Wearable Translators

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.

Comments

A pipe dream..

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe people could take such a small, speculative story and turn it into a "universal translator" device. The current state of Machine Translation is abysmal, even on large mainframes, and they think they're going to squeeze this down into a wearable device?

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

[brion]

For the curious, I recommend a more extensive article 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...

[danny]

It's actually quite interesting that the fundamentalists get so worked up about evolutionary biology, but rarely if ever attempt to have the biblical Tower of Babel story taught in school language classes, instead of standard historical linguistics.

Pennock discusses this a little in his book Tower of Babel .

Danny.

Favourite joke

[LarsWestergren]

If someone who speaks three languages is called tri-lingual, someone who speaks two languages is called bi-lingual, what do you call someone who only speaks one language? American. *ta-daa*

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?

************************************************ ** *

new translation

[Barbarian]

The article, in Eng -> German -> French -> English on babelfish

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.

Wait until the French hear this

[Tiamat]

I can't wait for the French to hear American tourists speaking to them through these things. I have a horrible feeling that the stereotype of the Ugly American will be given new life. I have to say that, in all honesty, I think it is a little rude to try to communicate in this way. Most people would appreciate it if you made an effort to actually learn to use their language. (Of course, there may be legitimate and appropriate uses for the technology, but having a conversation over dinner, or getting directions to the local landmark aren't among them.)

Human intelligence is needed for human speech.

[TheDullBlade]

Language strains our mental abilities, even with special hard-wired support. No matter how great the genius, he occasionally has a misunderstanding and asks for something to be rephrased, or misses the mistake and says something stupid. A good portion, perhaps even the majority, of philosophy could be described as arguing over the meanings of words.

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.
---

Re:My responses

[HerrNewton]

Read his profile. He's a troll. Supposedly Amish from Penn. who went to graduate school in Florida. He misses milking his cow. Used to milk her all morning because she enjoyed it. The profile cuts off just as he gets into the thing about the cow.

Elequoent trolling though.

----

Re:But what about grammar?

[kaphka]

English language has different word order than most other languages.

This doesn't really address the topic, but... English word order (SVO) is the most common system in human languages, tied with SOV. All of the other possibilities are practically non-existant.

Re:VSO, SVO, and SOV

[kaphka]

Klingon is an *actual* language created by Gene Roddenberry, so it's perfectly acceptable to use it as an example.

Not when we're talking about human languages... meaning languages that are spoken naturally by humans. Klingon isn't a human language for the same reason that HTML, Lisp, and rot13'd English aren't.

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.

With my luck...

[Snard]

... someone will find a way to hack into my translator, and it will utter the equivalent of:

"I want to fondle your bum."

when I try to make a purchase in a shop.

"Simple" problems for machine translation

[dolanh]

I used to study linguistics. It is very interesting, but also makes you feel very humble. Human language has far more subtleties than most people credit it with. It is true that if you're a Chomskian, you will tend to see languages as more similar than different (the opposite of most non-academic views). However, even if you do believe in Universal Grammar and all that the idea entails, it has to be said that there are some fundamental difficulties in machine translation. As I'm not in the field, I don't know if they've been solved yet, but I imagine they haven't reconciled the:

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:"Simple" problems for machine translation

[dsplat]

Yes, as that article points out, there is a great deal of context required to do translation. Translation of larger bodies of text is easier than translation of similar volumes of isolated sentences or phrases. For the anglophone monoglots in the audience, consider the word "Copy" in isolation. It could be a noun, meaning a reproduction, or a verb, meaning to reproduce. What I have done in this simple example is to perform a translation, not from one language to another, but from one word to a synonym in English. Not only are there multiple possible translations, but the meaning itself is ambiguous.

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:"Simple" problems for machine translation

[SirFlakey]

I couldn't agree with you more. That was a pretty damn well written analysis of the article, this sort of thing is what I read slashdot for. I'd say,due to the complexity of the problem, we would need a different class of computer (neural?) before we could arrive at a workable solution for a synchronous translation machine. However, in this case a few thing will probably come to aid this device:

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? =)

--

Or even better/worse...

[Fross]

will it translate l33+?

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

Is this really wearable?

[sh0gun]

Is this thing really wearable or will I end up looking like a freak with a computer taped to my belt? Some of these wearable devices lack styling. How can you spot a tourist at 50 yards? Just look for the big tanslator on his hip.
>neotope

Translation overheard...

[catseye_95051]

"Please Sir, to be giving me that large expensive computer around your waist, or else I be blowing your head off with my handgun."

Babel Fish is crummy

[netrat]

I tried to use babel fish for a spanish project in my highschool. Big fucking mistake, it turned out to be pure gibberish and I got a big fat F.

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.
----------------------------------

What would I say?

[meckardt]

... what would you say of translator wearable of language when on a foreign execution?

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..

[BillYak]

Will it translate "geek"?

VSO, SVO, and SOV

[yerricde]

English is SVO. Spanish, French, and Italian are SVO or SOV depending on whether the object is a noun or pronoun respectively. Japanese is SOV. Irish is VSO. Arabic and Hebrew used be VSO; now AFAIK they're SVO. Klingon is OVS. German is largely IvSOV (I = initial subject or adverb; v = auxiliary verb). Yodaisms are OSV. Lisp and Scheme are largely VSO.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

Re:VSO, SVO, and SOV

[martyb]

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:

1. Here's an admittedly complex example:
   • In my nearly 20 years' experience in software quality assurance, I've seen all kinds of problems arise in requirements documents, functional specifications, and actual applications where the author was uncertain about what was intended or, though clearly understanding what was intended, was unclear in expressing that intention, and so ended up expressing something that was either undesirable or even impossible; this caused the result to be flawed, at best, or unusable, at worst.
2. Here's another expression of those concepts:
   • I work in software quality assurance.
   • I have performed this work for nearly 20 years.
   • I have seen problems in requirements.
   • I have seen problems in functional specifications.
   • I have seen problems in actual applications.
   • Authors sometimes do not fully understand their intentions.
   • Authors sometimes do not clearly express their intentions.
   • etc.

Which of these do you think would be more easily translated by an automatic device?

Another example, using two languages:

1. In English:
   • I am hot.
2. This can be expressed in German as either of:
3. • Est ist mir heiss. (It is, to me, very warm.)
   • Ich bin heiss. (I am sexually excited.)

(According to Babel Fish, I'm really excited :)

Interaction between the speaker and the translation device

What I've seen here on /. so far suggests this interaction with the device:

1. Person 1 says something.
2. The translator translates what was said.
3. The translator "speaks" what it translated.

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:

• All of the computing power need not be carried around by the user.
• Upgrades can be handled centrally.
• The device becomes much simpler to develop and maintain.
• Longer battery life is possible.
• Much more computing power can be used to perform the translation.
• Larger and more extensive dictionaries can be used.

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.

English to English doesn't work yet

[cyber-vandal]

not larger than a package fanny

In England fanny is slang for the vagina. Strange sex toys you yanks have ;-)

Re:Practicalities

[laxian]

First of all ... the person you are replying to was most likely making a little joke. Translations with babelfish can be quite humorous ... in fact, I believe there are many pages out there that have translations of humorous and possibly even offensive (mis)translations.

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

Klingons love excellent device

[bcrowell]

K'plah!

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 - free-information book reviews

Re:Klingons love excellent device

[Radish03]

That reminded me of this. Not the greatest, but kinda neat.

But it only does half the job

[Corty]

The translator is unfortunately only translating the verbal language of the speaker. Hence the wearer would have to be able to 'speak' the cutural body language of the listener in order really communicate effectively. Otherwise up to half of the meaning in the conversation could be lost in the differing body languages and hand gestures.

heh

[X-Dopple]

But it's still imperfect. Example conversation. Japanese and English

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

[myosin]

The johnwebster writes a " other Sci-Fi utility obtains more close to reality: translators wearable." Babelfish, Ground-model, thus you also can usually speak any language: For example: what would you say of the translator wearable language when on a foreign execution? No fumbling for a book of the expressions, any cumbersome portable computer. This device of mobile and light now placed by ONR is really a flexible device, computer of the gird-model - either large that a module fanny - making to him possible the language of the loudspeaker to be translated in the real time near for the listener.

Oh yeah - this is gonna work out real good.

-----
"Almost isn't good enough - but it's almost good enough."

evry support tech will have one

[libreazul]

that way they will finally understand the terms "thingy","dohickey"and "watchamacallit"

Actually a big improvement

[RandomPeon]

This is probably a big improvement over how normal tactical units communicate with locals. Right now, hand signals, emphatic yelling, etc. are the tool of choice for dealing with the language barrier between soldiers and civillians/prisoners. Even the ability to generate simple imperative or declarative statements on the spot would be quite helpful, "Go over there" or "You must leave your house. We have requested indirect fire near here."

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.

Translation Screw-ups

[jaavaaguru]

Translation Screw-Ups

1. Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea."
2. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.
3. Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into German only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "manure stick."
4. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside, since most people can't read.
5. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
6. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el papa), the shirts read "I saw the potato" (la papa).
7. Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave", in Chinese.
8. Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "it takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."
9. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-kou-ke-la", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness in the mouth."
10. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "it won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." Instead, the company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

Maybe someone'll think twice before using this translator :-)

But what about grammar?

[Archanagor]

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 ...

---

For those who were wondering...

[scottmartinnet]

The text in the article is a section of the press release translated from English to French and back from French to English with the Fish.

My responses

[rk simms]

I am not going to dignify the responses my original comment has provoked with responses to the messages, instead I will write a message here.

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.
---

A bit of a quandary...

[rk simms]

This seems to me to be a bit disturbing. Why should anyone voluntarily attach an electronic device to their bodies, only to undo the work of God?

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.
---