator page in a separate tab.
8. Copy the first paragraph of the Polish version and copy it to both Google Translate and Bing. Compare the output with the English version.
9. Repeat point 8 with all remaining paragraphs.
10. Make notes of every paragraph that met one of the these conditions:
a) Google Translate output is different from the English version supposedly translated by Google Translate engine. (In this case you see that another engine was used instead)
b) Google Translate Output is different from the English version supposedly translated by Google Translate engine, but the same output is identical to Bing Translator (In this case you see that Bing was used instead of Google)
c) Both Google Translate output and Bing Translator output are the same as the English version supposedly translated by Google Translate engine. (In this case you cannot determine which engine was used)
d) Both Google Translate Output and Bing Translator output are different from the English version supposedly translated by Google Translate engine. (you know another engine was used, but cannot determine which one)
11. Make a report and send it to the right people.
And with the fact that one page cannot use more than one engine, mixed content is not possible.
If you go to the engine, and open the JS inspector > network, you find the call, click on it and then click "payload"
The call has the engine used. why is this important?
- There's only one engine so your assumption that there are more than one is incorrect (no more than 1 engine called, no way other segments used other engines)
- Every engine has a name, thus has a call. the call is to that specific engine. there's no such thing as a "wrong" call in this case.
Here is a video explaining this in details with all the calls and how the engines are working with WPML : hidden link
Your test needs to be repeated, because you did not follow the steps correctly.
1. On the recording you demonstrated only 3 or 4 easy sentences being translated. Out of these 3 or 4, you made a mistake with at least one. You pasted the English version to the online translator, not the Polish version and... suprisingly you got the same result translating English into English... (Your error in only this shor video was at 25%-33%, so I can only assume it was the same throught the whole test).
2. In your case you had simple separate sentences being automatically translated. In my case, when I originally translated the page or other pages, WPML by default split the text into longer paragraphs. This is when the difference was visible...You must paste the whole paragraph, not a single sentence. Single sentences are easier to translate even for a human, because you do not have to think about the context. But when you translate the whole paragraph, this is where it gets complicated.
I have had the same issue on three independent pages so far, so it cannot be an isolated issue related only to one page. And there is nothing strange in the configuration of either of these pages. I have tried with reordering or switching off some engines, but in the end I still get paragraphs that match Bing output, not Google output, although google is the first and sometimes the only engine.
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Hello there!
I'm the deputy support manager and the ATE expert that has been helping out Ilyes with this situation and i want to briefly jump in to explain a few things:
1) I hope this doesn't come out as rude (that's not my intention) but I think you are focusing on the wrong thing when it comes to the video's content but thanks for pointing out the mistake. The video here was mainly recorded to show you where you could see the call that proves that you are using an engine over another.
2) We do not control what the engines return nor their quality because they are highly dependent on context or on how the source text is interpreted by the engines, but we can definitely assure you it's currently technically impossible for the system to make such a critical mistake as using a different API or "mixing" engines in the same page, that's not how our system works and we actually triple checked with your page's content (on your pre-existing job, locally and directly with a sandbox site) while logging every call just to be on the safe side, however, we have millions of calls every single day and we took some samples and checked there so we are 100% sure that there's no error on this front.
