Sony Unveils PSP Translator

potential potential... by oringo · 2006-02-01 03:37 · Score: 5, Funny

Now I don't have to rely on the stupid dubs when watching hentai movies on psp...

Re:potential potential... by argoff · 2006-02-01 04:15 · Score: 2, Funny

As an added bonus, it also translates DRM to spyware.
Re:potential potential... by zpeterz63 · 2006-02-01 04:59 · Score: 1, Funny

Since when do the words in hentia movies matter?
Re:potential potential... by Grimboy · 2006-02-01 06:10 · Score: 1

I agree, the main value of hentai is its deep plot.

Decent Games by phase_9 · 2006-02-01 03:38 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Even tho this is old news, I wish Sony / The Publishers would get their act together and release some decent games for the PSP. At the moment, the only good thing to do with them is illegal (homebrew, emuz, etc).

Re:Decent Games by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 03:40 · Score: 0

my beautiful opera-singing girlfriend [katybutcher.co.uk]
I put that in my PSP to translate and it came back "Plump round dark haired chick who steals all the cookies..."
Re:Decent Games by Fr05t · 2006-02-01 04:02 · Score: 1

Apparently you didn't follow the link.. asshat.
Re:Decent Games by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 04:22 · Score: 0

I followed it- she is a large lady.... Not that there is anything wrong with that- More cushion for the pushin' !!!!

And if you speak the words... by ale3ns · 2006-02-01 03:38 · Score: 5, Funny

"Koko-wa-dokodesuka-rootkit?"

It replies:

"what rootkit?"

Re:And if you speak the words... by meringuoid · 2006-02-01 03:45 · Score: 4, Funny

"Koko-wa-dokodesuka-rootkit?"
...Rutokitto wa nan desssssssss$SYS$
KORE WA RUTOKITTO JA ARIMASEN. REALLY. HONEST.

--
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Re:And if you speak the words... by Zangief · 2006-02-01 04:06 · Score: 3, Funny

Original: "Kawaii! Nintendo DS!"

Translation: "Cool! Sony PSP!"
Re:And if you speak the words... by meringuoid · 2006-02-01 04:20 · Score: 1

Original: "Kawaii! Nintendo DS!" Translation: "Cool! Sony PSP!"
Sudden flashbacks to perhaps the best bit of translation I ever saw. Evangelion. The episode where Asuka first appears. Kensuke's been let loose on an aircraft carrier and he's going around with his camera getting extremely over-excited looking at all the planes and stuff.
Subtitles: 'Amazing! Cool! Fantastic! Really brilliant! Terrific! Super-brilliant!'... and so on.
Kensuke himself: 'Sugoi! Sugoi! Sugoi! Sugoi! Sugoi! Sugoi! Sugoi! Sugoi! Sugoi!'...
It did make me wonder... is Japanese really so short of excitable superlatives? Or is Kensuke just totally inarticulate?
And if I just keep saying 'sugoi!' to the PSP, will it, too, raid the English thesaurus in order not to appear boring? :)

--
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Re:And if you speak the words... by DeadCatX2 · 2006-02-01 04:25 · Score: 2, Informative

Actually, desu ka is used to end a sentence. It's kind of like a verbalized period. It roughly correlates to the "be" verbs in English.

Japanese language is really cool. Verbs always come at the end (hence why desu ka is like a verbalized period - verb at the end of the sentence), and they have very few pronouns and don't use them nearly as much as we do. Their language is VERY dependent on contextual clues. The same word could be used to reference the self, another person, or an inanimate object; in order to differentiate, the circumstance must be taken into account, which may include something like them pointing at the object the word is referencing.

I couldn't even fake being fluent, but my stab in the dark would be
rootkit wa nani desu ka?

The wa particle comes after the word rootkit to signify that rootkit is the subject of the sentence. This is because Japanese can use subject-object-verb or object-subject-verb. So instead of "Joe hit John", it would be "Joe John hit". The particle wa is attached to the subject so that the listener knows who hit who. There's more particles, but I forget most of them.

Nani is roughly translated as what, but there's a few ways to say what.

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:(){ :|:& };:
Re:And if you speak the words... by larkost · 2006-02-01 04:27 · Score: 1

Minor note... Japanese grammar is different than English grammar (imagine that...), so the subject (and nearly everything else) goes before the verb. Hence:

rootkit wa doku desu ka?
Re:And if you speak the words... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 04:31 · Score: 0

Say: "Rootkit"

Translation: "Microsoft fanboys' way of discreetly bashing their competitor while looking objective"
Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 04:32 · Score: 1

Actually, desu ka is used to end a sentence. It's kind of like a verbalized period. It roughly correlates to the "be" verbs in English.

Actually, it's more like a verbalized question mark.

The "verbalized period" you speak of would be "desu".

--
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Re:And if you speak the words... by DeadCatX2 · 2006-02-01 04:39 · Score: 1

I got pwned.

I thought there was a difference between a statement and a question but I couldn't remember it.

Hence the disclaimer about not really knowing Japanese. Watching fansubbed anime will only get you so far.

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:(){ :|:& };:
Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 04:41 · Score: 1

Oh, and a more accurate romanization of the question you were trying to write (assuming the borrowed word "rootkit" is used) would probably be

ruutokitto wa naN desu ka.

"Nani" means "what", but when it stands on it's own like that (to ask "what is it?") it's almost always shortened to "naN."

(The capitol "N" represents the Japanese nasal sylable, which has pronunciation dictated by the sound which follows it... in this case, it should be pronounced just like the Enlgish "n".)

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Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 04:45 · Score: 2, Funny

"Koko-wa-dokodesuka-rootkit?"

You just said "Where is here? Rootkit."

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Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 04:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

To be fair, you, the guy you were correcting, and everybody else in this thread are probably better at translating Japanese than the PSP is likely to be.

A quick look Google's Japan/English tool (beta, of course... this is Google, after all) will confirm that translating correctly between Japanese and English with software is damn near impossible with current technology and programming logic.

--
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Re:And if you speak the words... by HAKdragon · 2006-02-01 04:56 · Score: 1

This reminds me of an N64 game, I think it was "Hey You Pikachu!" where you could interact with Pikachu with a microphone. If you said Playstation he would spaz and have a little electrical seizure.

--
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 05:03 · Score: 1

It did make me wonder... is Japanese really so short of excitable superlatives? Or is Kensuke just totally inarticulate?

The second thing.

Which is why they were probably wrong to translate it like that.

He could have said things like "omoshiroi", "subarashii", etc. But he didn't. He was gobsmacked, and his repition of the same adjective over and over was a humorous indicator of his state of mind. Make him sound like a human thesaurus, and you strip that element out of the story.

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Re:And if you speak the words... by DeadCatX2 · 2006-02-01 05:04 · Score: 1

Ah, the elusive nan desu ka...now I understand a bit more.

Arigato, Golias-sensei.

I also find it amusing that you translated rootkit into how the Japanese would probably say it. Such is the price they pay for ending all their "syllables" but one with a vowel.

I've never seen a double u before.

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:(){ :|:& };:
Re:And if you speak the words... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 05:04 · Score: 0

+4 informative from somebody who admittedly isn't fluent? Fascinating.

ka is the question particle - its presence indicates the sentence is actually a question.

"kuruma wa akai desu" - the car is red
"kuruma wa akai desu ka" - is the car red?

nani translates to "what"
doko translates to "where"

"rootkit wa nan desu ka" is "what is the rootkit?"
"rootkit wa doko desu ka" is "where is the rootkit?" (which may be what you really want to ask).

If you want to know what the rootkit is called you might want to ask what its name is

"rootkit no namae wa nan desu ka"

or if you had established through previous conversation you were talking about the rootkit you could leave it out (subject is understood).
Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 05:14 · Score: 1

Arigato, Golias-sensei.

dou itashimashite.

I also find it amusing that you translated rootkit into how the Japanese would probably say it. Such is the price they pay for ending all their "syllables" but one with a vowel.

Japan has a system of converting borrowed words into sounds which can be spelled with the katakana alphabet. It gives their language a great deal of flexibility.

I've never seen a double u before.

Actually that's a RU followed by an U. It's a six sylable word (assuming I nihoNgo-ized the word properly) ru-u-to-ki-t-to.

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Re:And if you speak the words... by DeadCatX2 · 2006-02-01 05:16 · Score: 1

So if the subject is understood, do you still need the wa particle? i.e.

wa nan desu ka?

I wouldn't imagine so. Particles always need a word to be attached to, right?

At least I was mostly right in my statement. Having totally forgotten ka is the question particle and been repeatedly pwned on the slashdot comments, I will never forget again.

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:(){ :|:& };:
Re:And if you speak the words... by the+chao+goes+mu · 2006-02-01 05:24 · Score: 1

Just out of curiosity, how is the stand alone t syllable pronounced? I know consonant only syllables exist in languages (Hebrew has them), but they usually have an attached implict vowel(once again, the hebrew shewa). just curious how that one syllable would sound phonetically.

--
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
Re:And if you speak the words... by the+chao+goes+mu · 2006-02-01 05:29 · Score: 1

The contextual dropping of pronouns (and even subjects) is hadly unique. All languages tend to drop superfluous words. Think of "ture", which is shothand for "that is true". or the simple conversation:
"He is coming here."
"who?"
The "who" is shorthand for "who is" or even "who is coming here". You simply forget how many words are dropped in english if you speak it every day, while it is more pronounced in unfamiliar languages.
In addition, by not having obvious case/gender endings english is less contracted that many other languages, but you need onyl look at latin or romance languages to see as many dropped pronouns/subjects as in japanese.

--
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
Re:And if you speak the words... by the+chao+goes+mu · 2006-02-01 05:31 · Score: 1

If I could type, that "ture" would read "true".

--
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
Re:And if you speak the words... by spooje · 2006-02-01 05:45 · Score: 0

Actually:
kawaii = cute
kakoii = cool

--
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 05:49 · Score: 1

Just out of curiosity, how is the stand alone t syllable pronounced?

It's a stop. You hold the silence of the "t" a moment longer.

The "i" and "u" are "whispered vowels" in Japanese if they appear between two non-voiced consonants. For example, the "u" in "desu ka" is whispered, so to westerners it sounds like "dess ka".

(Note: Some people from certain regions of Japan, most famously near Osaka, sometimes voice the whispered vowels, and might even insist that whispering them is not required by Standard Japanese. This is why Osakans and other characters from the Kansai region of Japan are sometimes depicted in anime translations as having a sort of Southern hillbilly accent in English.)

However, double-consonants also exist. (In hirigana and katakana they are written with a small "tsu" character before the sylable.) It adds a consonant-only sylable. In the case of "T" or "K", it's a moment of extra silence as you hold your tongue on the start of the consonant. If, on the other hand, you apply it to something like "sa" or "shi", then you hold the sibilant sound longer: "ssa" or "sh-shi".

Japanese is very rhythm-based. Each sylable needs a full beat.

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Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 06:02 · Score: 1

I kind of assumed the parent post did that deliberately, as the PSP is far less likely to be called "cute" than the DS.

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Re:And if you speak the words... by spooje · 2006-02-01 06:13 · Score: 0

I don't know about that. It sounds like one of those mistakes someone who learns some Japanese through anime would make.

--
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
Re:And if you speak the words... by rjhall · 2006-02-01 06:14 · Score: 1

Actually, no.
The particle effects the preceding word and has no value on its own.

sore wa nan desu ka -> what is that?
nan desu ka? what is it?

even more odd - the wa particle is actually written with the character for ha. It's pronounced 'wa' though only when used as a particle, so is usually written with the w.
Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 06:17 · Score: 1

The "wa" marker is considered part of the focus, so it is also omitted if the focus in already understood.

(BTW, it's not called a "subject". The marker for subjects in Japanese grammar is "ga". In Japanese, if the noun in what english speakers call a subject is something you can specifically talk about, it's called a "focus", and the focus marker, "wa" is used.)

However, the focus here is not "anata wa" (you.) You're asking for "Your name", so the focus is "anata no namae wa".

But addressing an individual as "anata" is almost always improper, as is using "namae" in reference to the person you are speaking to. You should use "onamae" instead. The correct way to ask "what is your name" is:

onamae wa naN desu ka.

So the post you are replying to isn't completely right either.

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Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 06:36 · Score: 1

Actually, the more common mistake is to confuse "kawaii" (cute) with "kowai" (scared.)

"kakko ii" means "good looking", so I could see somebody thinking it's a synonym for "kawaii", and they wouldn't be 100% wrong, although "kawaii" definitely translates much more closely to "cute."

By the way, the word for "cool" (or, perhaps more accurately, "amazing") is "sugoi", not "kakkoi"

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Re:And if you speak the words... by Kagura · 2006-02-01 07:09 · Score: 1

"omoshiroi" and "subarashii" are nowhere near the same meaning as "sugoi", unfortunately. It actually is one of those things about japanese that has to do with not having an over-abundance of words that mean the same thing. It is absolutely acceptable to say "sugoi" repeatedly like the character does in that episode of NGE. The parent of this post was mistaken. :(
Re:And if you speak the words... by spooje · 2006-02-01 07:11 · Score: 1

No kakko ii means cool. Kakko means appearence so transliterated it would mean good appearence, but it's used in the same way Americans use the word "cool." Sugoi is used more like amazing. It's a stronger word than kakko ii. Nice use of a dictionary though.

--
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
Re:And if you speak the words... by trezor · 2006-02-01 07:25 · Score: 1

I've never seen a double u before.

Does uchuu () count, or is that a chu followed by a u?

And, yes. My japanese is crappy at best as well :)

--
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 07:44 · Score: 1

Actually, it's not just that "kakko" means appearance and "ii" means good.

I just checked the Random House Japanese-English dictionary, and the expression "kakko ii" is specifically listed, and it means "good looking." The alternate definition "cool" is not listed.

It might sometimes be used that way in coloquial slang, I suppose. Do you have another reference which says so?

--
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Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 08:03 · Score: 1

even more odd - the wa particle is actually written with the character for ha. It's pronounced 'wa' though only when used as a particle, so is usually written with the w.

Markers create several of the (extremely rare) spelling quirks in Japanese.

"wa" is, as you said, spelled with the "ha" character.

The object marker "o" is spelled with the "wo" character (which is used for almost nothing else.)

The directional marker "e" is spelled with the "he" character.

If you remember those three, know that "g-" sounds in the middle of phrases are "ng-" sounds, and know what all the markers mean, you can usually read aloud just about any hirigana or katakana sentece in correct Standard Japanese, even if you don't know what most of the words mean, which is pretty cool.

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Re:And if you speak the words... by muyuubyou · 2006-02-01 08:09 · Score: 1

Actually both are mistaken. Though there are lots of words for any of those English terms - actually Japanese has more vocabulary than English by far - it's simply not common Japanese style to speak out paronyms like that. Makes you look like a smartass. In Japanese, accurate words are used where necessary.
Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 08:27 · Score: 1

Ah... I did find "attractive" as an alternate meaning for "kakko ii", which is closer to what you are saying, however still not the same.

A girl who sees an impressive motorcycle jump would probably not describe the jump itself as "kakko ii", but she might find the rider more sexually magnetic for pulling off the feat, and describe him as "kakko ii" even if he has a rather plain-looking face.

(kakko can also mean "suitability" as well as "appearance", so if a girl in an anime describes a guy as having "good suitability", I can see why some translators might choose to use the word "cool". Coming right out and saying "sexy" would lack the sideways-speaking subtlty of "kakko ii.")

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Re:And if you speak the words... by DeadCatX2 · 2006-02-01 08:38 · Score: 1

Correct me if I'm wrong, but English is supposed to have one of the largest vocabularies of all languages, because we butcher^Wborrow words from many other languages. Also, terms from medicine, engineering, and science work their way into mainstream usage. That, and English has Germanic and Latin roots.

I haven't found any definitive comparisons on the size of vocabulary. Could you please provide a citation for Japanese having more vocabulary than English? Especially if you qualify it as "by far".

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:(){ :|:& };:
Re:And if you speak the words... by coopex · 2006-02-01 08:39 · Score: 3, Funny

Japanese has more vocabulary than English? Are you nuts! "English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar"

--
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-01 11:03 · Score: 1

"omoshiroi" and "subarashii" are nowhere near the same meaning as "sugoi"

That was my point. He could have said "interesting", "wonderful", etc., but instead chose to keep repeating the same expression, not because the language lacks the variation in way you can appreciate something, but because he was so amazed by what he was seeing that he could think of nothing else to say.

Which is why I think they were probably wrong to "fix" his repitition in the translation.

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Re:And if you speak the words... by muyuubyou · 2006-02-01 12:18 · Score: 1

It's a matter of structure. Japanese lends itself to derive more words for their syllabic structure and use of chinese ideograms. I use a pocket dictionary with over 60000 entries, and it's still not enough for even reading newspapers. You have to guess many words.

In the English language most of the ethimology is obscured thus making more difficult for the speaker to learn each word. There's also a multiplicity of roots meaning the exact same thing, even for basic concepts. This patching of the language doesn't make the language richer, but quite the opposite. The japanese use a lot more words than us westerners, especially in written media. Any bilingual speaker with an education knows that.

Japanese (and also Chinese) have a steep learning curve because of their writing systems, but once you get past a point, you just memorize new words more effectively since they're combinations of units with a known meaning. Us westerners don't know the roots of our words for the most part, which is mostly because of the extensive borrowing you mention, which I might add is common to every other european language I know of. They've also borrowed happily, and where they didn't, they're just borrowing back from English now (actually for things they don't even lack, too - pisses me off sometimes).

The typical American college student knows between 20000 and 30000 words on graduation. With 1000 words you cover >99% of the English spoken in the streets. I'd say you need a lot less than that. An average high-school japanese student knows more than 20000 words, if only because for the characters they're forced to memorize to get through high-school.

English may have many words on paper. Other european languages have officially less words than English just because they take out of the dictionary more easily. Some claim English has over half a million non-technical words, which is utter bullshit. They must have been adding in the words in Beowulf. I'd bet there are no more than 100000 non-slang words in all English modern literature put together. I even have a half-finished perl script somewhere just stripping words out of text and deconjugating verbs and taking out proper nouns just to check how many English words do people actually use. I have to retake it some day.

A language doesn't have as many words as it's most stupidly big dictionary, but rather as many as a significant portion of their speakers get to know. I'm afraid American English - the most influential dialect of English - is very poor. But it's not only that; the structure of the language is such that we have more grammar and they have more words to express the same things. The opposite happens when comparing with French for instance; I believe they have less words but way more grammar. Human communication is not more or less complex in other cultures. If they lack something, they compensate with something else.

Now that was a waste of my time... who's going to read all that? :D
Re:And if you speak the words... by davidsyes · 2006-02-01 12:26 · Score: 1

And, if you speak the words: Okama ga oshiri kashite? what would it say? When I put in: "lend me your ass, won't you?" Babelfish translates it as: 私をあなた&#1 2398;ろば貸しな&#123 73;い、そうで&#12377 ;ね? When I put it back in and say translate from Japanese to English, babelfish returnss: "You it is slow, lend me, so the shank?" I would have a ball watching Kuroshiiya Ichi (bad memory: "Ichi the Killer"... hmmm, maybe "Kurose Ichiya"? kerosene burns penis medical operation becomes: 燈油は& #38512;茎の医学操&#2 0316;を燃やす but, converted from Japanese back to English, it becomes: The kerosene burns the medical operation of the penis I think if it is cut and pasted randomly, some interesting permutations can be had. Well, I coulnd't resist checking that out, and from Japanese to English, that last sentence becomes: "If as for me that pasting optionally, it is interesting permutation it is possible to have, you think." Funny, I saw, "you think." a number of times in a site that GOOGLE translated for me a couple weeks ago... Now, I wonder what "reverse discrimination" could be had from "reverse-bad-translation"...

--
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Re:And if you speak the words... by spooje · 2006-02-01 13:07 · Score: 1

Do you have another reference which says so?
Sure, all my young friends over here. I hate to rain on your parade, but I work here in Tokyo translating TV shows from English to Japanese. Start hanging out on the west side of the Yamanote and you'll hear it used that way a lot, or check out MTV Japan. Translation dictionaries will only get you so far.

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Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
Re:And if you speak the words... by caranha · 2006-02-01 15:55 · Score: 1

Well it depends on what the software is made to do. I saw a presentation in november in Tokyo university of a company which was developing such translation software. They held a demonstration, and it was quite successfull, from japanese to english and back (I volunteered to test it myself, and tried to trick the thing).

The trick is, the device was intended for use ONLY in airports. So It could translate well any sentence in this context (things about luggage, flights, customs, times, where is this or that). If you tried to say something not likely to be said in an airport, it failed miserably, but other than that, it surprised me (I, too, don't usually believe in automatic translation).

I don't know the nitty gritty details of their research, but It seems pretty reasonable the premise that if you limit the world heavily, you can get some decent translation. After all, even people can be pretty lame translators if they don't know the context.

e.g. translate the word "hail" to some language.
Re:And if you speak the words... by justchris · 2006-02-01 17:15 · Score: 1

I did, cause it interests me.

I don't entirely agree with you, but I did want to point out that the Japanese steal words just as freely as Americans do. It's one thing the two languages, or more appropriately, the two cultures, have in common. We're not so hung up on the cultural implications of "corrupting" our language as, say, the French are, so we borrow/steal words whenever we lack one to describe something. And if that doesn't work, we just make something up. That is how slang is created, and how it eventually makes itself a part of our language. I'm sure in a good 5 years or so, the word "blog" will be considered an actual word, no matter how evil it is.

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just some guy
Re:And if you speak the words... by Dabido · 2006-02-01 17:57 · Score: 1

'Some claim English has over half a million non-technical words, which is utter bullshit. They must have been adding in the words in Beowulf. I'd bet there are no more than 100000 non-slang words in all English modern literature put together.'

You'd actually lose that bet. There are actually close to 150,000 non-technical and non-slang words (but at least you are closer than half a million). They're not including words from Beowulf etc. English has easily over 1 million words (including all the technical ones, slang ones and everything). When they compile the Dictionaries every year, they only included words that are actually in everyday use. Normally they lose about 50,000 in the process.

The reason English has so many words is because it's a language that is a combination of MANY other languages and borrows from everywhere.
Let's face it, it's got Germanic roots, has Celtic, Latin, French, and Greek thrust in it from invasions, inhabitants and clerics, as well as other words it's picked up from other languages all over, like Tsunami from Japan.

A lot of what you wrote above didn't seem to have a lot to do with answering the question that DeadcatX2 was proposing, which was a citation supporting your belief that Japanese had a bigger Vocab than English. [Unless they've removed a post in between and you were answerin someone else].

Do you have the citation, or is it just your belief? Every source I can find seems to believe English has without a doubt a huge vocabulary. (And in some cases the largest).
Even the Oxford English Dictionary states that it is most likely true that English has the most words.

--
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Re:And if you speak the words... by muyuubyou · 2006-02-01 22:36 · Score: 1

All languages I know are a combination of many others as well. Doesn't mean we keep in English anywhere near a complete vocabulary from any of those. I've studied Latin - the amount of latin words we don't have a good translation for is amazing. There are heaps of common latin words we have lost completely not only in English but also in romance languages like Italian or Spanish. It's not even a safe bet to say English is richer than Latin. From the richness in their expression, it most probably isn't, and they didn't have good ways to compile dictionaries... they didn't even have printing tech. Japanese borrows most of it's vocab from just a few, most importantly Chinese and prehistoric languages from the Japanese islands. It doesn't matter. I've seen vocabs listing millions, but of course most of them are either obsolete or unused. Oxford claims there are 171,476 words in use and preserves some 50000 obsolete ones for historical reasons. Any run-of-the-mill Japanese thesaurus includes at least 200,000. I can sell you some if you wish. My Thesaurus from Shogakukan has some 230000 IIRC. I'm sure there are compilations in the millions of entries, but it doesn't matter for the issue at hand. The issue at hand is how many words does an average Japanese speaker know, and they do know and use a lot more than us; not just English speakers, but westerners in general. The guy said "sugoi sugoi sugoi sugoi sugoi" instead of spouting a lot of different words because of style. It actually fits their mentality; just because you have the most advanced architecture tech, it doesn't mean your room doesn't have to be minimalistic. They use accurate terms where needed, and mostly in written Japanese.
Re:And if you speak the words... by FF8Jake · 2006-02-02 02:37 · Score: 1

Funny you say that, since whoever posted the article didn't have the japanese phrase right. ^_^;

Koko = here, next to me

Kore wa doko desu ka? Would be better, I think.
Re:And if you speak the words... by DeadCatX2 · 2006-02-02 03:44 · Score: 1

I would be willing to give the point that the active vocabulary of the average Japanese person is larger than the active vocabulary for the average American.

Reason being that we have things like white trash to bring our average down. Even the lamest Japanese (NEET, I believe they're referred as) had to make it though high school, and their educational system is from what I've heard way more intense than ours.

I have to wonder, though, how much of Japanese can be generated by the combination of those basic written symbols you spoke of, and if that's like using prefixes in English. For instance, is cool one symbol, and uncool another symbol? I'm not sure whether that would count as two words to someone counting the words in English, but it sure sounds like you're counting that as two "words" in written Japanese.

And IIRC, I once read something about the Japanese using repitition for emphasis. Repeating "Sugoi!" over and over would be like saying "super-duper-awesome-spectacu-fantastic!" or something along those lines.

--
:(){ :|:& };:
Re:And if you speak the words... by TheoMurpse · 2006-02-02 19:48 · Score: 1

desu ka is like a verbalized period

The same word could be used to reference the self, another person, or an inanimate object

rootkit wa nani desu ka?
Close. An accurate translation would be "ruutokitto [rootkit] wa nan desu ka." However, this sounds more like "What is a rootkit?" if you had already heard of one. I believe you would use this in a sense of...gosh, I can't explain it.. I think it would be more natural to say, "ruutokitto to iu no wa nan desu ka," which sounds more like, "The thing called "rootkit": what is it?" which carries the implication that you are just now hearing about a contraption called the "rootkit". It conveys more accurately the unfamiliarity with the idea.

Nani is roughly translated as what, but there's a few ways to say what.
The only other word I can think of is "nan".

But anyways, I'm going to bed. G'night, /.!
Re:And if you speak the words... by TheoMurpse · 2006-02-02 19:56 · Score: 1

I completely forgot to comment on two parts of the GP's post:

desu ka is like a verbalized period
No, not at all. The "ka" is a question marker. It belongs only in interrogative sentences. However, GP's statement about "desu" being like "to be" is correct. It's called a copula.

The same word could be used to reference the self, another person, or an inanimate object
Unless the GP means "verb", that's completely false. But I'm sure that's what GP meant, since he was talking about verbs and context clues.
Re:And if you speak the words... by Golias · 2006-02-03 01:57 · Score: 1

You're not raining on my parade, you're just being a smart-ass in response to an honest question.

--
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

I can see it now... by AKAImBatman · 2006-02-01 03:41 · Score: 4, Funny

'A user may speak the words "Koko-wa-dokodesuka?" (Where is this?) in Japanese, for example, into the device's microphone, upon which a cartoon bird acting as an interpreter will pop up and start talking in the user's language.

Popular phrases used to test the device are "Polly wants a cracker?", "I thought I saw a putty-tat!", and "I did! I did see a putty-tat!" To date, most American users are put off by the device's inability to translate "putty-tat", a common term for the average house cat. Sony has promised to take a look at this issue.

--
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade

Bluetooth earpieece.. by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 03:41 · Score: 5, Funny

It is rumored that the bluetooth ear piece resembles a small yellow fish.. The user by placing the earpiece into their ear canal can now understand all language, and though logic unbeknownst to us, disproves the existance of god.

Re:Bluetooth earpieece.. by stanwirth · 2006-02-01 03:45 · Score: 1

the bluetooth ear piece resembles a small yellow fish..

AKA the Babelfish! Woo-Hoo! Thank You! Grazie! Gracias! Tak! Merci!
Re:Bluetooth earpieece.. by aug24 · 2006-02-01 04:22 · Score: 1

Mind that zebra crossing mate. Dangerous, they are.

--
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Re:Bluetooth earpieece.. by wheany · 2006-02-01 04:36 · Score: 1

REALLY? WOW!

Soon to be followed by by Saint37 · 2006-02-01 03:42 · Score: 2, Funny

Next Sony will probably make the announcement that they will own all conversations facilitated by the PSP. They will implement DRM to enforce this. Should you want to playback your conversation, you will need to rent it.

http://www.commodore69.com/

Re:1 ! by LiquidCoooled · 2006-02-01 03:43 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Wow!

Slashdot translates chinese really well!?

I actually posted "First Translated post!" in chinese but its been interpreted somewhat differently.

--
liqbase :: faster than paper

Paperclip? by XMilkProject · 2006-02-01 03:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is actually really slick. I hate to support Sony nowadays, but this is exactly the sort of utility that will make hardware like the PSP more useful to people. Hopefully in the near future all our PDA's and Cellphones will be able to translate live as we talk.

I hope theres an option to have a talking Paperclip though, I'd feel more at home with that. <sarcasm/>

Let me know when its in a device that will fit in my ear :)

--
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...

Re:Paperclip? by uradu · 2006-02-01 04:19 · Score: 1

Actually, the killer replacement skin for the bird is the translating pimp: yo man, where dis, know what I'm sayin'?
Re:Paperclip? by jred · 2006-02-01 05:58 · Score: 1

This is what you're looking for. Have fun.

--

jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
Re:Paperclip? by sehryan · 2006-02-01 06:03 · Score: 1

"...this is exactly the sort of utility that will make hardware like the PSP more useful to people."

As opposed to, you know, playing games.

--
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Re:Paperclip? by Hal_Porter · 2006-02-01 06:16 · Score: 1

"But Muuuuum, I neeeed one for my homework"

Dual use stuff has more chance of being bought. Hence all those Uk games consoles with keyboards in the 80's.

Mind you, more people learnt to program on them than almost anything else, so it's not completely untrue. And it's not as if they were designed to be games consoles exclusively either.

--
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Re:Paperclip? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 06:34 · Score: 0

Dual Use Goods are a slightly different thing. You wouldn't be able to export it too ;)
Re:Paperclip? by Spokehedz · 2006-02-01 06:51 · Score: 1

Or even easier, just let everybody settle on one universal language... Force? Noo... We'll just talk louder and slower for the people who don't want to learn the new standard.
Re:Paperclip? by pembo13 · 2006-02-01 09:44 · Score: 1

So umm, do many people still play games on the PSP?

--
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft

Kind of Neat! by Eli+Gottlieb · 2006-02-01 03:44 · Score: 1

Now the PSP gaming networks will be filled with people mangling Japanese, Russian and any of 25 or so Indian languages instead of just English.

Still, I think it's that people will be able to play video games with people from the other side of the world ("It's night-time by you, right?" "No, noon.") without having to learn another language.

Re:Kind of Neat! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 04:07 · Score: 0

You'd still have to learn English.

News? by CMiYC · 2006-02-01 03:44 · Score: 4, Informative

You've been able to import this from Lik-Sang for quite some time now. In fact, here is their hands on review from Nov.

I can see it now .... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 03:44 · Score: 1, Funny

speaker: our inspectors are seeking instances of non compliance
translation: All your base are belong to us!

speaker: I have some thoughts I've been formulating about that subject
translation: FIRST PROST!

speaker: Excuse me, but you are beautiful, I know I'm a nerd, but would you go out with me?
translation: Please hold still long enough to get a camera photo of you to whack off to later while I dream about you all alone in front of my $8000 hand built gaming computer.

speaker: I'm writing a new application that uses windows, icons, menus, and pointers.
translation: Could you please point me to the nearest IP attorney so I can file some patents?

Re:I can see it now .... by Tab+is+on+Slashdot · 2006-02-01 08:56 · Score: 1

The Transdotter!

Phrase Test by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2006-02-01 03:45 · Score: 0

Can you query: Where is the p0rn?

--
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."

Re:Phrase Test by meringuoid · 2006-02-01 03:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

Can you query: Where is the p0rn?
Sure. My Japanese is restricted to what I pick up from anime, but the phrase here was fairly simple:
'Koko wa doko desu ka'
'Doko desu ka' means 'where is it?'. Whatever you stick before 'wa' is the it to which 'doko desu ka' refers. 'Koko' is 'here', so the question is effectively 'where is here?' or in better English, 'where is this?'
So, you want p0rn? Simple. 'P0rn wa doko desu ka'. Except that you'll probably have to spell it in Japanese lettering at some point, so 'Porunno wa doko desu ka' might be the way forward :)

--
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Re:Phrase Test by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2006-02-01 03:56 · Score: 1

'Koko wa doko desu ka'
I won't ask how often this as come in handy for you.
Now all we need is the other n languages supported by the translator.
Thx!

--
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Re:Phrase Test by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 04:10 · Score: 0

"Poruno", not "porunno". But what he's probably looking for would use the "ero" root - "ero-manga", "ero-anime", "ero-eiga" and so forth.

BTW, can't be bothered to make two posts, so going slightly OT here: this thing is not a translator, at least not in the sci-fi. It's a talking phrasebook. It might be able to translate "which way to the station?", but I seriously doubt it'll be able to handle "which train do I catch to go to Akihabara".
Re:Phrase Test by ookaze · 2006-02-01 04:56 · Score: 1

So, you want p0rn? Simple. 'P0rn wa doko desu ka'. Except that you'll probably have to spell it in Japanese lettering at some point, so 'Porunno wa doko desu ka' might be the way forward :)

Huh ?
Doko is for places. I don't even know if they will understand p0rn, and they will start figuring out if there is a place named 'poruno'. As your japanese is what you picked from anime, you should have figured out that p0rn is dubbed 'H' ('etchi' in japanese) for hentai.
And for things, aru is the verb for general things, so : 'hentai ha doko arimasu ka' would be more correct I think ...
Re:Phrase Test by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 05:58 · Score: 0

...
don't critisize without learning first.

Ecchi wa doko?
(Porn is where?/Where is the porn?)

Ecchi wa doko desu ka?
(Porn is where?)

Ecchi wa doko ga aru ka?
(Porn is where?)

Ecchi wa doko ga arimasu ka?
(Porn is where?)

All the above mean the same thing. If the translator can't handle the multiple levels of politeness in Japanese, we'll never know where the porn is.
Re:Phrase Test by trezor · 2006-02-01 07:42 · Score: 1

Except that you'll probably have to spell it in Japanese lettering at some point, so 'Porunno wa doko desu ka' might be the way forward :)

'ERO was doko desu ka?' will do fine. ero as in erotic, and hence written in katakana. Behold all the useless knowledge do I possess!

--
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.

Useful in the US? by guice · 2006-02-01 03:45 · Score: 0, Troll

Granted, it might be useful in the Asian countries, but in the US? Maybe the European version will have more useful langauges for the US culture: Hindi

I'm glad by dr_dank · 2006-02-01 03:46 · Score: 3, Funny

A user may speak the words "Koko-wa-dokodesuka?" (Where is this?) in Japanese, for example, into the device's microphone, upon which a cartoon bird acting as an interpreter will pop up and start talking in the user's language. The bird is also able to translate the reply into Japanese.'

I'm glad that Bonzi Buddy has been able to find a new job.

--
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?

Re:I'm glad by chris_eineke · 2006-02-01 04:51 · Score: 1

Lesser known fact: the purple gorilla used to be a green parrot.

--
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Re:I'm glad by Tacvek · 2006-02-01 05:36 · Score: 1

Bonzai Buddy is an application that uses Microsoft Agent. Microsoft Agent is a technology that can be used to give 'character' to an application. It is used as the basis of the XP search assisant, the Office Assistant (the newer ones that are not enclosed in a window), And even the little question mark thing that appears the first time you boot into Windows XP after installation (or after sysprep).

Microsoft created (or at least holds the rights to) may characters. Some are fairly application specific not having a fairly complete set of aninimations. But Microsoft also has four general purpose characters, one of which is the green parrot named Peedy.

For more information see: http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/default.asp

--
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524

no wonder it understands twice as much japanese by dhardisty · 2006-02-01 03:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

"The technology is said to be able to translate some 50,000 Japanese words and 25,000 English words." I'm not surprised this thing was invented in japan -- since japanese only has 5 basic vowel sounds and no consonant clusters, it must be easier for the software to encode. That, and it makes sense to support the language of the people you are marketing it to.

Re:no wonder it understands twice as much japanese by TheoMurpse · 2006-02-02 20:02 · Score: 1

since japanese only has 5 basic vowel sounds and no consonant clusters, it must be easier for the software to encode

But on the other hand, due to the limit amount of phonemes to choose from in Japanese, there are a ridiculous amount of homophones, and few hints as to where one word ends and one begins. Thus, the AI must be stronger. Unless of course, there are few enough phrases supported where it becomes a non-issue. I didn't RTFA, so I don't know.

Old news by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 03:49 · Score: 2, Informative

This game has already been on shelves for a long time in Japan. I suppose it could be used as a translator, but it's definitely not useful as something a person could quickly pull out to get a translation. That talking bird is annoying as hell -- think going through 3 menus just to get to clippy. Barf. You also need to have an awkward mic plugged into the USB port that renders all carrying cases useless.

What's cool about this game isn't its ability to translate, but moreso its capacity to correct pronunciation until it's perfect. The game is really stellar at correcting a person's pronunciation and intonation in each language. I imagine it's also a great way to learn some basic phrases before going somewhere.

There's a really neat game that just came out for the DS that focuses on dictation. The game will say an English sentence, for example, and the player must write that sentence onto the screen as quickly as possible with the stylus. The Japanese have all sorts of neat language and "edutainment" games -- too bad we don't get in on the fun in the West.

Re:Old news by Chris+Spencer · 2006-02-01 08:10 · Score: 1

There's a really neat game that just came out for the DS that focuses on dictation. The game will say an English sentence, for example, and the player must write that sentence onto the screen as quickly as possible with the stylus.
I've heard of that game before. It's called Mechanical Turk.
If you like that one, you'll LOVE painting my picket fence!

--
SoundTimer makes you sound busy.
Re:Old news by CheapyD · 2006-02-01 11:25 · Score: 1

Yeah, I have the Talkman and I must admit its pretty useless as a tool to be used out on the streets. The load times are pretty long and I don't think the speakers are powerful enough so that the Talkman could be heard in a noisy enviornment. As far as it's pronunciation correction abilities...it gave Mrs. CheapyD low marks on several occasions despite the fact that she is a native speaker of Japanese. It does have use as a way for people to memorize some phrases, but it's not going to really teach someone a language.

Futurama by Roj+Blake · 2006-02-01 03:49 · Score: 5, Funny

Unfortunately so far it only translates into an incomprehensible dead language.

Speaks into PSP: Konichiwa
Reply from PSP: Bonjour

--
Auron may be different, Cally, but on Earth it is considered ill-mannered to kill your friends while committing suicide.

Re:Futurama by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 03:56 · Score: 0

Wow. After all this time posted and not one Monty Python reference.....

OK, here goes.....

We all know that it will translate "Konichiwa" to;

"My hovercraft is full of eels...."

Re:I can see it now...Putty-tat by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2006-02-01 03:49 · Score: 3, Funny

most American users are put off by the device's inability to translate "putty-tat"

Putty-tat is owned by Warner Brothers Studio, part of AOL Time Warner. If you think that ATW is going to license a competing studio -- Sony -- to use their intellectual property then you are crazier than Daffy Duck (also owned by ATW, and emphatically not licensed for use in this Slashdot post.)

--
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."

what about Hungarian? by nomadic · 2006-02-01 03:55 · Score: 4, Funny

My hovercraft is full of eels.

Re:what about Hungarian? by dhardisty · 2006-02-01 04:01 · Score: 2, Informative

The Hungarian phrase meaning "Can you direct me to the station?" is translated by the English phrase, "Please fondle my bum."

read the complete transcript...
Re:what about Hungarian? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 08:58 · Score: 0

Why translate that to Hungarian?

Watashi no hobaakurafuto wa unagi de ippai desu

Good by Ikyaat · 2006-02-01 03:55 · Score: 0, Offtopic

This is awsome! The next time I'm surrounded by metal munching sharks I can speak "Bah weep granna weep ninny bon" into my psp and I wont get thrown into a pit full of sharktacons.

--
"Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius." -Heinlein

Forgot to Add, There are Tons of Screen Shots... by CMiYC · 2006-02-01 03:57 · Score: 1

message in topic...

European by MagicM · 2006-02-01 03:57 · Score: 4, Funny

A European release for TalkMan is expected in the spring.

Oh goodie! I've always wanted to learn to speak European!

Re:European by aminorex · 2006-02-01 10:40 · Score: 1

Bah, Eurotrash talk! I'm stoked for the Latin American edition, so that I can speak proper Latin! How do those Incans say "potatoe" anyhow?

--
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-

Does it do Hungarian? by Bob+McCown · 2006-02-01 04:05 · Score: 5, Funny

I do not want this tobacconist, it is scratched.

Re:Does it do Hungarian? by Tony+Hoyle · 2006-02-01 05:06 · Score: 1

Down the road, second on the left and 3rd door past the chip shop.
Re:Does it do Hungarian? by coopex · 2006-02-01 10:57 · Score: 1

No, no, no, no. Tobacco...um...cigarettes

--
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

the bird of youth by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 04:07 · Score: 0

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come

After the DRM debacle? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 04:08 · Score: 0

There's no way I'm getting one, even if they'd release a patch that made it fetch beer.

I wouldn't trust this particular translator by joebob1000 · 2006-02-01 04:16 · Score: 1

I am surprised that more slashdotters don't speak Japanese, and also surprised that a Japanese writer made this dumb mistake (chonbo), but Koko means "here", and Kore means "this". The phrase really says "Where is here?". To say "Where is this?", you would say "Kore wa, doko desu ka?" I am nitpicking only because the thing is a translator, and it makes the nonsensical sentence. I can't wait to see the actual translator. Inoue-san...nandekota!!

Re:I wouldn't trust this particular translator by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 08:09 · Score: 0

Dear JobBlob:

I'd guess that more than a passing few slashdotters have some experience with the language. (Myself, first language is (CANADIAN, eh?) English, followed by French and then Japanese (lived in Osaka for a couple of years...Demo, Osaka-ben, honto ni wakarahen! :-)).

The point being - yes, machine translation will not pick up the nuances, but then even human translaters, such as your post, demonstrate what level of the language you have grasped.
Exemplis gratis: saying that "kore" means "here" is a very rough translation, since we don't know, for example, who is speaking to whom and where. Consider "Are wa doko desu ka?", "Sore wa doko desu ka?", as well as "Kore wa doko desu ka?" All could be roughly translated as "Where is this", but position and location of speakers is important. If we don't know, then I guess we'll just fall back on "kore" as a default, eh?
Also note the dialect example given above? Something also to consider.
Re:I wouldn't trust this particular translator by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 09:57 · Score: 0

That translator did a better job than you... In Japanese, if you wanted to know where you were, you would say "koko ha doko desu ka?". Literally, that would be "where is here?", but translation isn't usually literal...
Re:I wouldn't trust this particular translator by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 11:10 · Score: 0

Not everyone tries to translate out of the dictionary. Would you seriously ever say "Where is here?" (if you don't speak English natively, I'll give you a hint: no). When translating from Japanese to English (or vice versa) you have to use different words depending on the context. Even if "koko" is closest to "here" with no context, in English when we're asking where we are, we say "Where is this?"
Re:I wouldn't trust this particular translator by Durf · 2006-02-01 16:07 · Score: 2

Koko wa doko desu ka? is a perfectly acceptable sentence if you're asking where you are at this moment in time (standing in the middle of Harajuku with your Lonely Planet guide held upside down, for instance) or if you're pointing to a spot on the map and asking how you might find that place.

Accuracy ? by ookaze · 2006-02-01 04:17 · Score: 1

I don't pretend to know English or Japanese very well as none are my native language, but isn't the correct translation for "Koko ha doko desu ka" actually "Where am I", with the meaning "what is this place I'm standing in right now ?" ?
Is "Where is this ?" equivalent to "Where am I ?" in american ?
Does the translation come from the device or from the news submitter ?
I'm confused.

It's good that the software seems so advanced.
What cost will it have though ?

Re:Accuracy ? by Tiroth · 2006-02-01 04:30 · Score: 1

It literally means "where is here?" It could have multiple glosses depending on the context.
Re:Accuracy ? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 04:36 · Score: 0

In American English "Where is this?" is generally equivalent to "Where am I?" as it is a grammatical short-cut for "Where is this (place in which I am standing)?" It's assumed based on context, incedentally like much of the Japanese language.
Re:Accuracy ? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 04:41 · Score: 0

if it were "where am I?" it would have been "Watashi wa doko desu ka?", with "Watashi" being "I". "Koko"="this", "Soko"="that", so if you wanted to ask, according to previous conversational context, where "that" is (where "that" is a lamp, a DS, a PSP, a place etc and has been established), you would say "Soko wa doko desu ka?"

Japanese is a very interesting language to learn.
Re:Accuracy ? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 06:41 · Score: 0

Yes "Where is this?" is equivelent to "Where am I?" in English. FYI, there shouldn't be a space before the question mark (or any punctuation, for that matter).

Good job on getting the apostrophes correct; most English-speakers I know can't even do that half the time (which is pretty sad, considering it's usually their first and/or only language, and they've somehow graduated high school and college with high grades).

Old News Indeed: D-D-D-Double Dupe! by Valdrax · 2006-02-01 04:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

This has been covered twice on Slashdot already. Twice.

July 12th, 2004
November 26th, 2005

As for decent games: All I ask for is an RPG! A nice RPG!

--
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").

Why is this news? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 04:30 · Score: 0

Why is this news? This "game" has been out for several months in Japan:

* The mic is actually quite slick looking ...
* Of limited use as a learning tool due to rather limited scope of topics that are translatable.
* Voice recognition needs improvement!
* Loan times are a bitch!

Flamebait? by Roj+Blake · 2006-02-01 04:34 · Score: 1, Informative

It's just a futurama joke!

Were the French translators of the show flamebaiting when they changed the joke so that German was the dead language? No, it's just a joke.

Bite my shiny daffodil ass!

--
Auron may be different, Cally, but on Earth it is considered ill-mannered to kill your friends while committing suicide.

Check out Sony's site by earthbound+kid · 2006-02-01 04:38 · Score: 1

Go to the official site and click on the whities. The video is hilarious proof of why this product is totally worthless as a translator, yet hilariously awesome.

"Shumi wa nan desuka?"
(What do you like to do?)
"I, like, to, eat!"
(Can you describe it with gestures?)

Disgrace.

Then in the end, the Japanese guy hooks up with a girl with an Italian accent. Hmm, Italy's public education system apparently can teach English, so what's Japan's problem? (Don't answer that.)

Question by kadathseeker · 2006-02-01 04:45 · Score: 1

Okay, the PSP is sexy, Sony, yes I think it's pretty. But what can I do with it besides watch mostly crappy movies, listen to music that I already have on my smaller iPod, or put pr0n on? Where are the GAMES? What is your killer app? What are the must-have games? I have never seen someone playing anything besides Lumines on a PSP. Everyone I know with a DS has a ton of games that kick ass. Don't you have something better to be doing, Sony, than making translators and rootkits? How about games or finishing the PS3? Ranting aside, if you own a PSP, kill anyone you have to to get the PSP remake of the best RPG of all time, Valkyrie Profile. And if you own a PS2, buy the sequel, Valkyrie Profile Silmeria. And if you like the music, download (since you will be broke after buying both games you'll have to wait till payday to buy) Dimmu Borgir.

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The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson

Re:Question by rabbot · 2006-02-01 06:22 · Score: 1

Every time someone refers to a piece of hardware as "sexy", the Flying Spaghetti Monster kills a kitten.
Re:Question by kadathseeker · 2006-02-01 10:15 · Score: 1

If I cared about kittens I wouldn't be the kind of guy that posts on /. now would I?

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The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
Re:Question by darkhitman · 2006-02-01 10:45 · Score: 1

I can't believe you're telling us PSP doesn't have any games, and you're on slashdot. One word: Piracy. There are about 10-15 different emulators for the PSP, as well as various ports of games (including Quake...with multiplayer). To date, I have the NES, the SNES, and the Genesis on my psp. To those of you asking why people buy these things when they could use the gameboy, well, I can get GB, GBC, and GBA on my PSP if I wanted. Bitches.

--
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
Re:Question by kadathseeker · 2006-02-01 11:26 · Score: 1

I have already beaten most of those games either in their original form, or as PC ROMS. Why should I spend $300 to play these same games, only on the go? As a supplement, they are nice, but I'm not gonna buy a Revolution just to play old games, neither should I buy a PSP to do so, especially when I already have a laptop that alows me to do so one the go. Besides, on the off-chance someone else cares, ROMS are on the grey side of the law.

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The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson

"Mei you wei sheng zhi... mei you wei sheng zhi" by Laconian · 2006-02-01 04:51 · Score: 1

(gets TP thrown at me)

Arabic by jbeaupre · 2006-02-01 04:53 · Score: 1

Too bad it doesn't do arabic. I know at least 140,000 customers that could really use it, like, yesterday.

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The world is made by those who show up for the job.

OLD NEWS! by umijin · 2006-02-01 05:07 · Score: 0, Offtopic

C'mon - this is old, outdated news by internet standards. At least two months old and not worth posting so late. Yeah, it's pretty cool software - but we knew about it LONG ago.

This Is More Correct by juancnuno · 2006-02-01 05:27 · Score: 2, Informative

Rootkit ga doko desu ka?

Re:This Is More Correct by TheoMurpse · 2006-02-02 19:58 · Score: 1

Rootkit ga doko desu ka?

Make that "wa" instead of "ga", and you've got yourself a deal. Assuming you meant, "Where is the rootkit?"

Not machine translation by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 05:28 · Score: 0

It doesn't actually translate anything. It's an electronic phrase book that uses speech recognition to try to decide which phrase you are trying to say.

There are a fixed number of phrases that it knows the translations for and that is all you get. You also have to set the domain properly first. So it won't recognize any food related questions when you have it set to the Travel domain.

It's a complete waste of money when compared to existing electronic phrase books which are more comprehensive and much faster.

TalkBoy by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 05:51 · Score: 0

TalkMan... not to be confused with the TalkBoy from Home Alone

Mr. Sparkle Translation Expected by Eradicator2k3 · 2006-02-01 05:55 · Score: 0

'A user may speak the words "Koko-wa-dokodesuka?" (Where is this?) in Japanese, for example, into the device's microphone, upon which a cartoon bird acting as an interpreter will pop up and start talking in the user's language.

Unfortunately, while the bird speaks in the user's language it will translate the aforementioned "Koko-wa-dokodesuka?" as "I'm disrespectful to dirt! Can you see I am serious?"

--
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.

Awesome!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 05:57 · Score: 0

Next up, how about some good games?

Translator? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 06:00 · Score: 0

You mean I wont need to use http://translation2.paralink.com/ anymore?

Old news! At least in Japan by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 06:07 · Score: 0

I saw ads for this all over the trains in Tokyo during my trip there in November. Here's one of them.

No, it's not. by Golias · 2006-02-01 06:22 · Score: 1

iie, chigaimasu.

"Rootkit ga" is incorrect, because rootkit works as a focus, even though you are asking where it is. You only use "ga" as a subject marker when you can't use the noun as a focus. The correct marker in that sentence is "wa."

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Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

Re:No, it's not. by DeadCatX2 · 2006-02-01 06:35 · Score: 1

What's an example of a subject that can't be used as a focus?

Haha, this thread is turning into an informal Japanese lesson.

Makes me wish I had some kind of material besides fansubs to learn from. I'm fascinated by all this language stuff; nasal sounds, voiced/voiceless, etc etc. Focus is a totally new concept, and it makes some kind of intuitive sense but I can't limit the meaning because I have nothing to compare against what is and isn't a focus. It all seems like a subject to me.

"Dammit, Jim, I'm an engineer not a linguist!"

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:(){ :|:& };:
Re:No, it's not. by juancnuno · 2006-02-01 06:38 · Score: 1

I ain't no master of anything Japanese beyond DDR, but I feel my sentence is grammatically correct. I didn't mark rootkit as a topic, but it is the subject and the subject particle ga is valid. I understand it's customary to have topics marked with wa.

Watashi no sensei made me believe it was subtler than one might think. I entered the conversation with the parent's author not knowing what my topic was going to be. So I consciously refrained from using wa. Once we have a back-and-forth going, and the topic continues being the rootkit, then it's OK for me to mark it with wa.
Re:No, it's not. by Golias · 2006-02-01 06:46 · Score: 1

What's an example of a subject that can't be used as a focus?

dare ga kono osake o nomimashita ka.

("Who drank this sake?")

Since "who" is the subject, and is an unknown variable, you can not use it as a focus, so you must use "dare ga" instead of "dare wa".

A slightly different example:

yuki ga kinou amari hurimaseNdeshita.

("It did not snow very much yesterday.")

Weather phenomenon like falling snow are not really considered tangible objects in the Japanese language, and so they can not be used as a focus.

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Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Re:No, it's not. by Golias · 2006-02-01 06:54 · Score: 1

Even though you are asking what it is, you know that you are asking about a thing which is called a rootkit, therefore rootkit is your focus and "wa" is correct.

"ga" is only correct when there is not a specific and tangible thing which your sentence can speak about.

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Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Re:No, it's not. by Trejkaz · 2006-02-01 09:26 · Score: 1

When you're using the copula "desu", you generally use the topic marker "wa" instead of the subject marker "ga". If you wanted to use "ga", you could possibly say "rootkit ga doko ni arimasu ka", which would roughly mean "in what place does the rootkit exist."

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Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!

Offtopic??? by BancBoy · 2006-02-01 06:36 · Score: 1

Funny Transformers linguistic post gets modded Offtopic? Geez people.

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[UID-HeinzIntel]

No tea for you. Come back, next year! by antek9 · 2006-02-01 06:43 · Score: 1

It just keeps getting more complicated, I'm afraid: there is no such thing as a standalone t-syllable in the Japanese language, the only standalone consonant being -n (as in: a-ri-ma-se-n). What Golias-kun transcribed as -t- here is in fact the syllable tsu that is used as a 'stopping sound' (sorry, I don't have the proper linguistic term available) when you literally hold your breath just before an explosive syllable within a word. Meaning, you are supposed to read kitto as KIT-[make a small pause, hold your breath/tongue]-TO.

I tried to write katakana but either slashcode or firefox swallowed them. Anyway, the tsu syllable (the one that's looking like a tilted smiley in katakana) if used in that way is written in small print. Otherwise, you would write it standard sized and read it just normally as tsu, here: ki-tsu-to (which doesn't have any meaning in Japanese).

Compare this to the use of tsu within the word deppa (which is quite useful in itself, as it is the word for prominent or crooked teeth). In this case the tsu serves for 'doubling' the plosive -pa and is thus be transcribed as de-p-pa.

Make sense?

--
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.

Re:No tea for you. Come back, next year! by the+chao+goes+mu · 2006-02-01 06:55 · Score: 1

Thanks for both replies. Then the -t- is akin to the transliteration ' in many languages for a stop, such as in b'milah or ha'aretz (though these examples have a weaker stop than that described for japanese). Sorry for all the hebrew refs, but the other languages I know lack hard stops (latin, classical greek, spanish, english).

--
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
Re:No tea for you. Come back, next year! by Golias · 2006-02-01 07:05 · Score: 1

Your explanation is mostly correct (and well-said), except that when you apply the small-tsu to some consonant sounds (s, sh, or any voiced consonant), it becomes an elongated sound rather than a stop.

Also it's not quite right to call the nasal consonant a "standalone -n", because it's not always pronounced like an "n" sound in english.

In "teNpura", it's pronounced "m".

In "arimaseN" (your example), it's supposed to be an open nasal vowel.

In "geNki" (a word anime fans may be familiar with), it's pronounced "ng"

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Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Re:No tea for you. Come back, next year! by antek9 · 2006-02-01 07:23 · Score: 1

Spot on, I just had to stop somewhere to avoid turning completely incomprehensible by naming all exceptions and alternate readings in just one or two paragraphs, I guess.

In either case it makes much more sense if you write it up in kana, it's a pity /. wouldn't let me.

--
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Re:No tea for you. Come back, next year! by Golias · 2006-02-01 07:26 · Score: 1

By the way, I'm very flattered and amused that you referred to me as "Golias-kun", which implies that I'm a young male. I suddenly feel a little better about my receeding hairline. So thanks for that. :)

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Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Re:No tea for you. Come back, next year! by DeadCatX2 · 2006-02-01 07:30 · Score: 1

Imagine being a young male with a receeding hair line.

So is it age or recession of the hairline that distinguishes -kun from -san? =P

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:(){ :|:& };:
Re:No tea for you. Come back, next year! by trezor · 2006-02-01 07:34 · Score: 1

Slashdot ate my kana as well :(

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Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Re:No tea for you. Come back, next year! by Golias · 2006-02-01 07:40 · Score: 1

Heh. My point was, my head features all kinds of daily reminders that I'm no longer what most people would call a "young" man.

However, -kun is kind of relative, just as the word young is, so you can apply it to an old-timer like me if you want to express your observance of my child-like nature (for better or worse.)

Technically, it's probably a mistake to address somebody with -kun instead of -san on an internet forum (unless you've meet them IRL), because that implies that know they are male. -san is gender-neutral.

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Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Re:No tea for you. Come back, next year! by antek9 · 2006-02-01 08:00 · Score: 1

No need for an excuse, that's actually a good comparison, because as you already noted, the -tsu is much stronger and more precisely, all syllables in Japanese being supposed to be of the same length when pronounced, in our example ki-t-to the stop will have to be just as long as either ki or to, if that helps.

What's more, the apostrophe ' is also used in transcribing Japanese, namely after the aforementioned -n whenever it occurs within a word: han'i (ha-n-i, three syllables: malice, bad intentions) is not to be read hani (ha-ni, two syllables [but no meaning except in e.g. haniwa (ha-ni-wa: terracotta, clay figure), please excuse my somewhat defunct examples]). This is because the syllables na, ne, ni, no and nu are part of the Japanese 'alphabet' as well, and they are completely separate from -n, and if you confuse one with the other, you might as well be asking for trouble. ;)

--
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.

The U.S. model... by ribuck · 2006-02-01 07:57 · Score: 1

...a cartoon bird acting as an interpreter will pop up and start talking in the user's language...

The U.S. model will feature Clippy.

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Paid Q&A/Research

Re:The U.S. model... by 1337W422102 · 2006-02-01 15:44 · Score: 1

Sony, dude, not Microsoft. Witty nonetheless.

Very few pronouns? by Trejkaz · 2006-02-01 09:23 · Score: 1

You're not serious about Japanese not having many pronouns, right? It has dozens of them for different occasions. It's the only language I can think of which has about a dozen ways to say "you".

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Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!

Re:Very few pronouns? by DeadCatX2 · 2006-02-01 10:17 · Score: 1

I stand corrected on the existence of pronouns in Japanese. They do in fact have many pronouns, and the honorific/formal/informal issue means that there's a bunch of different ways to say the same thing depending on context.

However, the main point was that they don't often use them. The subject/focus/topic is usually understood or defined explicitly.

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:(){ :|:& };:

Why not use it in something actually worth owning? by cuddly_ogre · 2006-02-01 10:07 · Score: 1

I have had experience with 2 PSPs and neither worked right. Either the screen was messed up or the on button was broken. Except for homebrew and just diddling around kinda stuff, a PSP is just a gadget. Why not put it on a Palm or a laptop/tablet or a watch? Makes it useful for everyone that way.

really by ImaLamer · 2006-02-01 10:26 · Score: 1

Maybe it could help avoid problems like this:

http://www.laraza.com/news.php?nid=28749

I can't wait to see the immigrant population of America with PSP in hand. I think it is actually kind of cool.

--
Get your Unix fortune now!

Japanese vs Spanish demonstratives? by tepples · 2006-02-01 10:39 · Score: 1

Consider "Are wa doko desu ka?", "Sore wa doko desu ka?", as well as "Kore wa doko desu ka?" All could be roughly translated as "Where is this", but position and location of speakers is important.

Is the kore-sore-are distinction in Japanese analogous to the este-ese-aquel distinction in Spanish?

Re:Japanese vs Spanish demonstratives? by McFadden · 2006-02-01 13:46 · Score: 1

I don't speak Spanish, but assuming you do, you'll understand. As a general rule, kore, sore, are refer to different degrees of distance, from closest to furthest away.
There's no perfect way to explain it, as it's something you pick up a feeling for, but you could consider one way of looking as it as:
kore - close to the speaker
sore - closer to the person being spoken to, than to the speaker. Or not within reasonable reaching distance of either - but not far either (e.g. on the next desk to yours).
are - not close to either person (e.g. something a few blocks up the street, or in the distance).
Generally I find in day to day conversation, "kore" and "sore" are quite common, but "are" doesn't actually get used that much. The Japanese sometimes say "sore", when your textbook would suggest "are" might be a more appropriate choice.
Finally just to complicate things (which often seems like a major goal of the language) there are other forms such as kono, sono, ano and koko, soko, asoko which are used in different circumstances.
Re:Japanese vs Spanish demonstratives? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-01 17:19 · Score: 0

My grasp of Japanese is very rudimentary, so I'm mostly asking this with the expectation of being corrected, that I may learn, but:
It was up until now my under standing that (koko/soko/asoko) were used for places, such as here, there, or *pointing down the street* over there. I was under the belief that (kono/sono/ano) was used for for tangible objects, the actual word used changing based on the object's location relative to the speaker and the person being addressed. Finally, I was assuming (yes, I know what happens when you do that) that (kore/sore/are) were reserved for things that weren't tangible, like the previous speakers statement, or an past experience being recalled.
These are probably just the misconceptions of someone who has watched too many fan-subbed anime, and is now trying to learn the language seriously, but learning is what questions are for, after all. Enlighten me, please, Great Teacher /.!
Re:Japanese vs Spanish demonstratives? by McFadden · 2006-02-07 01:24 · Score: 1

This debate is a bit old now, but since I was checking back over past posts and didn't see a reply to your query (least of all from me), I'll answer briefly in case you have email notification turned on and happen to read it.
Actually, you're almost right.
Koko, soko and asoko can be thought of as roughly 'here', 'there' and 'over there' (ie. a bit further than in the immediate vicinity), referring to places.
Kono, sono and ano require a noun, for example:
"kono pasokon" would be "this computer"
"sono pasokon" would be "that computer"
"ano pasokon" is also "that computer" (but a bit further away)
Where you are slightly mistaken is with kore/sore/are. Essentially they are pronouns so they take the place of a noun. 'kore' is 'this', 'sore' is 'that' and 'are' is also 'that' (but again further away). So they usually do refer to something tangible.
So take for example this simple conversation:
"Kore wa nan desu ka?" - "What is this?"
"Kore wa pasokon desu." - "This is a computer."
"Sore wa surashudotto no homupeji desu ka?" - "Is that the Slashdot Homepage?"
"Iie. Sore wa maikurosofuto no homupeji desu!." - "No. That is the Microsoft Homepage!"
"Are wa pasokon desu ne." - "That's a computer (over there) isn't it."
"Baka da na! Are wa terebi desu!" - "Idiot! That's a television!"
There is also another form: kochira, sochira and achira which functions as both directions ('this way', 'that way', 'over there that way') and a polite form of 'this', 'tha't and 'that over there'. But I won't confuse you any further.

And in other news... by stringycheese · 2006-02-01 10:53 · Score: 1

The Talkman software is found to come preinstalled with a rootkit that sends a copy of all conversations to the U.S. government. All conversations are monitored for terrorist activity.

The Chinese government forces Talkman to censor some controversial topics. Chinese users quickly find they can still talk about these topics by slightly mispronouncing the words.

The homebrew community produces a hack that allows you to speak in pig latin.

Context by cartel · 2006-02-01 13:40 · Score: 1

I highly doubt this system can translate things in context though. I'd say human translation is still better.

In order to do proper translation, one of the things a system would need is real-world knowledge representation, which I highly doubt this has.

169 comments