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Tokyo Narita Airport Gets PDA Voice Translators
commanderfoxtrot writes "According to the BBC, Narita airport can hire out PDAs capable of translating 50,000 Japanese and 25,000 English spoken words. This is all part of the e-Airport scheme at Narita: The speech-to-speech technology was developed by NEC, tested in Papero robots and then put in PDAs. ... Papero (Partner-Type Personal Robot), is the first robot to translate verbally between two languages in colloquial tongue."
They were in the Copenhagen airport for a 2 week trial a few years ago.
Every time a story comes out, within the first few posts there always is a "this isn't new" post just dying to get modded up for being "informative".
Of course, without a link, the credibility of such claims remains in question.
well bukkake is japanese slang for being bathed in a male liquid and leave it at that.... All I have to say is if your translator says that..... RUN, RUN FAST GET ON THE PLANE AND DONT LOOK BACK!!!!!!
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Roughly:
"Hey, can I do bukkake on you?"
Your mind isn't NEARLY close enough to the gutter!
In actuality, this should be from the "nihongo *o* amari hanashimasen" department. The particle "o" (the phonetic o, that is, historically it is the hiragana wo) is used in this case because nihongo (the Japanese language) is the object of the sentence. The particle wa (hiragana ha) is a suffix appended to the *subject* of the sentence, which in this case, it can be inferred, is the speaker (if we wanted to be more long-winded, we could say "Watashi wa nihongo o amari hanashimasen"). As it stands, the sentence says that the Japanese language doesn't talk much. While this is correct (languages themselves are, as far as I know, mute), I don't think it was the speaker's intention. ;)
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
If you're interested in dying languages, there's a great article in this week's New York Times Magazine (sign over soul, etc.) about how and why languages die, and what can sometimes be done to save them.
"Den som vover mister Fodfaeste et Oieblik; den som ikke vover mister Livet." -Soren Kierkegaard
This is a great idea but Japanese isn't that hard to learn to speak. Compare it to Finish or Dutch or even German. What's nice is that Japanese has a set of rules and it hardly ever breaks them: no conjugation of verbs, the verb always comes last in the sentence, etc. Sure, there are those tricky adjectives and politeness words but they aren't that hard. I cringe when I think of hundreds of foreigners running around with little PDAs asking questions like
"Where the bathroom be?"
"How much the coffee if milk in it?"
"Where the titty show for cheap?"
At least learn a little bit of the language when you travel. It really impresses the locals when you try. Also, could you imagine going to a business meeting and trying to use some talking robot to give your presentation...hmmm...on second thought that would be kinda cool. Now if they made one of these to translate kanji my wallet would be all a quiver.
Esperanto Rules!!!! It is a rich and beautiful language, that is easy to learn.
http://www.x2ii.info/
Catalan
You think Catalan is dying out? As someone who lives in Catalunya, I'll tell you it's quite the opposite. Franco (the Spanish dictator who died in 1975) tried to outlaw it, and so for many years it was not spoken in schools. These days it is the principal language here, and I'm having to learn it myself just to be able to do business effectively here.
All your nihongo listening exams are belong to me!
In reality, I think it might be difficult to get to correct meanings unless you know some Japanese to start with. Among other things, Japanese:
- Adjectives are often constructions involving the above
The end result is the construct of noun-phrases that can be insanely long, confusing, and hard to directly translate. Ie "senshuu imouto no tanjoubi ni puresento o katta toki kaban o nusumareta" is basically 'the store I had my bag stolen at while I was buying a birthday present for my younger sister'[note:lifted from site by Kim Allen]. And that is all 'an' adjective. Literally 'last-week my-younger-sister (of) birthday (destination) present (direct object of) purchased time-of bag (direct object of) stolen.And there are nearly [if not] dozens of different verb forms/conjugations. Such that you could say 'Your gate is 2B' but do so in such a rude way that in reality the purpose of the sentence is an insult :) Converseley, your question would be phrased vastly differently for, lets say, a slightly older random other person, than if for an employee of an airline, etc. And you would likely cause discomfort...
And now off to JPN102...
Shi-tzu-rei-shimas [Goodbye, respectfully-literally '(I am)a rudeness committing'... However saying 'shi-tzu-rei-suru' would actually be rudely stating you are committing a rudeness [if said to anyone not a personal friend]. That is the same verb, same tense, and literally has the identical meaning- just different 'politeness' level..]