Google Translate Latin Pronunciation

Salvete!

I would like to ask if I can rely on Google Translate for the right pronunciation of latin words, are the pronunciations there the same as the ancient one? Or is it the modern latin?

According to the one I’m studying (BLD’s), the v should be pronounced as w but google pronounces it as it is. Also with g, it reads vagina as va-gee-na, shouldn’t it be wa-gi-na?

I just listened to a few sample sentences, but it sounds like they’ve gone for an ecclesiastical/Italianate, rather than classical/restored pronunciation. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are just using their Italian pronunciation for both languages, because that’s essentially what the ecclesiastical pronunciation is.

Frankly, I don’t think it’s a bad idea, since there remain disagreements over what constitutes correct restored pronunciation.

Edit: After a little more listening, I can tell it’s not perfectly ecclesiastical either. Namely, Google maintains the hard “t” in words like “patientia,” when an ecclesiastical pronuncitaion would have it more like “patsientsia.”

I would just skip that program and spend some time studying the restored classical pronunciation given in most textbooks. Theres no simpler orthography in the world in my opinion. The consonants have only one pronunciation, and the vowels each have two related sounds. For French it would be a useful tool, but Latin pronunciation is so straightforward that it’s completely unnecessary. And yes, -v- is pronounced like English -w-. Don’t think of it as a deviation from English, rather the English pronunciation of -v- is a deviation from the original pronunciation. Remember, it’s the Roman alphabet, not the English alphabet.

Ego responsia gratias. (Thanks for the replies, I know it sucks XD and it’s already my 4th/5th day studying XD)

It seems that I really have to skip that XD. I’ll just have to correct my pronunciation later on my studies :laughing:

And I have no idea on the ecclesiastical thingy haha