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The translation is "If you say charcoal" in google translate. Is it correct?
Is there any other words from it the meaning/translation of 炭って言ったら?
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2021-03-13T09:32:24.637
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2021-03-13T19:46:46.703
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question
meaning context
What is 炭って言ったら
Yes 炭って言ったら could be translated "If you say charcoal", but it could also be
translated in a number of other manners depending on the context. Japanese is
highly context dependent. And, since Japanese bares no relation to English,
how things are expressed in one language might need to be reworded
considerably in the other.

炭って言ったら as "if you say charcoal" seems a very literal translation.
Grammatically, this wording could be used to introduce the topic of 炭. This
could also have been done by saying 炭は which without the rest of the sentence
is impossible to translate into English other than "charcoal".

So, in short, within the context of what's being said about 炭 (or what has
already been mentioned) the choice of how to translate it into English this
phrase could vary considerably.

Consider the following sentence:

> 猫は食べた。

On the surface without any further context, this normally might be translated
as "The cat ate it". But change the context slightly, and this exact same
wording could be translated as "I ate the cat". Context completely determines
which meaning was meant: context is necessary to disambiguate Japanese.
(Though if you're not used to Japanese, you might be scratching your head how
that could be.)

But the reason I give this example is for you to play with. Put it into Google
translate. It'll give you a clunky "Cat ate". But, it won't bother to tell
you, "I could have gotten this completely wrong and it might really mean _I
ate cat_ " (to stick with some clunkiness). In fact, when I gave it context
(どちらを食べた？), Google definitely got it wrong. For a native speaker, if they read

> A: どちらを食べた？
>
> B: 猫は食べた。

which of the two opposing readings would be understood without any ambiguity.

Something similar could be going on with the phrase which you plucked out from
its context.

Google translate really does a horrible job with Japanese. It's better than it
used to be, but it still has a long way to go. So, whether Google translate
got it right or not is hard to say. Perhaps. But without a context, nothing
more can be said.
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2021-03-13T19:20:49.003
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2021-03-13T19:33:16.860
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answer