Google Translate is great. We use it all the time. Sometimes it will translate a sentence incorrectly, but it does it less than any other translator we’ve ever used. However, it almost never gets single words wrong. Only slang and such things does it occasionally misinterpret. But this below is not slang.

Ñuñoa is an area of Santiago. It’s the Spanish translation of the Mapudungun (language of the Mapuche Indians) word “Ñuñohue”, and it means “Place of yellow flowers”.

Providencia is an area of Santiago that is situated just north of Ñuñoa. It translates to “Providence” in English.

According to this translator, “Providencia” is an English word that means “Ñuñoa” in Spanish.

How did this happen?

If you click on the word “Providencia”, Google lets you select alternate translations, and change what people will see if they type in “Ñuñoa”.

In this case I put in “Nunoa” as the correct translation, and if I clicked “Yes, submit translation” the wonderful joke would be over. But I’m not going to. If you want to be the Good Samaritan and pardon the Noobs coming to Santiago who might get lost because of this, you can go to Google Translate and do this switch, to make it clear to them that “Ñuñoa” is a name, and doesn’t have an English translation.