Was watching an interesting show on Discovery this weekend. In the show they were demonstrating a new technology toy…basically a (very cool) touch pad computer with software that allowed a person to speak in their native language and translate it into something like 7 or 8 other languages. It used voice recognition software and displayed what you were asking on a screen along with the written translation in the language desired in a separate box. Pretty cool. Even cooler though was by saying ‘translate’ it would then speak the translation in the desired language. Way cool and very useful for someone who travels a lot (I intend to buy one when its available).
Unfortunately for now it only works one way. It won’t translate back into one’s native language something spoken in another language by someone who hasn’t programed the voice recognition software (I suppose it would work if one got a person in one of the accepted languages to speak into it for a while). Still, even with this limitation it is a pretty cool gadget.
My questions for debate though are what are the long term implications of this technology? I can certainly envision a day when one could have an iPod sized device programmed with dozens of languages that allowed someone to speak in their native language, have it translated into the desired language of whatever country one is in, and have it translate the reply back. Will such a device bring us closer together as a species? Will it allow for more understanding between people, more travel? Will it discourage people from bothering to learn other languages than their own since they won’t need to anymore? What will things be like when this technology matures and becomes widely available?
For cel?il would be necessary that this new gadget is definitely able to produce a translation which is indeed comprehensible, contrary to the currently available software of translation. With my opinion, it is not the day before tomorrow…
Well, as a test the guy drove around New York and had it translate for him into some Arabic language, Korean, Chinese and French…and all the folks he talked too said it was perfectly understandable. As I said, the draw back was when they attempted to speak to the guy with the translator in their native tongues he was at a loss as it only works (for now) one way (since you have to ‘program’ it by talking to it…as you have to with most speech recognition software today).
Do you have a link to more information about this technology?
To say the least, I’m very suspicious–natural language is a notoriously tough nut to programatically crack. I could certainly see a device that could translate simple phrases (e.g., “Where is the bathroom?”, “How much money to marry your sister?”) using current technology, but something that could accurately translate complex speech (including colloquilisms) would be a huge leap forward.
Well, I saw it on a Beyond Tomorrow episode, so I suppose I might be able to find a link. I’m sure it translates into a standard language, not into the various dialects…and I doubt it does well with slang. As for taking natural speech I use a natural language writing program myself on my laptop (in Spanish) and it does a pretty good job or writing down what I speak…and it gets better the more I use it as it seems to ‘learn’ my own speech patterns and gets better and better at getting the correct words when I speak them. I don’t think it would be that much of a leap to take that technology and have it translate into another language (I’m sure mistakes happen)…especially since it writes on the screen the words you speak in your own language before it translates them into whatever language you ask (and there were very limited numbers of languages available). I’ll see if I can find more on it though.
However, my real question isn’t does it work (assume it does, or that it will in the future)…but the implications of such technology on our society in the future.
A Star Trek like U.T. would indeed have a big impact, because it was stop the loss of languages that is so common in the global environment existing today. But I can’t imagine that that type of device would be available in this century.
Of course, if everyone would just speak English, this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.
Learning to transcribe a single person’s speech is not the problem. Even if you were to speak only in the standard language with no use of slang, the software isn’t there yet for translating full sentences that aren’t just a few canned expressions into another language. At best, it would translate it into the other language as what clearly sounds like bad grammar, often missing the meaning of words and misunderstanding the grammar of the sentence.
Well, aside from getting us all killed at zebra crossings, this kind of tech may end up forcing a rapid simplification of a number of languages, creating (or strengthening existing forms of) ‘business’ dialects in English, Japanese, Chinese, French and German, among others, which are completely free of ambiguity, metaphor and nuance. It’ll be a tech-driven Newspeak, with telescreens blaring at us 24 hours a day with invitations to the offworld colonies, a chance to begin again in a world of opportunity and adventure. You’re all out of order! It’s Chinatown! Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!
I wish to Quote my favorite book of all time, ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’:
“The poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”
I think this is a great idea; however, we’ve had various types of online translators available, and they’re the butt of constant jokes. Still a few bugs in the system, I think…
[english to german to french to spanish back to english again]
I think that this one is a great idea; however, we had more to on-line-Ueber different types existing, and are the piston of the constant jokes. Nor I think to some Wanzen about the system…
