h a l f b a k e r yIdea vs. Ego
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Simply, a device loaded with a bit of software, and about as big as an iPod, that listens to foreign speech and translates it into text, a la Dragon Speaking Naturally... then uses Google Translation to translate it to your language... then a voice synthesiser to turn it into a spoken version, in your
language.
Not perfect, but a simple Babelfish translator for tourists too lazy or busy to learn the language of the country they are visiting / invading.
There are a few devices that appear to almost do this, but none that actually manage it, probably because they're trying too hard to get it perfect. This puts you somewhere in the ballpark, without being dead accurate.
Wasn't It Great, That Thing Spock Did?
http://www.youtube....watch?v=-dri5hCtGCk
Yes. It was! [Amos Kito, Nov 09 2008]
The Hungarian Phrasebook Sketch
http://en.wikipedia...ungarian_Phrasebook
Classic Python [8th of 7, Nov 09 2008]
super karate monkey death car
http://www.youtube....watch?v=jMZtdLra24E
english to japanese back to english [jaksplat, Nov 10 2008]
[link]
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No, not the iTravl or the universal-translator doohickey. They're phrase-by-phrase at best. This could be done on-the-fly with a decent processor and good high fidelity microphones in a small form factor. |
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I'm reminded of reading about one of the first alleged attempts at computer translation. Taking the path from English to Russian and back to English, the phrase "Out of sight, out of mind", resulted in "invisible idiot". |
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I think it was "strong is the spirit but weak is the flesh" becoming "the booze is good but the meat is rotten". |
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Hah! I thought of this because we take in international students regularly. The biggest problem we have is in the early couple of weeks, understanding just what they're trying to convey. I'm pretty good with accents and languages but my wife struggles with Korean and Chinese accents. |
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Trouble is that I don't think anyone has written a speech recognition program that is smarter than your wife. Then as
has already been pointed out there's the idiom problem in
the translator piece. So at this point it's too bad Douglas
Adams has passed on and can't expound on the babelfish idea
in another "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" sequel. |
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Oh, I'm well aware of that. I'm looking forward to the hilarity of hearing what sort of Manglish it produces. |
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eye watering laughter - thanks. |
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[UB], You're just eight years too late. Dubyah would have loved one of these - what a great way to start wars .... |
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I think even the venerable Dubya could do worse than Google Language Tools. |
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Hey ... don't knock goood ole' goooogle translation. It helps me make sense of electronics projects written in other languages. |
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But then, the circuit diagram conveys pretty much what I want to know, and the rest is just explanations on why the odd unusual component was chosen and how much he paid for it - or didn't. |
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Even if the translation isn't so hot, it makes for good prose. Not W, I'd prefer it to be read by Patrick Stewart (who will read for anything): |
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Completely,
you stack the software of position
the same elephant of iPod,
and the load,
as for device that the foreign country voder
remains after turning that speech edition,
this your language
you, the movement of google that…
The dragon La speaks
because language after using
is heard in order to possess story,
to become that text,
naturally… it moves. |
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sounds almost like a joke invention I thought of :
voice to text message cellphone
with text to speech.
Talk & listen through the text function of a cellphone intead of using it's basic function of a regular call, making a simple function more complex. |
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