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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.)
From the article:
Given that "Al Qaeda" is Arabic for "The Base", and machine translation is notorious for its poor grasp of grammatical structure and homonyms, are soldiers going to have to deal with outputs like "AL YOUR QAEDA ARE BELONG TO US"?
Arabic is even worse than most human languages for being contextual and ambiguous. It's superb for writing poetry but betting lives on translating it automatically?
...It is not before one hapless American, searching for the nearest terrorist, blurts out to a startled passerby "Please fondle my buttocks"
Why don't the iraqis just use subtitles?
Reminds me of experiment I read about in old computer book... Program was created to translate from English to Russian and back. As a test, a phrase "Time flies like arrow" was translated to Russian and then back to English. It came back as "There are types of flies, called 'Time Flies' that enjoy eating arrows.
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
Soldier: Surrender now, we have you surrounded.
Computer: #All your base are belong to us#
Iraqis: [hysterical laughter]
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You can probably have unbelievably simple conversations, like
"Do you want to kill me?" "No."
And for anything approximating a normal conversation, it's utterly fucking useless. Also, for the times when you actually need a very urgent, very good understanding of the language to prevent a lot of trouble, I bet it's beyond worthless.
At present, and for the forseeable future, there's no adequate substitute for humans that speak the language. I realize we throw Arabic speakers out of the military because they're gay and all, but maybe we could make an exception because their skills are necessary at present. No computer translation system is adequate for usage in a live military operation.
Oh, and IACL (I am A Computational Linguist).
I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
factor 966971: 966971
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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The dismissal of this many Arabic-speaking military linguists *has* had an enormous impact on the military's ability to function efficiently in the Middle Eastern theatre. Believe it or not, the Army is now recruiting linguists on Craigslist with the following ad:
I have also seen a classified ad from the Washington Post from the U.S. military, seeking Arabic linguists (among others) for training and employment. Clearly, discharging all those Arabic-speaking members of the military because of their sexual orientation was foolish, to say the least.
As for the argument that these soldiers should just "clam up" and "not tell the military" they are gay, many LGBQ people would love to serve their country this way. However, you should go to the previously mentioned Servicemembers' Legal Defense Network website at http://www.sldn.org/ to read about the everyday harassment, "witch hunts," and physical and emotional violence inflicted upon gay people by the military in violation of its own "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rules. I think you would be extremely surprised to find out how many servicemen have been killed in the past five years by members of their own divisions/units; the Armed Forced do not exactly issue press releases every time something like this happens. The bottom line is that the vast majority of LGBQ soldiers are forced out against their will, as they try to be quiet and inconspicuous and to serve their country.
Now, being generous while categorizing those results gives:
Complete Success = 2 out of 9 = 22% (Spanish and Chinese)
Almost successfull = 1 out of 9 = 11% (Japanese)
Catastrophic failures = 3 out of 9 = 33% (Portuguese, Italian and Korean)
Serious failures = 3 out of 9 = 33% (French, German and Arabic)
How they get to sell software which fails more than half the times at translating such a simple sentence is truly beyond me...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
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