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I think I'd use it as a check device to see if the "local" translator was lying to me. If the difference is blatant, then maybe I'd find another translator.

English: We are here to save you!
Translation: We are here to collect you!

Seems to work fine to me!

Ah, but will it be able to replicate the great cross-cultural interactions from Hollywood movies?

Soldier: Ma'am, have you seen any suspicious men in the area?
Translator: Woman, have you been consorting with men not of your family?

Iraqi: Fuck you!
Translator: Me love you long time.

Soldier: What the fuck?
Translator: Which way shall we fornicate?

Iraqi: Agh, you Americans make me so aggravated!
Translator: Me so horny.

hilarity ensues. Face it, you know these are going to be programmed by lonely geeks with dirty thoughts on their minds.

Only if you hang your robe on the hook, put the towel over the grate, drop your satchel in front of the panel and then put the pile of junk mail on top of the satchel before pressing the dispenser button.

English: "We applaud the creation of your new constitution and are preparing to pull our troops out of the country so that the rebuilding process can begin."

Arabic: "All your base are belong to us."

Wow, this is the most advanced translater built. Unlike most which simply try direct literal translations, this one can actually parse the intent of what Bush actually meant when he said that!

Bravo!

Trade languages don't erode the use of local languages (what's "cultural language"?) - trade languages get used because there isn't a language in common. ("No language was harmed in the making of this commercial transaction")

On many occasions, it's been shown that if the pidgin language is used consistently around kids, they'll start using it, but just add in all this extra grammatical stuff that they expect to hear but don't - and then the language is said to become "creolized".

Also: we don't predominantly think in language. We think in something that's more base than, and was prior to, language. Everyone always hears that decades-old, long-ago-disproven Whorfian line, that people (in the same species, with the same neurological makeup) actually think differently according to what language they speak - but no one's buying it anymore except those Psych 101 students who are going to major in elementary education instead of cognitive development.

I'm a language dork so I feel like I HAVE to comment every time I see language stuff on /. Except for all those "it's"es where it should be "its". Those, I can let you guys have.

...I totally agree - once it works.

I went to school in a military college in Quebec. One of its aims was to make us fluently bilingual (French and English) and a lot of effort was spent on that. All communications outside the classroom switched language every two weeks, we got 5 classes of instruction per week, and we spent two months one summer on a full-bore language training programme.

And after 4 years of this, I was indeed fluently bilingual. (Je suis billingue)

BUT - it took 4 years of constant immersion to get there, French and English are reasonably similar (same alphabet, mostly the same sounds, a lot of shared words, reasonably similar grammar) and I still can't do a very good job of translating. In fact, I didn't really start to be able to function in French until I was comfortable enough with it to THINK in French (pense en francias). If I think in French, I'm fine. If I have to think in english and then speak in French (or vice versa) there's a kind of mental clashing of gears; it's like the speech centre and the comprehension centre are in one place, and the translation centre is in another.

So I can watch a French movie, no problem. But ask me to provide a running translation of the dialogue in English, and I can't do it - not without falling way behind. Translation is HARD.

Plus, from personal experiance, trying to communicate with somebody when you share very little language is very, very frustrating - for both of you - even in the most benign circmstances. It's a stressor. Now try it when one or both participants in the conversation are in fear for their lives... it's an easy way for tempers and emotions to get stoked way high.

And that's with French, which was relatively easy. Arabic reads right-to-left, has no shared alphabet with romantic languages, shares few sounds, and has a completely different grammar. I can't imagine how long it would take to be able to speak fluent Farsi or Pashtun - but yet, some day, my life might depend on it.

If we can develop a working real-time translator, it's going to make a lot of people's lives a lot easier. It will be a de-escalator when it comes to conflict resolution - and by far the best way to resolve conflicts is peacefully. Ask any soldier.

DG

Instead of doing the obvious thing--give soldiers training in Arabic and offer big bonuses for Arabic-speaking recruits--the U.S. does nothing for a couple of years and then tries to throw a cheap technical fix at the problem.

Bullshit. You clearly know absolutely nothing about the subject and are pulling crap out of your ass. They already do offer bonuses to qualified recruits based on their ability to speak foreign languages. And do you really think they're not cranking out arabic linguists as fast as they can? It takes 9 months to a year to train a non-arabic speaker to speak well enough to just barely get by. It then usually takes an additional year of real-life exposure before they truly become proficient. Furthermore, the language program only takes those who score in the top 5% on their aptitude tests, and of those they do accept, fully half still wash out. You may think it's just a matter of teaching all the infantry grunts a half dozen canned phrases, but making a usable translator out of someone is a hell of a lot harder than teaching them to shoot a machine gun. This all I know, being a former soldier with the 101st Airborne (311th MI bn, "Eyes of the Eagle") and a graduate myself of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.