Wearable Translators 139
johnwebster writes "Another Sci-Fi utility gets closer to reality:
wearable translators." Babelfish, Earth-style, so you too can speak any language fluently: For example: what would you say of translator wearable of language when on a foreign execution? No fumbling for a book of expressions, any cumbersome portable computer. This mobile and light device now placed by ONR is really a flexible device, computer of girdle-model - not larger than a package fanny - making it possible the language of the speaker to be translated in the real time near for the listener. Excellent.
The real translation(s): (Score:1)
German:
Mother is too warm, please interrupt your coital activities, or I'll have to turn up the fan to the point where it will likely destroy the foam cap on your beer.
French:
You could have sex with the older lady, though she is frigid and unskilled, but I will give you oral sex if you so choose.
Spanish:
Drop the chalupa!
A pipe dream.. (Score:2)
I do have some experience with electronic dictionaries since I am fairly fluent in Japanese. Portable dictionaries are already common, and are useful tools for those who can already speak the language. However, no "digital phrasebook" is going to cut it for those with no language skills. I remember seeing one of these devices demonstrated on TV a long time ago. Someone input the phrase "can you direct me to the taxi stand" and the device spoke it in spanish. And the reply was a stream of incomprehensible rapid-fire spanish that could never be input rapidly enough to capture the meaning. The best you could possibly do is to use the device to teach the foreign lang speaker how to use the device. Then he could use it to translate back into English. Totally unworkable.
Re:"Simple" problems for machine translation (Score:2)
For the curious, I recommend a more extensive article [geocities.com] on this subject by a former UN translator, including some examples of problem phrases.
The less curious, of course, are under no obligation to read it.
Re:A bit of a quandary... (Score:2)
Pennock discusses this a little in his book Tower of Babel [dannyreviews.com].
Danny.
Yeah I can just see it now... (Score:1)
Apologies to Steve Martin.
Re:Wait until the French hear this (Score:1)
Tourist: Where is the bathroom?
Translator: WHERE...IS...THE...BATH...ROOOOM???
Re:English is the International Language (Score:1)
The evidence seems to indicate that English is the most useful and extensible language around, so you can expect to see enormous surges in that column. Can you imagine anyone finishing school in western Europe and not knowing English any more? I can't.
Side note about sentence structure. Thanks to prepositions and other glue, English is quickly becoming a purely positional language, which means that almost any noun or verb can be converted to a verb or noun with only little modifications, if any. "benchmark" comes to mind here... Also, almost no English speakers have trouble understanding this Yodaism: "Parse this sentence well, do I."
Favourite joke (Score:2)
Sorry. My favourite euro-trash joke there (it will probably cost me some karma points). But seriously, when I see people on Slashdot writing something like "whats teh point english is the universal language anyways so why should I learn a foreign language it is stupid" I fear there the joke is too close to the truth...
Learning a foreign language is opening yourself up to new ways of thinking. How can you claim you truly understand a foreign culture if all you know about it is what *they* choose to tell you about it, in English?
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new translation (Score:5)
One of much of sectors which supports the office of the search for navy, is that of the data processing. The study in this sector covers, the cognitive stages and to perceive neuralen organization, with an accent on the units under development for military operations. P. E.G.: how on a translator wearable if on a transaction from abroad? No Fumbling for sentence a book, not of vast computers of lap-signal. A flexible device, the computer of kind - not more largely as fanny a sentence - is true allowing this mobile and compact unit which is financed now by ONR, that the language of the loudspeaker is translated into narrow Istzeit for the years zuh50rer. Moreover, it to translate, however could not a right word for word include/understand the context, in which a designation or Idiom is used, to influence the translation resulting. It would be able piles of list; p. ex. " cliqueter " is to the soldiers to measure distance, while with civil it be a short clay. By having it the list of soldiers which is piled up on the standard list, the system can fix a suitable translation for the circumstances of the person in charge. The software is currently developed, to translate Korean, bosniaques, Arab, more siamesischer and Chinese of tangerine, as well as the European hauptsaechlichsprachen. A worn translator would not encourage only the soldiers but also of the personnel of airport, it that edge patrouilliert and customs officers, Telefonbediener and tourists, under others.
ROTFL (Score:1)
Re:With my luck... (Score:1)
My hovercraft is of eels!
you have beautiful thighs!
Wait until the French hear this (Score:2)
Translation (Score:1)
PARSER ERROR
Famous Last Words (Score:1)
No, thanks, I don't smoke.
Human intelligence is needed for human speech. (Score:2)
There is simply no possibility for a machine without humanlike intelligence and learning ability to have the capacity for language that would make it remotely comparable to a human interpreter. Even then, there needs to be a base of utility for the proper reinforcement of correct speech, and that's hard to build into self-contained simulations, so we're talking about years of training in serial, probably before you even find out whether the thing can learn to speak at an adult human level.
I really think that this is an area where people really shouldn't even bother trying... at least in the form of commercial ventures.
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I got an A using babel - for french (Score:1)
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Laptop006 (RHCE: That means I know what I'm talking about! When talking about linux at least...)
Re:My responses (Score:1)
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Re:My responses (Score:2)
Elequoent trolling though.
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Re:But what about grammar? (Score:2)
Re:VSO, SVO, and SOV (Score:2)
I had a linguistics prof who used to say that he thought that Mark Okrand (who actually created the language, not Gene Roddenberry,) must have been a real genius, to create such a realistic alien language -- "realistic" in the sense that it's completely unlike any language spoken on Earth.
Re:A bit of a quandary... (Score:1)
Re:With my luck... (Score:1)
I will not buy this tobbaconist, it is scratched.
--
The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow)
With my luck... (Score:4)
"I want to fondle your bum."
when I try to make a purchase in a shop.
"Simple" problems for machine translation (Score:5)
1) Differences in language syntactic structure. How do you reconcile a VSO language with an OSV language and still maintain real-time processing? More specifically, if, in, say, language 1 one would form a sentence like "John buys milk" (Subject-Verb-Object, like English) but in lanuguge two you would say "buys milk John", how do you begin to immediately translate, word for word, when the words are not in the same order? Answer is, you don't. The longer and more clausal the sentence gets, the more or a problem this becomes. This assumes the translator is going to have to decide where to pause so it can rearrange the sentence, parse and translate it. This is fine, except that:
2) Natural speech doesn't necessarily follow the same rules as written language. So the speaker many not speak in nice, neat, parseable chunks. So the translation machine has to start making some decisions. For the benefit of the doubt, let's say that we're going to pause nicely after each complete sentence to let the translator do its work. You still have the problem of:
3) Context. A.k.a. the "frame" problem (to some degree, though not exactly). Computers have no context w/ regards to language (they have no actual experiential knowledge of meaning), and thus have no concept of relevance (if you believe in Relevance theory pragmatics). They have no basis upon which to "guess" at word meaning or pull meaning out of inferential utterances -- no basis which to understand sarcasm, humor, hyberbole, or anything your lit professor taught about -- and here's the kicker folks, all of that plays a role in figuring out meaning, which is usually the tiebreaker in any case of:
4) Ambiguity. Wonder why Babelfish only works half the time? Because idiomatic expressions exist. Because words are ambiguous -- one word can have multiple meanings and multiple words can mean the same thing. One word can have different meanings to different people. (BTW, if you want to explode your head, just *begin* to study semantics).
This will probably be another "nobody will ever need more than 16k of RAM" quote, but I think we'll have a hell of a time getting machine translation up to human standards until the machine is thinking for itself. Not that i'm arguing it can't be done, it's just not as straightforward as L&H, or IBM, or the Office of Naval Research would have you believe.
Re:With my luck... (Score:1)
Finally! (Score:1)
Watching those foreign executions is so drab when you don't speak the language!
Advanced Purchase...? (Score:1)
No offence intended...just late night humour!
-Ben
Re:"Simple" problems for machine translation (Score:2)
Yes, as we speak or write at greater length, some of the ambiguity disappears. But think about the fact that no one speaks in complete grammatically correct sentences all the time. We make mistakes, we lose our train of thought, we get interrupted.
It seems an obvious point, but I will make it anyway, machine translation is unlikely to exceed the best quality of human translation under ideal conditions. Some things are impervious to translation. There is a wonderful article about that problem in this month's issue of Liberty magazine. It starts off discussing the French translation of one of the Harry Potter books, but touches on several other translations. It's worth reading.
Re:Babel Fish is crummy (Score:1)
a what? (Score:1)
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Or even better/worse... (Score:2)
maybe arabic leet?
"ph00l1sH am3r1cAn p1gd0gz! 3y3 sp1t 0n j00r fLaG!!!! nAtAl13 p0rtmAn 1z A h0t cH1x0r i g1v3 j00 3 cAm3lZ f0r h3r!!!!!!"
/Fross
universal translator (Score:1)
Is this really wearable? (Score:2)
>neotope
Re:English is the International Language (Score:1)
Sorry, this is false.
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Re:Babel Fish is crummy (Score:1)
The phrase "serves you right" springs to mind.
I can see people who are too lazy to learn another language getting into all kinds of sticky situations. CIA agent pulling a gun on a foreign criminal: FREEZE MOTHER FUCKER OR I'LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!!! What the foreigner hears: Would you like a new puppy?
So? If someone points a gun at you and starts screaming at you it doesn't matter what words come out, you get the idea. You can use the same non-verbal clues to help you in conjunction with the translator.
George Dubya talking with the president of france (he's to stupid to learn another language)
Sadly many English take an equally arogant and ignorant view
: I would like to build a STRONG relationship of compassion between our two natIONS. I want to help execute and build military ties with you.
In the language of diplomacy, even a 100% accurate translation would bear little resemblance to what the speaker actually means.
Phillip.
Babelfish-like, you say? (Score:1)
"Their would like to use good day I restroom more finely please"
It might be more effective to just speak in your own language and use gestures to try to get your point across.
-Legion
Re:huh? (Score:1)
-J
Translation overheard... (Score:2)
Babel Fish is crummy (Score:4)
I can see people who are too lazy to learn another language getting into all kinds of sticky situations.
CIA agent pulling a gun on a foreign criminal: FREEZE MOTHER FUCKER OR I'LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!!!
What the foreigner hears: Would you like a new puppy?
George Dubya talking with the president of france (he's to stupid to learn another language): I would like to build a STRONG relationship of compassion between our two natIONS. I want to help execute and build military ties with you.
What the french president hears: I think we are going to take strong military action against the nation of france. And I am going to have you executed.
Scary stuff.
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Re:For those who were wondering... (Score:1)
Some people are so literal
Mordred
I Can Just See It Now... (Score:1)
Nothing new (Score:1)
equipped with similar translators.
Re:heh (Score:1)
means, "Busty school girls with big eyes are great. Please have freaky circus sex with me."
means, "Are you enough of a loser to go out with me?"
See?
Re:A bit of a quandary... (Score:1)
Re:the cultural evolution of nor cal (Score:1)
Hella
and how long does it take them ...
days
What would I say? (Score:2)
Ummm... well, actually, if I knew I was going to be executed in another country, I probably wouldn't go in the first place... Oh! You mean foriegn excursions.
The question on everyones' minds.. (Score:2)
The Last Starfighter (Score:1)
Douglas Adams predicted this (Score:1)
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
Contact magazine (Score:1)
I didn't read the whole blurb. I didn't recognize the "Babelfish" variant spelling of "Babel Fish".
OK, I thought of another one. There were stories in Contact magazine (used to be put out by the same people as Sesame Street magazine) about such a portable device. More to the point, this was an electronic device that operated when the user stuck his or her finger in it.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
(OT)Oui. Ja. Board. (Score:1)
Oui. Ja.
Christians say no to Ouija boards (or, as they were called in Nintendo Power [nintendopower.com], "Luigi boards").
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
VSO, SVO, and SOV (Score:3)
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
Hmmm... (Score:1)
Slashdot translation: For example: what would you say of translator wearable of language when on a foreign execution?
That's amazing! Now if only they could perfect the Slashdot to English module...
Re:new translation (Score:1)
Re:English is the International Language (Score:1)
Re:How about British-US English first? (Score:1)
spirit (Score:1)
And HOW is this gona happen? (Score:1)
Of course, if you actualy READ the announcement, it just says that they are planning on designing one, not exactly a sure sign of hope.
How about British-US English first? (Score:1)
English to English doesn't work yet (Score:2)
In England fanny is slang for the vagina. Strange sex toys you yanks have
the cultural evolution of nor cal (Score:1)
how many bay-area kids does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
from same article.. (Score:1)
It would be capable of dictionary stacking; for example, a "click" to the military is a measurement of distance, whereas to civilians it is a short sound. By having the military dictionary stacked on top of the standard dictionary, the system will be able to generate an appropriate translation for the wearer's circumstances."
So hopefully this means no problem with those compensations.. Theoretically you could just stack a 'slang' dictionary or a 'doublespeak' dictionary and be prepared for any occasion.. You just best hope that the people programming the dictionaries aren't messing around with the translations..
'My hovercraft is full of eels.'
I apologize for the lack of intellect, but... (Score:1)
Re:Machine translation is fast food (Score:1)
Most people commenting on machine translation take either of two extreme stances. My wife is a translator and we often have lively discussions on the subject. Some say it is the best thing since sliced bread because it will break down language barriers all over the world and help people communicate and put an end to wars and all that stuff. Others insist that it is impossible because it produces utter nonesense and is unreliable - "Look it made a mistake! This is so baaaaaaaad!".
I believe there are different levels of translation quality, each very well suited to different applications. Just like restaurants.
a) The ultimate where everything is perfect. This is where the text is handled by a professionnal and experienced translator with extensive knowledge of the field and reviewed by other professionnals of the field in the target language. You want this for contracts involving large sums of money, for written agreements between countries, for operating manuals of life-critical systems and the like. This could be assimilated to the best restaurants in the country, the five stars ones you find in posh travel guides. This is unfortunately what most people think about (and expect) when they hear the word "translation".
b) Normal, cost-efficient, human-made everyday translation. This is where the language is correct and there are no obvious mistakes for the casual reader. It often contains misinterpretations and missed jokes but the meaning usually gets through. This is what you get with translated news, instruction manuals of cheap, foreign made VCRs and internal specifications for international projects. You could liken this to the nice little family restaurant a few streets away. Nothing too fancy but it's better than what you would make yourself.
c) Machine translation where you can see the obvious mistakes and the language is often improper. But if it is not high end litterature, some of the meaning gets through. This is like most fast food. You can do better yourself but it's fast, cheap and convenient.
Machine translation opens a whole new market of "understanding" foreign texts. Although the result is almost never suitable for publication, it allows many people to have cheap and fast access to information they would never have used otherwise. And sometimes to spot pieces that are worth translating with a higher level of quality.
Machine translation will not bring perfect free translation to the masses and it will not put translators out of business. Just like McDonald's did not bring top gastronomy to your average shopping center and it did not put good restaurants out of business.
We should not expect perfect results form machine translation. It should instead be recognized as a very usefull addition to the tools at our disposal with it's own cost/efficiency ratio.
Re:English is the International Language (Score:1)
If you want any interesting travel experiences ... learn a different language
-Christian Most literate people now speak English, either as a first or second tongue. The Internet has of course aided in the spread of English. Thus, this gadget would be of limited utility. If you want to communicate with someone, use English.
Re:Practicalities (Score:2)
Second ... I really disagree with your assertion that the US looks down on people for speaking poorly more than ANY other "industrialized" country in the world. Don't you seem so worldly?
France (notably Parisians) has a terrible reputation for being snobby and uncivil towards those who do not speak French properly ... even towards those that have tried for years to learn their language.
Look at it this way ... English with an accent sounds cool. If I hear a woman speaking with a Spanish or French or German or justaboutanyother accent ... I think it's sexy. I don't think I'm alone there. My entire family is Argentine ... and they speak with funny accents ... people like it! However, when we go over there, and the natives hear how my family members' accents have changed, or how off my accent is, they laugh and make jokes and DEFINITELY notice. Now, as for those who aren't Argentine trying to speak the language ... it sounds ugly ... and tons of people think so. It's almost as if Spanish only sounds good if a native speaks it ... with no real accent ... again, I do not believe I'm alone here ... especially among the natives.
This device is likely to rock. I'd love to be able to get along better in any non-English speaking place ... it'd also be nice to hear what people were saying about you, too. Also, I'm sure that there'd be tons and tons of mildly humorous webpages and late night talk show host skits with slightly messed up translations when it makes it to market.
One more thing, want good chances to get hard looks in just about any other country besides the US? Talk like a loud American. Yes, just the accent brings about bad looks and conversations about lousy US foreign policy. Go tell them those folks they're xenophobic and prejudiced and lighten while you're at it you damn hippy.
-Christian
stuff (Score:1)
Re:My responses (Score:1)
Any response will certainly help out the moderators.
Re:My responses (Score:1)
I personally didn't think the trolling was that good though. It was too obvious. Better luck next time, rk!
Re:Klingons love excellent device (Score:1)
The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews
Klingons love excellent device (Score:5)
Reading and posting on Slashdot am I from Klingon homeworld through wearable universal translator device, operating with optional subspace radio module and speech-too-text and text-too-speech technology. Device excellent is it, but a day very good two die had better it bee for Michael, because has he insulted are honor through him saying that was this device invented by humans.
The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews
Re:My responses (Score:1)
>a man who just gave birth.
Strangely enough, don't see any goatse.cx links in the comments for this article yet. But I'm sure the local trolls will fix that real soon.
>I do not believe I will be returning to this Web-site.
Oh, if only it were true...
Re:A bit of a quandary... (Score:1)
But it only does half the job (Score:2)
Re:English is the International Language (Score:1)
It's followed, not very closely at all, by English, then I think it's one of the asian languages. I read this a few years ago, so it may not be completely accurate, but there was such a disparity between spanish and english that I can't imagine is meeting that fast.
well.. (Score:1)
I seriously wonder how this thing would translate a rap song... or any slang for that matter..
The fact of the matter is that most people won't want to spend thousands of dollars to tell people that their "cheese is a watch" or other jibberish..
Speech recognition (Score:1)
One advantage I can see of the translator being wearable is to carry it out. While it may be useful in a business environment - though people there are supposed to be educated enough to speak foreign languages (ok, well maybe not), it could not do anything for you out in the street, where they have to deal with mangled words and thick accents.
Kind of defeat the purpose. Kind of defeat the purpose.
Re:Babel Fish is crummy (Score:1)
Re:VSO, SVO, and SOV (Score:2)
It's often difficult for two people who speak the same language to express themselves clearly enough to be understood by the other. It takes great care and effort to express something so clearly that there is no possible misunderstanding.
Two examples in the same language to consider for translation:
Which of these do you think would be more easily translated by an automatic device?
Another example, using two languages:
Interaction between the speaker and the translation device
What I've seen here on /. so far suggests this interaction with the device:
It makes sense, to me, to have the translator express its difficulty and to ask the speaker to rephrase the statement. There are a wide variety of books and grammar checking tools to help writers detect and correct common mistakes. There are readability tools to assess the grade level of a document based on the length of sentences and the number of syllables in the words. These tools could be used to help recognize the ambiguities, and to have the translation device request help from the speaker.
Commercial Possiblities:
Why must the device be self-contained? I'd see great value in having the users employ cell-phone-like devices to communicate with a central translator. (We already use the same concept with X-window where the input and output can be on a machine which could be far from the machine doing the processing.) This approach has many advantages:
NOTE: There's an obvious disadvantage in a military situation where the troops would rather not broadcast their location to the enemy when they are trying to communicate with a local. Hence, the desire for portability. But us common folks are not under such constraints.
Translation? (Score:1)
Did The Fish render this translation?
Re:English is the International Language (Score:1)
Hmm (Score:1)
Re:Is this really wearable? (Score:1)
Re:Babel Fish is crummy (Score:1)
Re:oh shut up (Score:1)
Re:A bit of a quandary... (Score:1)
Re:Klingons love excellent device (Score:1)
Re:Hmm (Score:1)
heh (Score:2)
american:"HI I LIKE AH-NAH-MEE MUCH"
japanese:"AH-NAH-MEE IS VERY GREAT IN JAPAN"
american:"DO YOU PLAY YOUR VIDEO OF GAMES WELL"
japanese: "YES. A WINNER IS ME AT FANTASY FINAL 7 NOT LONG."
american: "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US"
etc. etc
Yes, I wouldn't try asking a date out in a foreign language with this thing
English - French - English (Score:3)
Oh yeah - this is gonna work out real good.
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"Almost isn't good enough - but it's almost good enough."
My Hovercraft is Full of Eels. (Score:1)
evry support tech will have one (Score:2)
Actually a big improvement (Score:2)
Assuming this application, the best thing a designer could do would be to add a way to specify that a statement is imperative, since imperative statements would probably be the most common. In English, for example, a simple imperative statement is distinguished from a declarative statement only by context. In romance languages there is generally another verb for imperative uses so the translation is ambigious unless some contextual information by the English user.
Re:"Simple" problems for machine translation (Score:2)
Limited "universe" of usage.
The phrase translation topics and the use are limited to single languages (two including the "output language" and single areas of use) That should reduce the number of variations on a meaning a device needs to check before it can generate the output.
"Cross training"
There would probably be some for of cross training occuring when used frequently. The wearer would adjust to the machine in the same way the machine adjusts to the wearer (Just look at my handwriting after months use of JOT for the palmpilot =))
L&H have folded, perhaps it was just too difficult? =)
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Re:Klingons love excellent device (Score:2)
Translation Screw-ups (Score:2)
Maybe someone'll think twice before using this translator
But what about grammar? (Score:2)
Reading the article, a thought just popped into my head ...
English language has different word order than most other languages.
Do they plan to compensate for this? Or will it just wind up sounding like a web page run through every language in babelfish?
Hmm.. I could just imagine the impact on diplomacy, or negotiations ...
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For those who were wondering... (Score:2)
My responses (Score:2)
I have to admit, I am a bit disturbed by the lack of morals of the people posting on this site. I have already clicked on one link and been taken to a Web-site with an image of what appears to be a man who just gave birth. And the responses to my message were simply offensive. One person simply berated with a stream of insults engineered to offend me, while another substituted the letter 'X' for Christ about 3 dozen times -- I do not believe I will be returning to this Web-site. I do promise, however, to pray for you all.
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A bit of a quandary... (Score:3)
Our Divine Father split up the languages for a reason -- To punish us for our sins. That this article mocks this event ("Bab*lfish") in such a heretical manner makes me ill.
We as a race should not be trying to undo the work of God -- there is already enough sin in the world, this surely can only cause more!
While I am, much contrary to my parents' views, in favor of the use of sciences to better the human condition, I am strongly opposed to defacing our divine-inspired bodies for the sole purpose of standing at God's feet and mocking Him in such a disgustingly perverse manner.
I shall pray tonight for the sins of the creators of the clearly Sat*nically inspired device.
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