International Language

[indiscriminate_hater]

Translator tech is getting so good that language barriers will be minimal

[magnetaress]

google translate will arguable allow a few select languages to be pretty much preserved eliminating the need to speak any other language than your native one. Because automation will allow you to effectively communicate with people who are too lazy to learn your language.

[magnetaress]

Originally Posted by indiscriminate_hater [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Translator tech is getting so good that language barriers will be minimal

[Hoppkins_Wytchfinder]

Originally Posted by Thrombosis [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Are you Welsh? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No but i always get a chuckle out of putting the welsh channel on telly and watching my kids sit and look....and look...and say "WHAT ARE THEY SAYING????" [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Tethler]

Originally Posted by indiscriminate_hater [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Translator tech is getting so good that language barriers will be minimal

It's slowly improving, but it's not there yet. I can always spot when my students are using translation software.

[Hoppkins_Wytchfinder]

Been trying to learn japanese for 20 years on and off. Obviously never very seriously.

I can talk like a 5 year old tops. I can probably express a want of something and ask directions and probably understand brief responses.

Somehow translation software while AMAZING takes the excitement out of learning a language.

Though I can tell for some people there is little excitement. A few times in Japan i would start trying to speak in laboured japanese and the guy would just say in perfect english "look, speaking english its much easier eh?"

I chuckled and said "Ya i guess so but its nice to try eh"

[Snortles Chortles]

NANI

[Hoppkins_Wytchfinder]

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[fastboy21]

Originally Posted by indiscriminate_hater [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Translator tech is getting so good that language barriers will be minimal

It is and will get much better...but it isn't there yet. The last hurdles to overcome for true translation software are not problems of computational power; they are linguistic issues that people haven't worked out how to deal with yet, and probably won't work out a model that could be confused as perfect for some time.

The problems of wrestling with discourse representation theory, for example, aren't going anywhere. Formal pragmatics isn't going anywhere.

Of course, if you mean "break the language barrier" to mean something as meaningless in the big picture of linguistics as carrying a device that can translate "where is the bathroom?" into a hundred languages, then yes...we're there.

[magnetaress]

Originally Posted by fastboy21 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It is and will get much better...but it isn't there yet. The last hurdles to overcome for true translation software are not problems of computational power; they are linguistic issues that people haven't worked out how to deal with yet, and probably won't work out a model that could be confused as perfect for some time.

The problems of wrestling with discourse representation theory, for example, aren't going anywhere. Formal pragmatics isn't going anywhere.

Of course, if you mean "break the language barrier" to mean something as meaningless in the big picture of linguistics as carrying a device that can translate "where is the bathroom?" into a hundred languages, then yes...we're there.

If you can't describe mathematical physics in terms of bathrooms you're obviously not there yet.