Toshiba Intros Trilingual Translation App For Cellphones 44
MojoKid writes "Shortly after hearing of a simple, two-way Spanish-to-English translator for the iPhone, Toshiba has announced that it has developed a new language translation system that requires no server-side interaction. The app is designed to be operated independently on a smartphone, which will eliminate costly data roaming fees that are generally incurred using systems that require an internet connection to retrieve translations. The system is trilingual in nature and enables users to translate freely among Japanese, Chinese, and English."
There are no roaming fees in China (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
"Hello? have I reached the owner of this cellular phone? You mistakenly left it on the train, and I wanted to mail it back to you. A reward? No, that won't be necessary; the good deed is a reward in itself."
Trilingual (Score:1)
If being able to handle three languages is "trilingual", what do you call a phone that can only support one language?
Re:Time for an Asian Vacation (Score:5, Insightful)
Chinese: "Huong xi ching chang shen chong." Japanese: "Toko ne tatekawa no kesaki." English: "Yes honorable sex-worker, please do shit on my chest and insert an octopus in my ass."
Given the usual accuracy of automated translation systems, this is what you'll get when you ask for directions to nearest 4 star hotel.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
American
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As an American, this is worthless to me. I've never heard Chinese or Japanese spoken here, but you do hear a lot of Spanish, and lately in the convinience stores, Hindi and Arabic.
They have a Spanish-English translator that uses a server, why can't they use this tech to make a serverless Spanish-English translator? In many US cities there's more Spanish than English spoken, but nobody here speaks Chinese or Japanese.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolingualism [wikipedia.org] -(although "unilingual" is obviously also used, 1/2 point for you there.)
What does he call someone who speaks two languages, stereolingual?
No, that would be bilingual.
Good luck with your next correction!
Re: (Score:2)
An American phone.
It's about time. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Its creators are super-geniuses who have solved a fiendishly hard AI problem that has been baffling the smartest brains in MT research for decades.
... while limited to the locally available resources and processing power of a cell phone.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not a general purpose solution. It's tuned to a single user, with a limited vocabulary, and a particular microphone/speaker configuration. That reduces the complexity needed by orders of magnitude, especially regional accent and uncommon vocabulary problems. Solving limited, special problems is almost always easier than "general solutions". And given the ludicrous expense of full-blown current solutions, and their frequently abominable errors, I'm not surprised that such a limited solution might work w
Even people have trouble (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a world of difference between translating between Spanish and English (two European languages) and English and Japanese or English and Chinese.
Even bilingual people have trouble,www.engrish.com [engrish.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually it's only half of a world of a difference.
Re: (Score:2)
The top entry as of now says: [engrish.com]
Our mission is to make our customer ... say what a so tasty!!
That looks-a more like Itarian.
That's not an example of this. (Score:1)
Most of the stuff in the Engrish site is not a good example of difficulties in translation at all. A true example of difficulty in translation would be when a full bilingual (somebody who can understand and speak both languages correctly) would have difficulty rendering the meaning of a source language
talk to me (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know if it requires a data connection or not, but we're living in the future now.
Good start (Score:1)
Re:Good start (Score:4, Funny)
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Your phone doesn't have a vibrate mode?
Chinese/Japanese/English? This is great! (Score:1)
This will definitely make it easier and slightly cheaper to meet and communicate with my future wife! Maybe. Or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, mail order brides are from *Russia*, not China or Japan...
Stop! (Score:2)
"What did he say?" ..."
"I dunno - here - give him this iPhone - it has a translation app"
"Nah - it's bust - no network signal in this area, something about the local cell provider not supporting network heavy phones in this area - If only it was a Toshiba"
"Anyway, where's that syringe gone
Re: (Score:2)
"What did he say?" "I dunno - here - give him this iPhone - it has a translation app" "Nah - it's bust - no network signal in this area, something about the local cell provider not supporting network heavy phones in this area - If only it was a Toshiba"
how dare a company, a giant player in the industry, and not a person want us all to have wireless broadband.
This should be amusing... (Score:3, Insightful)
As anyone who has ever used an online translation engine can tell you, going between English and either Chinese or Japanese leads to a stream of gibberish which at best gives the wily reader a hint of what the original topic might have been about.
I foresee a few tourists on both sides of the pond having some epic adventures as a result of relying upon this app :)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it's better than sticking a fish in your ear.
Oblig. (Score:1)
Bonguerno (Score:1)
--> Aardvark
Errata wordo non lingua franka
---
El Humour [feeddistiller.com] Feed @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
Computer translators (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
English: I like you
German: Ich mag dich.
The English and German bo take the form of [Subject Pronoun] [verb] [Object pronoun].
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
anata wo suki desu
Anata ga suki desu would mean "You like [something]"
You would typically drop the "anata wo" and just say "suki da" and leave the rest to context. "desu" is a pretty formal for telling someone you like them. That is just a tiny drop in the enormous lake of cultural context you need to say even relatively simple stuff without fucking up in Japanese.
I think that a good JEEJ translation program would be pretty much synonymous with Kurzweil's singularity.
Re: (Score:1)
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I don't know, it depends on how effective you need. When I was stationed in Thailand in 1973 I learned enough Thai to order a meal in a restaraunt, tell a cab driver where I wanted to go, let a drug dealer who was pointing a gun at my face that I only wanted to buy some pot, understand them when they told me what their wares cost, etc. I certainly couldn;t have gotten on a stage and explained how a transistor radio worked, but my limited communication skills were as effective as I needed.
My biggest problem
Just trilingual? (Score:1)
Yeah, until someone hacks this (Score:1)
....and when someone does hack it, we're going to see:
"My hoooovercraft is full of eels....."
"Please fondle my buttocks"
"Pull down your panties, I can't wait till lunchtime"