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So, please certainly a nice feature, but most of the machine translations tends to distort the meaning slightly. For example, this comment has been translated from English to English and back to English. As you may have noticed, it sounds quite awkward.
I have everything, but is aware that the holy Grail of * good * machine is nowhere in sight. Sadly.
--- here's the original ---
It'd definitely be a nice feature, but most machine translations tends to distort meaning somewhat. For instance, this comment has been translated from english to latvian and back to english. As you might have noticed, it sounds quite awkward.
I'm all for, but be aware that the holy grail of *good* machine translation is nowhere in sight. Sadly.
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Hymyly
wrote on the 2 Jan 09 at 20:42
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I like the idea! It's not really a problem for polyglots like myself, but it's certainly a good concept. Unfortunately, there is no online translation service that I know of that can be used in this manner. Google Translate for example only has a web interface; no API (that I know of). And there is no free-and-open translation system that can be put in the repositories (again, that I know of).
Also, it should certainly not be limited to Kubuntu, but I suppose that goes without saying...
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Feba
wrote on the 2 Jan 09 at 20:55
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This would just cause problems.
Using google translate, even a simple message, like "Hey, how are you? Me and the boys were thinking about going down to the bar and drinking ourselves silly. You wanna come? Drinks are on me!" turns into "Hi, How are you? ME and, boy, was thinking of himself silly and go hit the bar. You want to come here? ME have a drink!"
At least three major inaccuracies, not to mention being hard to read.
Translating into one language and back turns "Now that I know what I know, I can never forgive him" into "Now that I think I know what, I can never forgive her."
simply put, this is a novelty, not a utility.
Wanting to speak to people from other cultures is noble, but software won't get you there yet.
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keep in mind that there is only a need to translate one way, not back. That means those tests are showing at least twice the inaccuracies which can be expected in messenger translation.
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+1
Even though it is unrealistic right now -- because we need a very good open and multi-lingual translation engine to make it work.
It's still a very interesting idea, and interesting ideas should be encouraged.
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Habbit
wrote on the 3 Jan 09 at 12:20
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There is simply no way you can accurately translate anything without understanding the original message: human translators already have a tough job (and they are sentient!). Currently, machine translations are more joke than a service.
Given that most of this problems are caused by polysemy and ambiguousness in human languages, machine translators _might_ work way better if fed an unambiguous, monosemous representation of the message (something like its Loglan or Logban translation maybe?). However, developing the translator TO such a representation would still be an imprecise, awkward PITA.
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samjam
wrote on the 16 Mar 09 at 11:53
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I don't think anyone whose want this facility expect the translation to be perfect or even be aware of the wider contexts that human translators are aware of.
Despite the imperfections, simple phrase translators are better than nothing.
The suggestion here isn't to add excellent machine translation services to pidgin, but to add whatever machine translation services exist to pidgin.
Some of the objections are like the parent in this discussion:
kid: Dad can I borrow the car to take my friends to a ball game?
dad: Who's playing?
kid: Steelers
dad: Wth? No! You can borrow the car when they improve their batting average.
kid: ?? (mutters: I didn't figure on you coming anyway)
I would be happy for a translate API that shelled a command with original text on stdin that output the translated text on stdout and took the languages as arguments (or environment). A non-zero exit code means error text on stdout.
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