# The Universal Translator is nearly a reality...



## Winters_Sorrow (Oct 26, 2006)

Found this interesting article on a 'universal translator' being developed which you may find interesting.
I wonder how long it'll be before someone reprogrammes it for Klingon? 

BBC NEWS | Health | 'Tower of Babel' translator made


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## Green (Oct 26, 2006)

It would be extremely useful, no doubt. But I wonder what the effect would be on the numbers of people who choose to study a new language (once it's properly at conversation-level). I'm sure there'd still be many who learn for the love of it, but the British are notorious for not making the effort as it is.


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## chrispenycate (Oct 26, 2006)

But (_he says, with a puzzled expression_) they can't even get a written text translator to work to an adequate standard yet (having downloaded some electronically translated documents, I make this assertion with confidence) And all the speech synthesis software sounds like a darlec on speed. So, all this is doing is complicating the input stage (by two levels; one detecting what the meaning is of the words, as said by different people, and a second, detecting the subvocalisation patterns used by different people to generate equivalent sounds, without the dynamic (accentuation ) clues.
Not that the research isn't worth doing in its own right, to give voices to the Steven Hawkings of this world (and others) but until the AI side of the translation is _considerably_ more developed, not having to shout is one of the lesser problems (can you imagine trying to understand someone talking at you in that translated garble? Faster to learn their language)
I have several friends here who're simultaneous translators, and I don't understand how their brains are wired, but even within the indo-europeans word order introduces serious translation delay; outside that group it's ten times worse. 
It'll come, unless humanity does something exceedingly silly, but I very much doubt if I'll see it.


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## scalem X (Oct 26, 2006)

yeah, from time to time people think they'll get there soon. But if you look upon translators nowadays, we got a long, long way to go.


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## carrie221 (Oct 26, 2006)

It sounds very neat...


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## Whitestar (Nov 14, 2006)

Its a cool device. But this is not the "universal translator" that we come to expect from the likes of Star Trek. The reason why is because it takes time to learn a language, but the way its done in Star Trek, the universal translator probes the minds of unknown aliens, which would explain how its able to translate instanteously, not to mention that it also violates privacy. Fortunately, I don't foresee such a technology ever becoming a reality. But this real life "universal translator" is the way to go.


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