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Real-Time Computer-Based Translation in Iraq
[TheBORG] writes "The U.S. military has been testing software on laptops that translate English to Arabic and Arabic to English to have conversations with Iraqis without the need to have a Arabic linguist on hand. 'This year the military's Joint Forces Command has been testing laptops with such software in Iraq. When someone speaks into a microphone attached to the computer, the machine translates it into Arabic and reads that translation aloud over the PC's speakers. The software then translates the Arabic speaker's response and utters it in English.'" (See this related story from last year about this daunting machine-translation task.)
The troops learn simple, common phrases in arabic but that's it. If you actually expect them to learn to speak or read it fluently, then you're expectations are completely unrealistic. Your argument might have some actual bite instead of weak flaimbaitness if you made such a comment about the leadership of the country that sends the troops there in the first place.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
My hovercraft is full of eels.
I used to work for a translation company and I've seen how much confusion can arise from even human translation, it makes me wonder really how prone to error this will be.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Good point. And like the article states ... it hasn't been tested in a real setting yet. How's it going to go translating a screaming, aggressive arabic speaker? What about a stressed out, crying arabic speaker that has just had his family shot and/or blown up? Sounds like just another technological band aid to something that is better off solved with investing in real linguists.
Yeah, sounds like more failure-prone technological solutions to the war on terror, like gait recognition, face recognition, headline scanning, which all are failure-prone, technological solutions to a human problem. What we really need is people skills, like actual fluent translators, experts with experience, covert agents, and inside guys.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I remember the same thing happening while I was teaching English in Prague, 99 percent of the americans there simply couldn't learn czech, while a good 80-85 percent of the rest of us did. I spoke better czech after about 3-4 months than most of my american friends, regardless of how long they'd been there. Never mind how well the russians did, most of whom picked it up in weeks or at most a few months (their language obviously being much more similar, but still)
Being an american who spoke the local language was in fact considered extraordinary, and usually these people would be very well known in the expat community.
I have a feeling the soldiers would be more welcome and more accepted by the locals if they at least made a token effort to learn a little bit of the language and try to understand a little bit about local culture and values. Like, you know, read a few books published by iraqis for instance.
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Even stranger, Iraq, like most middle-eastern countries, doesn't actually use Arabic numbers themselves.
They use Persian numbers.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
The mechanistic translation of Arabic into English will further blind US troups to the social and other conditions in Iraq. They will get back the techical translation but none of the meaning of the speakers. As such the failure to have good translators will be a serious problem. I suppose the best example of this is in a silly film "Mars Attacks". "Don't Panic, We are your friends." ---> Time to start panic.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
Your assertion that US troops aren't going to bother to learn anything whatsoever about Iraq may hold true for a small minority.
However, the gadget will likely have a catalytic effect: given something that can ease some of the basic communication challenges, the bulk of the troops will likely become somewhat conversational rather quickly.
I base my remark on personal experiences of the US Navy in Japan and the Philippines--I wouldn't expect Iraq to be substantially different.
Your point about the need for good translators is not without merit, but the pessimistic tone elicits a yawn, sir.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear