Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Algorithm for Learning Languages

Posted by samzenpus on from the universal-translator dept.

An anonymous reader writes "U.S. and Israeli researchers have developed a method for enabling a computer program to scan text in any of a number of languages, including English and Chinese, and autonomously and without previous information infer the underlying rules of grammar. The rules can then be used to generate new and meaningful sentences. The method also works for such data as sheet music or protein sequences."

4 of 454 comments (clear)

  1. Didn't Google already do this? by powerline22 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google apparently has a system like this in their labs, and entered it into some national competetion, where it pwned everyone else. Apparently, the system learned how to translate to/from chinese extremely well, without any of the people working on the project knowing the language.

    1. Re:Didn't Google already do this? by spisska · · Score: 5, Interesting

      IIRC, Google's translator works from a source of documents from the UN. By cross referencing the same set of documetents in all kinds of different languages, it is able to do a pretty solid translation built on the work of goodness knows how many professional translators.

      What is a little more confusing to me is how machine translation can deal with finer points in language, like different words in a target language where the source language has only one. English for example has the word "to know" but many languages use different words depending on whether it is a thing or a person that is known. Or words that relate to the same physical object but carry very different cultural connotations -- the word for female dog is not derogatory in every language, for example, but some other animals can be extremely profane depending on who you talk to.

      Or situations where two entirely different real-world concepts mean similar things in their respective language -- in English, for example, you're up shit creek, but in Slavic languages you're in the pussy.

      I've done translation work before (Slovak -> English), and there's much more going on than differences in words and grammar. There are whole conceptual frameworks in languages that just don't translate, and this is frustrating for anyone learning a language, let alone trying to translate. English is very precise (when used as directed) in matters of time and sequence -- we have more than 20 verb tenses where most languages get away with three.

      Consider this:

      I was having breakfast when my sister, whom I hadn't seen in five years, called and asked if I was going to the county fair this weekend. I told her I wasn't because I'm having the painters come on Saturday. They'll have finished by 5:00, I told her, so we can get together afterwords.

      These three sentences use six different tenses: past continuous, past perfect, past simple, present continuous, future perfect, and present simple, and are further complicated by the fact that you have past tenses refering to the future, present tenses refering to the future, and the wonderful future perfect tense that refers to something that will be in the past from an arbitrary future perspective, but which hasn't actually happened yet. Still following?

      On the other hand, English is much less precise in things like prepositions and objects, and utterly inexplicable when it comes to things like articles, phrasal verbs, and required word order -- try explaining why:

      I'll pick you up after work

      I'll pick the kids up after work

      I'll pick up the kids after work

      are all OK, but

      I'll pick up you after work

      is not.

      Machine translation will be a wonderful thing for a lot of reasons, but because of these kinds of differences in languages, it will be limited to certain types of writing. You may be able to get a computer to translate the words of Shakespeare, but a rose, by whatever name, is not equally sweet in every language.
  2. SCIgen by OverlordQ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    SCIgen anyone?

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  3. No the didn't by Ogemaniac · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I played around with the Google translator for a while. I work in Japan and am half-way fluent. Google couldn't even turn my most basic Japanese emails into comprehensible English. Same is true for the other translation programs I have seen.

    I will believe this new program when I see it.

    Translation, especially from extremely different languages, is absurdly difficult. For example, I was out with a Japanese woman the other night, and she said "aitakatta". Literally translated, this means "wanted to meet". Translated into native English, it means "I really wanted to see you tonight". It is going to take one hell of a computer program to figure that out from statistical BS. I barely could with my enormous meat-computer and a whole lot of knowledge of the language.