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.)

Comments

Obligatory Python...

[tetsu96]

...It is not before one hapless American, searching for the nearest terrorist, blurts out to a startled passerby "Please fondle my buttocks"

Subtitles

[seanadams.com]

Why don't the iraqis just use subtitles?

Re:Computer: AL YOUR QAEDA ARE BELONG TO US

[wired_LAIN]

Dear al-Qaeda, let's so double the killer delete wmd all

All your base all over again

[davidwr]

Soldier: Surrender now, we have you surrounded.
Computer: #All your base are belong to us#
Iraqis: [hysterical laughter]

I bet it doesn't work too well.

[Reality Master 201]

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).

Re:Big worry

[EugeneK]

How to do you translate "PLEASE GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR COUNTRY RIGHT NOW" into English?

Oh wait, that's already in English...

Re:I never thought before I spoke before...

[doti]

I will not buy this record, it is scratched.

Re:Great Idea

[iogan]

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.

Why is that exactly, though? Some of them must have been there for years by now, how is it they have been completely unable to learn the language?

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.