Woe To Me After Eating: Shopping With Google Translate


  • A daily challenge in Jerusalem is grocery shopping. Most products are made in Israel with Hebrew packaging.
  • Imported products typically have a sticker listing the ingredients in Hebrew, usually slapped over the English list.
  • This leads occasionally to bad purchases: Maleaha bought a beetroot dip based on its beet-oriented packaging. It also included a picture of sliced horseradish (quick: what does sliced horseradish look like?). Her sandwich was inedible.


  • To prepare, Mike learned some basic Hebrew, including the alphabet, so he can sound out a lot of products. For example: שוקולד is shukulad, so chocolate.
  • Maleaha, on the other hand, relies on Google Translate. She takes a picture of a label and it instantly translates the text.
  • It is amazing that a phone app can bridge linguistic divides. However, the algorithm still needs work.
  • For example, what appears to be an iced coffee translates to High Caffeine Rainbow Grease Mouthfeel.
  • We have also checked our receipts, shocked to discover that we bought goods at The Rapist Butcher Shop and items like 90 Kg Popcorn Hotf**k.
  • The item below is the most inexplicable. The butcher said it was ground lamb and that it was quite tasty, but Google suggests otherwise. 
  • What will we find next? Only Google knows for sure...

 
Location: Jerusalem

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