48471
Google translates `六等星の夜` to `night of a million stars`. But shouldn't a
million stars be `百万星`? Moreover google translates `六等星` as `six stars`. Is
this a translation error? If not, can anyone explain why?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-17T03:08:11.407
48469
2017-09-05T22:45:24.117
2017-09-05T22:45:24.117
question
translation
What does 六等星の夜 mean?
六等星【ろくとうせい】 is definitely "a star of the sixth
[magnitude](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnitude_\(astronomy\))" or "6th
magnitude star", not "six stars" nor "million stars." So it's an error made by
Google Translate.

[Google Translate recently started to use a neural
network](https://research.googleblog.com/2016/09/a-neural-network-for-
machine.html). It works excellently for many common sentences, but I feel it
also makes terrible mistakes like this one when it encounters relatively rare
words. From my experience, it's especially bad at dates and numbers.

By the way, 百万星 doesn't sound natural to me, either. You usually have to use の
and say 百万個の星, 百万の星々, etc.

**EDIT:** I've found that there is one (and only one) fantranslation of the
song that actually uses _Million Stars_. I believe it's a human error, but
there is a small chance that Google automatically "learned" it as a
translation of the title of this song.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-17T03:25:34.960
48471
2017-06-17T03:43:36.047
2017-06-17T03:43:36.047
5010
5010
48469
answer