"iOS Translate" Keeps Misidentifying Russian Text as Bulgarian

[Rafagon]

I've asked iOS more than just a few times today to translate into English the Russian sentence "Лев и лес близко."

Sadly, even after numerous times of asking for the exact same sentence to be translated, iOS keeps thinking it's Bulgarian, and informs me that "Bulgarian is not currently supported for translation. If this isn't Bulgarian, select a language to translate from." After I select Russian, iOS's built-in translation correctly translates the sentence to "The lion and the forest are close."

The ability to translate highlighted text on an iPhone was introduced in iOS 14. After having had so many years to perfect the feature, why hasn't Apple taught iOS to detect which language a sentence is in, especially after I've asked for the exact same sentence to be translated numerous times, and I've told iOS Translate that it was Russian by selecting it from the list it offers?

Google Translate, even when I set it to "Detect Language," correctly identifies the text as Russian and proceeds to successfully translate it into English (see screenshot below). It's almost ironic what can be seen in that screenshot. Google Translate correctly detected that the text was Russian, and the iOS Translate pop-up, just a little over an inch (on my screen) below Google Translate's work, is clueless.

Hopefully Siri's on-screen awareness, supposedly coming circa iOS 18.4, will be able to learn a thing or two from information readily available on the screen, as is the case with my screenshot.

But I would have hoped that the Apple Intelligence features already present would've assisted iOS Translate and helped it figure out that it's the same sentence I keep asking it to translate for me and that I keep telling it it's Russian.

 

[HouseLannister]

Not really “misidentifying” since it is also a sentence in Bulgarian according to Google Translate. It is still using Gemini to suggest I might try Russian, but it had no problem treating it as Bulgarian. Interesting that lion gets translated as lev, the Bulgarian currency.

 

[Rafagon]

I do get it. I understand that the sentence I'm typing could be in more than just one language. But after 3 or more times of me correcting it, telling it that it's Russian, it would be a nice feature if iOS Translate would "learn" that when I ask it to translate Cyrillic script, I'm only interested in the Russian language. Or if there were a setting somewhere, where I could say, perhaps, "Always treat Cyrillic script as Russian?" and I would answer "Yes" and that would be the end of that.

Lots of apps learn over time from our behavior. The Share Sheet for texting, for example, learns the people I text often and suggests those before others.

SwiftKey keyboard "learns" that after I type the word "Russian" I often follow it with the word "language," so it makes appropriate suggestions based on that fact.

 

[Rafagon]

I already had this toggle set to On.

I "Allow Siri to learn from how you use 'Translate' to make suggestions across apps."

So Siri should be learning that I'm using Translate for Russian and not Bulgarian.