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[...] When I first got interested in the subject, in the mid-1970s, I ran across a letter written in 1947 by the mathematician Warren Weaver, an early machine-translation advocate, to Norbert Wiener, a key figure in cybernetics, in which Weaver made this curious claim, today quite famous:
When I look at an article in Russian, I say, "This is really written in English, but it has been coded in some strange symbols. I will now proceed to decode."
[...] The practical utility of Google Translate and similar technologies is undeniable, and probably it's a good thing overall, but there is still something deeply lacking in the approach, which is conveyed by a single word: understanding. Machine translation has never focused on understanding language. Instead, the field has always tried to "decode"—to get away without worrying about what understanding and meaning are. Could it in fact be that understanding isn't needed in order to translate well? Could an entity, human or machine, do high-quality translation without paying attention to what language is all about? To shed some light on this question, I turn now to the experiments I made.
It is a bit on the long side but Douglas Hofstadter very clearly exposes what language translation is and that Google Translate does not do it that way
Source: The Shallowness of Google Translate
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday February 03 2018, @05:00AM (3 children)
Hmm, I can't get any of those meanings without adding punctuation to the original - basically, without ", boss" none of those interpretations are reasonable, (hmm, unless #2 is using "boss" as an intensifier I suppose...) And I think asking AI, or even humans, to to translate through punctuation errors that bad is entirely unreasonable.
Basically, the only context where that statement actually makes sense as written is in the context of a multiplayer game (not necessarily online - tabletop RPGs are a thing) And thus recognizing that context is necessary to accurately translate what is otherwise a poorly organized word salad. Further context from the surrounding text would potentially help as well.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @01:18PM (2 children)
#1. Punctuation only exists in written communication
#2. Punctuation is frequently ignored in casual written communication
#3. Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are subject to frequent mistakes, intentional, unintentional, or unknowing
#4. Automated translation isn't useful if it requires linguistic perfection to successfully translate
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday February 03 2018, @04:29PM (1 child)
Translation software is, so far as I'm aware, only working on written communication. All voice-translation is done by first transcribing the speech, and then translating the resulting text.
Punctuation can dramatically change the meaning of text - and even humans will generally read what's written, not what was intended. Asking any translator to magically translate the intent, rather than what was actually written, is ludicrous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 04 2018, @03:14AM
There are a fair number of voice translations products nowadays.
Those will eventually have to work on tone of voice and pauses. There are different ways of saying "Fine"
Not sure how long it'll take for something like this to be produced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVib_giTFo [youtube.com]
;)