Japanese boffins invent auto translator
New gadget to speak to Johnny Foreigner
THE DAYS OF SHOUTING at waiters in other countries could soon be over, thanks to a new invention from Japan.
Communication with filthy foreigners, many of whom seem to think that translation is magically achieved by speaking slower and louder, could soon improve dramatically.
A new gadget in development in Japan will translate your speech commands – "A full English breakfast, followed by a Snackpot, with a can of Fanta" – into foreign languages.
Well, it's not that simple. It translates your voice into text, then converts the text from one language into another and then translates the new text into whatever language you're struggling with. Since it combines voice recognition with language translation, there's a huge amount of work to do.
But according to Nikkei.net, it may not be long before the technology is ready. The Japanese government's Council for Science and Technology Policy has a five year roadmap (if I've translated it properly), meaning conversations in multiple languages could soon be possible.
The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) predicts fully automated speech translators will be available by 2015. So they may arrive before the burger and chips I ordered ages ago.
At the core is a proprietary speech-recognition technology developed by NEC.
"If we combined speech recognition with a machine translation system, we would have an automated speech translator, providing something akin to simultaneous interpretation at meetings and lectures," boasted Akitoshi Okumura, senior manager of NEC's speech recognition R&D group.
Breaking the community barriers with proprietary technology, isn’t there an irony in there somewhere?
Meanwhile, in the intervening seven years, many Britons face the prospect of visiting the same foreign countries ever year and not being able to speak the language. There must be a solution to this problem. But I'm blowed if I know what it is. I SAID I'M BLOWED, YOU KNOW, BUGGERED OR FUGGED, IF I KNOW….oh, never mind. µ
Comments
We can play Babble if we want to
Oui monsieur. Vous avez dit que vous souhaitez être blowed. N'est-ce pas?Die Lösung, wie Sie wissen, hat buggered Sie. Richtige Mann?
Ja de pils is op zijn manier.
Είναι όλοι οι έλληνες για μένα πολύ bub.
Me puede usted obtener un muy buen precio para este Mack, pero usted tendrá que pagar más de lo que vaya en otra parte.
Cosa? Sei pazzo?
Please Monsieur, har en cookie!
Kunt u kippers voor ontbijt? Wat? Bent u miljonair?
Não perguntar-nos. Use os americanos da rua!
Utter Bollicks.
How long will the Japanese keep sticking their heads in the sand in the face of the obvious?!!There's no escaping it! Start learning those foreign languages! Any damn one will do!
No machine will EVER be able to fill in that role. By definition, the simultaneous translation of the Japanese language, where the main verb of the main clause usually lies at the END of the sentence!
Man, I'd like to see the group of NEC "scientists" on a press conference in 2015, presenting the new "e-translator" to the world... The machine will announce in perfect, synthesised Queen's english something like "Welcome. We're pleased that you're always!" and the scientists, understanding none of it, will start patting each other on the backs with ill-deserved pride....
Just gotta ask
Are they using dog language to go from Engrish to Japanese ?A machine will not be capable of true translation in our lifetime
I have to agree with mcbalaban and add that in order to truly translate from one human language into another the message needs to be UNDERSTOOD - its context, its cultural nuances, its multiple possible meanings, its moral implications, its poor grammar and syntax very often... Computers would need to be sentient before we would have true machine translation, and that is not going to happen for a long time - perhaps never.I speak as a professional translator - I don't always understand the text I am translating, how is a computer supposed to do it?!