Google Shooting For Smartphone Universal Translator

nikki4 writes to tell us that in giving some major improvement tweaks to its existing voice recognition tool for the Smartphone, Google is aiming for new translator software that will provide instant translation of foreign languages. "The company has already created an automatic system for translating text on computers, which is being honed by scanning millions of multi-lingual websites and documents. So far it covers 52 languages, adding Haitian Creole last week. Google also has a voice recognition system that enables phone users to conduct web searches by speaking commands into their phones rather than typing them in. Now it is working on combining the two technologies to produce software capable of understanding a caller’s voice and translating it into a synthetic equivalent in a foreign language."

Comments

Google is not far from Engrishisfunny.com...

[zero_out]

Maybe my experience is atypical, but Google doesn't seem to translate pages very well. I can only imagine how bad it will be having a phone do this. "Did that guy's phone just call me what I think it did?"

Re:Google is not far from Engrishisfunny.com...

[amRadioHed]

Considering that human languages follow rules that are as convoluted and transient as Calvin-ball I'd say they do an admirable job. Machine translation is really an amazing challenge.

Re:Google is not far from Engrishisfunny.com...

[greenguy]

As a professional translator and interpreter, I also agree that Google has done better than anyone else, and that that's still not particularly good by objective standards. I've been using their Translation Center (NOT Google Translate) for a while now, and I've seen their translation memory evolve before my eyes.

The basic problem, however, is that the computer doesn't actually understand what it's spitting back to you. It only spits back the translations others have provided for similar phrases. It doesn't know if they're any good. Sometimes they're surprisingly good, and sometimes they're bizarrely bad.

There's a lot of ambiguity in human writing, and even more so in speech. Even assuming you hear the words correctly, it's tricky to tease out the precise meaning they wanted to convey, and trickier still to re-express that in another language, with appropriate cultural and regional context.

Google will get better and better at parroting good translating and interpreting decisions, but software will never be able to make those decisions, because, in the final analysis, they are subjective decisions.

Re:Google is not far from Engrishisfunny.com...

[wisty]

Google will get better and better at parroting good translating and interpreting decisions, but software will never be able to make those decisions, because, in the final analysis, they are subjective decisions.

Think about how successful google has been with search. Prior to the web, we would have idealized search as speaking with an expert who has all the knowledge that exists on the web. Various efforts still strive for that vision today (askjeeves, wolphramalpha, etc). But clearly it is unreachable for the forseeable future. Yet, search is very useful.

Similarly, this universal translator may well reach a point that it is possible to visit a place, buy things, have a meal, ask where the toilets are, and get back home, particularly when both parties in the conversation are familiar with the limitations of translation. That would be extremely useful, even if it's only 1/100 of all a native bilingual speaker understands, or what you would need for nuanced treaty negotiations or to author a respectable translation of War and Peace.

In Chinese, then back to English:

Think about how the success has been with Google search. Prior to site, we will work with specialists who have all the knowledge and presence on the network to speak idealized search. However, efforts to fight the idea, (it is by virtue of, wolphramalpha, etc.). But obviously can not access the foreseeable future. However, the search is very useful.

Similarly, the universal translator is likely to reach a point of view, is that we can visit places, buy things, eat a meal, and asked where the toilets and get back home, especially when the parties are familiar with the limitations of dialogue and translation. This will be very useful, even if only 1 / 100 of the machine for all those who understand the bilingual, or you need to nuanced negotiation of a treaty, or the author's respect for the translation of war and peace.

Re:Google is not far from Engrishisfunny.com...

[SnowZero]

(Disclaimer: I happen to work for Google, but not on anything related to machine translation.)

You are demonstrating his very point. Translation will not get nuanced stuff, but it could greatly help everyday interactions for travelers or recent immigrants.

Let's do English->Chinese->English on his actual examples:

• buy things, "What is the cost of this umbrella?" -> "What is the cost of this umbrella?" (Note I didn't say "how much for" because I am familiar with the limitations of translation and know that phrase is a colloquialism.)
• have a meal, "I would like to order the beef soup." -> "I would like to order beef soup."
• ask where the toilets are, "Where is your bathroom?" -> "Where is the bathroom?"
• get back home "How do I get to the Hilton hotel?" -> "How do I get in the Hilton Hotel?"

I'd say that is pretty passable. Now, it would be better if folks could learn the local language, but for anyone who travels a lot you realize that it is not practical to learn a new language every single trip. Something like this might also help more folks travel with a little less fear, and experience places they otherwise wouldn't. Tools such as this could also allow older immigrants more access to the country they now live in.

Machine translation has a long long way to go to even be considered "good", but having something close to the state or the art, working on improving it, and making it free for all to use seems like a good thing to me.

Or...

[fatherjoecode]

Or you could just stick this Babel fish in your ear.

If it's anything like Google Translate

[slyborg]

...this is a recipe for universal worldwide hilarity.

Re:If it's anything like Google Translate

[sakdoctor]

I tried to translate your sentence multiple times, then back to English so I could post the ridiculous result.

Except google's translation was actually pretty good.

Re:If it's anything like Google Translate

[Tetsujin]

I tried to translate your sentence multiple times, then back to English so I could post the ridiculous result.

Except google's translation was actually pretty good.

Try a more complicated example. For instance, starting here:

"It's probably pretty good at translating translations it produces back into the same source text. If you figure that a phrase structure in one language corresponds to a certain data structure in Google Translate, then it makes sense that this data structure would survive multiple passes through the same restructuring algorithm..."

translating to Japanese and back to English yields this:

"It is translated to produce translated text back to the very same source is probably a good thing. Cases, one single phrase structure of language specific data structures in the Google translation, it is this data structure makes sense and survival of multiple paths through the same algorithm structure corresponding figures ..."

Here you've got badly handled idiomatic phrases all around... Like the Google translation to Japanese used "seiseisuru honyaku no honyaku dewa ii koto da" at the end of the first sentence ("created-translation's translation is good" or something like that). On the translation back the connection between "good" and "translation" was lost - Google slapped on a fairly generic "is probably a good thing" - picking the bit of uncertainty out of the start of the Japanese sentence and combining that with the "dewa ii koto da" - but dropping the whole idea of what it is that's good... Which is something that can be kind of vague in the structure of Japanese... Meanwhile, the phrase "source text" was transliterated into katakana, but it got broken up in the translation back to English and wound up in two different locations in the sentence...

The whole conditional clause in the second sentence got kind of mangled. In the Japanese translation it starts with "baai wa": baai means "case" or "situation" - the structure of the sentence establishes this "case" being described as a possibility... Google lost all that, and just said "cases," Then, at the end of the sentence, after the ellipsis, "figure", from "if you figure" in the English original, was tacked on as "taiousuru zu" - "interacting drawing" or "interacting figures". In the return-to-English version this somehow wound up back before the ellipsis again.

The rest of the second sentence in Japanese is something like "if this data structure uses the same intermediary algorithm, several passes of the algorithm should be survived and it should make sense." The apparent problem there is something analogous to operator precedence in arithmetic. The "and" is meant to mean that the surviving translation should still make sense - but this clause apparently got broken up... like the reverse translation assumed that "uses the same intermediary algorithm... should be survived" was all one stand-alone clause - and so it assumed that clause had nothing to do with "this data structure", switched the order of the "and" around, etc...

My hobby is building Gundam models - one of the most comprehensive review sites for new Gundam kits is in Korean. Believe me, we all try using Google translate or Babelfish on Dalong's site from time to time, but the result is rarely worth the effort.

Warning Label

[Ukab the Great]

Caution: not for use with Hungarian Tobacconists.

Re:Warning Label

[Arancaytar]

My telephone is full of eels!

Re:Warning Label

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "hovercraft". My telephone is full of hovercraft.

Re:Warning Label

[boristdog]

My nipples explode with delight!

State of voice recognition

[qoncept]

Does anyone use voice recognition software? Here are a couple of my voicemails transcribed by Google Voice:

Hey man, Hello, this is gonna ask you about Stockton uncle in a missed your call, so, so give well. Okay bye.

Hey it's me and I for me. Long, My of the day. So Hey Jared, Here doing. If you come for another anti, gimme a call before you go to sleep and stuff, so give me a favor you familiar with it. I love you bye.

Re:Why bother for now?

[PPalmgren]

Google is in the business of collecting data and applying it to practical problems. I imagine the voice-to-text will be vastly improved over its generations by users accepting/rejecting the vtt result and them pooling the results data. The same thing could be done for translation from one language to another.

I see it as crowdsourcing the algorithm accuracy checks among millions of people, allowing them to improve the algo at a much faster rate than they (or their competitors) would otherwise be able to do in a closed testing environment.

This is all speculating on the fact that google pools results of translations or VTT and whether the user accepts/declines them. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they did.

Yes! Bring back the joy of Tablespoons!

[argent]

Tablespoons, by an Apple Newton

or [allegedly] what happens when you run Jabberwocky through a handwriting recognition program.... :-)

-----------

Teas Willis, and the sticky tours
Did gym and Gibbs in the wake.
All mimes were the borrowers,
And the moderate Belgrade.

'Beware the tablespoon my son,
The jaws that bite, the Claus that catch.
Beware the Subjects bird, and shred
The serious Bandwidth!'

He took his Verbal sword in hand:
Long time the monitors fog he sought,
So rested he by the Tumbled tree,
Long time the monitors fog he sought,

And as in selfish thought he stood,
The tablespoon, with eyes of Flame,
Came stifling through the trigger wood,
And troubled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through,
The Verbal blade went thicker shade.
He left it dead, and with its head,
He went gambling back.

'And host Thai slash the tablespoon?
Come to my arms my bearish boy.
Oh various day! Cartoon! Cathay!'
He charted in his joy.

Teas Willis, and the sticky tours
Did gym and Gibbs in the wake.
All mimes were the borrowers,
And the moderate Belgrade.

But can it translate

[Anonymous Coward]

"Shaka, when the walls fell"

Via Stephen Fry...

[Sockatume]

Stephen Fry offers...

"Hi, Stephen, it’s Natasha from BBC Newsnight in London. Just to say I’ve sent you two texts. One is to say that we could do it at eleven am your time after the launch, or any time sooner after the launch, or we could do it at midday as we suggested earlier. I, er, if you could text me back about that, and I’ve sent you the details of Skype that you need to do too. If you could give me a call back. Enjoy the launch and I’ll speak to you after that. Thank you Bye."

I’ve transcribed it from the voicemail sound file that resides online on my inbox on the Google Voice site. All fine. I have also ticked the option for Google Voice to send me a text transcript of any voicemail. Below is their interpretation of Natasha’s message it’s rather endearing how hopelessly wrong the largest company on earth gets it.

"Hi Stephen. It’s Jeff from BBC needs in nuns. And just to say I sent 80 tax, one, if to say we could do it. I left in i a m your time off to go into any time soon, or the court and full we could grab me today as we suggested at. A. F. I. If you could text me back byebye. I’ve sent you the details of skylights that you need to 3 T if you could give me a call. Bye. Enjoy the loans. I’ll speak to you after that. Thank you. Bye"

On a more serious note, such transcripts at least allow you to get an idea of the rough content and tone of a message without having to stop and listen to it, a much more concentration-intensive task.

Got NSA

[dave562]

This seems like something that the NSA is probably salivating over. Imagine being able to translate intercepts in near real time with accurate voice recognition. I'm sure they already have imagined it. That technology is nothing short of a Manhattan Project for the SIGINT community.

Re:Got NSA

[girlintraining]

And they probably started working on it a decade or two ago, and have a working version now :P

I can't confirm or deny its existance. But I can offer you one reason for the denial: The FBI. If we admitted we had it, they'd want to use it. The last time they asked for forensic analysis, it was for their cross-dressing commander who wanted to know who had shit on his front doorstep. After intensive analysis, it was determined to be a squirrel. Then they called us because they couldn't identify which squirrel. We've been hesitant to offer our services ever since. We did find the squirrel though. In another 23 years, you'll be able to submit an FOIA request for the rest of the story. Footnote 16 is especially amusing.