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Skype Translate Reportedly Has a Swearing Problem In Chinese
An anonymous reader writes: Skype Translate was supposed to be Microsoft's attempt at the "Star Trek" universal translator, offering real-time voice and text translation. It launched with one of the most challenging of languages, Chinese. And apparently, thanks to the Great Firewall, it has its problems. An American expat using it in China reports: "A glitch in the beta software misinterpreted the words I spoke. 'It's nice to talk to you' was translated as 'It's f*cking nice to f*ck you,' and other synthesized profanity, like the icebox robot in 1970's sci-fi flick Logan's Run, but with Tourette Syndrome. It was quite funny to me - I couldn't help but laugh during repeated takes, to Yan's exasperation - but the tech team were none too happy about it as they worked late into the night."
Of course it's profanity-ladden when it's trying to translate for people that it thinks are KHAAANNNNN!!
Your ad here. Ask me how!
ROLLER CAPTION: IN 1970, THE BRITISH EMPIRE LAY IN RUINS, FOREIGN NATIONALS FREQUENTED THE STREETS - MANY OF THEM HUNGARIANS (NOT THE STREETS - THE FOREIGN NATIONALS). ANYWAY, MANY OF THESE HUNGARIANS WENT INTO TOBACCONIST'S SHOPS TO BUY CIGARETTES... ... tobacconist's. ...tobacco...er, cigarettes? ... do you want to come back to my place, bouncy bouncy? ...(mumbling as he searches) Costs six and six ... Here we are ... Yandelvayasna grldenwi stravenka.
Enter Hungarian gentleman with phrase book. He is looking for the right phrase.
Hungarian I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
Tobacconist Sorry?
Hungarian I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
Tobacconist No, no, no.This
Hungarian Ah! I will not buy this tobacconist's, it is scratched.
Tobacconist No, no, no
Hungarian Yes, cigarettes. My hovercraft is full of eels.
Tobacconist What?
Hungarian (miming matches) My hovercraft is full of eels.
Tobacconist Matches, matches? (showing some)
Hungarian Yah, yah. (he takes cigarettes and matches and pulls out loose change; he consults his book) Er, do you want
Tobacconist I don't think you're using that right.
Hungarian You great pouf.
Tobacconist That'll be six and six, please.
Hungarian If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? I am no longer infected.
Tobacconist (miming that he wants to see the book; he takes the book) It costs six and six
Hungarian hits him between the eyes. Policeman walking along the street suddenly stops and puts his hand to his ear. He starts running down the street, round corner and down another street, round yet another corner and down another street into the shop
Policeman What's going on here then?
Hungarian (opening book and pointing at tobacconist) You have beautiful thighs.
Policeman What?
Tobacconist He hit me.
Hungarian Drop your panties, Sir William, I cannot wait till lunchtime.
Policeman Right! (grabs him and drags him out)
Hungarian My nipples explode with delight.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
This is a poor article. What does The Great Firewall have to do with this particular problem.
I refuse to believe someone didn't do that on purpose.
That's too damned funny to be by accident.
Please fondle my bum
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The "traditional" joke concerning computer translation is about 30 years old - at least, because I've been telling it that long, and I heard it from somebody else.But it's still a classic.
The original translating computer wasn't voice-recognition; you had to type in your statement in English, and it would be translated to Chinese on the screen. So in order to demonstrate how good it was with colloquial English, the programmer typed in a common saying, "Out of sight, out of mind". The computer whirred and chirped for a couple of minutes, and a column of Chinese characters appeared. The Chinese operator looked quite puzzled, but to play along, he typed (in Chinese characters) exactly what he had read on his screen.
Chirp, whirr, beep, and the machine produced the translation back into English.
It said "Invisible Insanity".
Until it can seamlessly change the words I'm saying, as I'm saying them, into the receivers language without so much as a configuration nor without talking over the top of me, it is not the Star Trek Universal Translator.
Yeah. How dare a tech company be aspirational.
"Don't catch any bugs!" --Klingon border sentry to Enterprise
I imagine it was probably just an error message. Talking with someone from beijing and all skype got was 'er 'er'r'er'rr'er'er'er'er'er'er so the software just said fuck it!
OMG facts!
'It's nice to talk to you' was translated as 'It's f*cking nice to f*ck you,'
Seems the damn thing is actually translating what's in your mind instead of what your saying...
Video of some good progressive thrash music
*facepalm* the stupid is strong in this one.
Hindi and Mandarin aren't even in the same language family. They are as different as two languages can ever be.
There are more than enough Russian speakers in the west. I, for one, speak Russian as a second language. Same goes for Spanish and Arabic, by the way, so you are definitely talking out of your arse. Your provincialism is really showing, except that even in your own country 13% of the population speaks Spanish.
And this "exposing them to modern western culture" is laughable.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Oh, but I know you are.
And saying that any language is unlikely to spread beyond its native region is stupid as well. No lingua franca stays forever. Chinese used to be the trade language in the whole Southeast Asian region and it might very well become that again in the next 100 years - even now people in Europe are encouraged to learn Mandarin because China is where the money is. Russian is still a trade language in countries bordering Russia and German used to be the language of science not very long ago, so quite a lot of scientific terms in English are of German origin (say hello to Bremsstrahlung), French is the international postal language. A lingua franca can easily change within a human lifespan.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Someone on Skype just said to me, "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle". Little punk. If I ever find him...
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
It is of course well known that careless talk costs lives, but the full scale of the problem is not always appreciated.
For instance, at the very moment that an Earthman, Arthur Dent said "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle," a freak wormhole opened up in the fabric of the space-time continuum and carried his words far far back in time across almost infinite reaches of space to a distant Galaxy where strange and warlike beings were poised on the brink of frightful interstellar battle.
The two opposing leaders were meeting for the last time.
A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvuntt leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother.
The creature stirred in his sickly broiling vapor, and at that very moment the words I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle drifted across the conference table.
Unfortunately, in the Vl'hurg tongue this was the most dreadful insult imaginable, and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war for centuries.
Eventually of course, after their Galaxy had been decimated over a few thousand years, it was realized that the whole thing had been a ghastly mistake, and so the two opposing battle fleets settled their few remaining differences in order to launch a joint attack on our own Galaxy- now positively identified as the source of the offending remark.
For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across- which happened to be the Earth- where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.
Those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the Universe say that this sort of thing is going on all the time, but that we are powerless to prevent it.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
...it's an f*ckin' undocumented feature!
"Skype translate : Gordon Ramsay Edition"
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Obviously, it's not the Star Trek translator, it's the Firefly translator. :-)
Be who you are...and be it in style!