Google search copes with wrong keyboard language setting!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I just discovered something that surprised me. (But I couldn’t figure out how to explain it briefly enough for thread title.)

Background: My laptop has dual-language mode: I can switch the keyboard back-and-forth between English and Thai. Please note that the keyboard layout has nothing to do with the codes assigned; in Thai mode **A **becomes ฤ, but the Ascii or Iso codes are unrelated to each other, as are any phonetic or semantic values of the letters.

Sometimes I forget the keyboard is set to Thai and type a phrase or sentence in English before realizing I’ll need to change modes and retype. (I’ve thought there should be a macro that knows the two keyboard maps and automatically reconstructs the intended English.)

Surprise: So I type something into the Google Search box and click Enter, look up and notice that, though I was “typing English” Thai characters appeared in the Search box. But I still get search results for my intended search!!

As a specific example,** ๊ใฆใ ฎทิฟหหั** is what you get typing “U.S. Embassy” with the keyboard mode set to Thai. (This does NOT mean “U.S. Embassy” of course; it’s gibberish and full of orthographic impossibilities.) The first Google hit is thai.bangkok.usembassy.gov – not only did it “know” I wanted the U.S. Embassy; it guessed that I wanted the one in Bangkok and presented me with a Thai language page.

I tried several searches this way. Sometimes the mismapped Thai is close enough to a real Thai word that that drowns out the keyboard-mapped results. But if I type ฆะพฟรเ้ะ ฏนยำ ?ำหหฟเำ ฺนฟพก (Straight Dope Message Board) all the hits are English language and the first is boards.straightdope.com .

Neat feature, Google! (I hope this was mundane and pointless enough. :o )

2

Did you try searching for “how do I switch my keyboard back to English from Thai” with that?

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Well, at work I have Russian, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic keyboards installed (long story), so I decided to test this.

(1) Russian:

Typing “US Embassy” (“ГЫ Уьифыын”) suggested, as first result, the website of the American Embassy in Moscow. Nice…

Next try: “Spain Embassy” (“Ызфшт уьифыын”) gave me as first result the general website (in English) for the list of Spanish embassies around the world.

OK, let’s push the limits. Next I tried typing in something that is not English. I tried “Embajada de Chile” (“Уьифофвф ву Сршду”) and it worked! It gave me as first result an English page for the Chilean Embassy in the US, but the second and further results were in Spanish (!!)

Another test! Now in French! I typed “Ambassade de la Georgie” (“Фьифыыфву ву дф Пущкпшу”) and the first result was for the French language website of the Embassy of Georgia for France and Monaco.

Wow.

OK, time to try another keyboard.

(2) Arabic:

I tried the same four sentences, but now with the Arabic keyboard set (Saudi Arabian keyboard, according to my computer, right-to-left input). Results are as follows:

“US Embassy” (“عس ثةلاشسسغ”) – First result goes to the English-language website for the list of US Embassies around the world.

“Spain Embassy” (“ٍحشهى ُةلاشسسغ”) – Same as previous attempt in Russian.

“Embajada de Chile” (“ُةلاشتشيش يث }اهمث”) – Same as previous attempt in Russian.

“Ambassade de la Georgie” (“ِةلاشسسشيث يث مش لأثخقلهث”) – Same as previous attempt in Russian.

Holy. Guacamole. OK, Japanese!!

(3) Japanese:

Well, this one didn’t work because the input mode takes hiragana and tries to transform the input into kanjis when you press space or enter. I guess that having random kanjis inserted in the middle of the string messes up with whatever attempt at recognizing stuff might take place.

Something similar happened when I tried Chinese.

Anyway, this is way cool!

I think that we should try and test this as much as possible. I had never heard of this kind of capabilities. It is awesome!

By the way, Arrogance ex Machina, I tried “How do I switch my keyboard back to English?” with the Russian keyboard enabled (“рщц вщ Ш ыцшеср ьн лунищфкв ифсл ещ Утпдшыр?”)… And it worked XD

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Gee, I dunno…but when it happens to me, I’m not surprised.
‘Cause, ya know…Google knows frickin’ everything.

And, yeah,…that’s cause to worry, if you care about privacy and stuff.
But for typing in different alphabets, it’s kinda convenient.

It’s been happening to me for years. Google knows my ISP is in a funny-language country, and filters its search results accordingly.So I just assumed that google also knows that qwerty…etc can also be typed as קראטוןiץ
It’s a pretty straightforward transposition. If autocomplete senses gibberish in English, it tries the local language, and finds lots of matches.

Or, maybe Google really is God. :slight_smile: