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Tokyo Narita Airport Gets PDA Voice Translators 170

Posted by michael from the nihongo-wa-amari-hanashimasen dept.
commanderfoxtrot writes "According to the BBC, Narita airport can hire out PDAs capable of translating 50,000 Japanese and 25,000 English spoken words. This is all part of the e-Airport scheme at Narita: The speech-to-speech technology was developed by NEC, tested in Papero robots and then put in PDAs. ... Papero (Partner-Type Personal Robot), is the first robot to translate verbally between two languages in colloquial tongue."
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Tokyo Narita Airport Gets PDA Voice Translators More

Tokyo Narita Airport Gets PDA Voice Translators

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  • This isn't new. (Score:5, Informative)

    by andy666 ( 666062 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:11AM (#8475788)
    They were in the Copenhagen airport for a 2 week trial a few years ago.

  • Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06NO@SPAMemail.com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:12AM (#8475799)
    "My hovercraft is full of eels."

  • All base belong us. (Score:4, Funny)

    by blcamp ( 211756 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:14AM (#8475822) Homepage
    Narita airport can hire out PDAs capable of translating 50,000 Japanese and 25,000 English spoken words.


    Great. We're only going to catch *half* of what they are saying...


    • Re:All base belong us. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:41AM (#8476164)

      No no. Don't you watch old Samurai flicks?

      50,000 words in just enough to ask where the men's room is.
      • To the flame-bait moderator moron and any other knee-jerkers. That post makes fun of awful dialogue being horribly dubbed in old movies. It was funny then and still is. It's not an ethnic slur, it would be just as funny in any language.

    • Re:All base belong us. (Score:5, Funny)

      by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:41AM (#8476171) Journal
      Narita airport can hire out PDAs capable of translating 50,000 Japanese and 25,000 English spoken words.
      Great. We're only going to catch *half* of what they are saying...

      Tell me about it. I was transiting Narita Airport -- running really late -- when I first encountered one of these "translating" robot/PDAs.

      Anyway, it was getting late, and I was running later, and I was afraid I'd already missed my flight, because the airport was nearly deserted.

      I turned to one of the ground attendants, to see if I could still catch my plane, and I asked, what happen?

      This is how Japanese girl's little friendly-faced translating robot/PDA told me that all that evening's planes had already departed:

      The robot/PDA's main screen turn on and it said:

      How are you gentlemen !!

      All your plane are belong to us !!
      You have no chance to survive. Make your time !!
      HA HA HA HA.....
      Already take off every 'Zig'
      You know what you doing!
      Move 'Zig'
      For Great Justice !!

  • Dang, I was suppose to go to Japan this month and now I am missing out some good live experience with these cool new PDAs.... grrrr. Anyone going to Narita any time soon to get a first hand experience and care to share with the rest of the /. community?

  • I can't wait for an English -> Pirate version or English -> Cajun version. and just imagine what a couple thousands of these things could do...

  • Wait. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Stupid White Man ( 750118 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:16AM (#8475851) Homepage
    Will they be speaking ENGLISH or ENGRISH? [engrish.com]

  • Pardon me (Score:5, Funny)

    by sloptaco ( 709054 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:17AM (#8475879)

    "Pardon me, where's the restroom."

    -->"Kimi, bukkake demo yoroshii desyou ka?"

  • "The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten."
  • ...Universal Translator?

  • Pervasiveness of English (Score:5, Insightful)

    by addie ( 470476 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:19AM (#8475899)
    English is all over the world, and other languages are fast losing ground (Chinese of course is ahead of even English). This means that many languages will very likely die out within the next 50 to 100 years. I can think of a number of First Nations languages that are barely spoken anymore. This kind of technology is exactly what is needed to stop this trend. If we can effectively communicate using auto-translators, then the need for (as an example) South Korean children to learn English (at the expense of other education) will be drastically reduced. Sure it's expensive now and only works with a few languages, but it's early in the technology.

    In downtown Montreal I hear about 5 different languages going to the grocery store and back. That's not at all unusual. I'd be very happy if it stayed that way, because it's a helluva lot more interesting than the alternative...

    • Re:Pervasiveness of English (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cowboy Bebop ( 540969 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:27AM (#8476007) Journal
      Languages are born as quickly as they die, my friend. They're predicting that Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and English will be the big three 100+ years from now. I'd love to know what English will sound like after 100 years of evolution. It's changed so much in the past 50 that you can see the differences clearly.

      If you like languages, please check out these websites. If you're bored, check them out too... you might learn that you are interested in something new!

      http://www.ancientscripts.com/ [ancientscripts.com]
      http://www.omniglot.com [omniglot.com]
      http://www.langmaker.com/ [langmaker.com]

      • Re:Pervasiveness of English (Score:4, Funny)

        by kahei ( 466208 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:43PM (#8476792) Homepage
        Languages are born as quickly as they die, my friend.

        No, they aren't. That's why the number of live languages is decreasing quite rapidly.

        I love the way you put that patronizing 'my freind' on the end of a completely mindless statement, though :)

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • You yourself explain why "he" is not very right: "they are more dialects not entirely new languages". The fact is that most of the core words in American and English English :D are identical in meaning and while slang has diverged you can tell even without advanced knowledge of linguistics (hell, I barely have any) that they are the same language because both simple and complex words are the same. It's the stuff in the middle that has apparently changed, like Lorry Truck. What do the brits call a Hand Truc
    • To play the devil's advocate. . .

      Imagine, if language barriers were broken down all over the world; it could lead to universal communication.

      God, understanding could even follow. The horror.

      Most of the plants, animals, and languages that have ever existed are extinct. Frankly, I don't feel the worse off for it.

      -Peter

      PS: Having lived in the R.O.K. I can testify that English is not spoken by the majority.

      -P

    • Re:Pervasiveness of English (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Ty ( 15982 )
      Where did you come up with this crock?

      English is all over the world, and other languages are fast losing ground (Chinese of course is ahead of even English).

      What do you mean losing ground? World languages (aka French, Spanish, and English mainly), rarely serve as nothing more than a second language to non-native speakers. The very reason you hear 5 different languages going to the grocier store is proof in itself - people may very well learn second languages, but by nature you revert to your native to

    • As we move to a more global economy, having a global language is very important. Sure, you can make the argument that people lose their "cultural identity" when they stop speaking their own language, but I don't think that's valid. There are many more elements of culture than just the language, and one does not necessarily need the language to preserve those.

      Many problems, in business, politics, and personal relationships, are related to peoples' inability to effectively communicate with each other. If
      • Ok, I was going to let this one go but I just can't. First of all, I understand completely what you're saying. In terms of efficiency everyone speaking the same language would be fantastic. No misunderstandings, no confusion.

        A people doesn't lose its cultural identify by losing their language? Well maybe not completely, but it sure as hell plays a big role. Quebec is a great example! English speakers in Montreal are changing the way business is conducted, they're changing the types of movies that are
      • It makes a lot more sense to remove the problem by standardizing on a single language than it does to try to come up with technology that almost-but-not-quite translates languages.

        Now tell me, how would you go about standardising all of humanity on a single language, and more importantly: how do you KEEP people in villages on opposite sides of the world speaking the same?

        If you have cultural differences, you will get language differences.
    • If you're interested in dying languages, there's a great article [nytimes.com] in this week's New York Times Magazine (sign over soul, etc.) [nytimes.com] about how and why languages die, and what can sometimes be done to save them.

    • Re:Pervasiveness of English (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:49AM (#8476259)
      Unfortunately most people who speak English as their mother tongue do not speak another language (by which I mean Brits, North Americans, Australians...)

      This means that they tend to have very funny ideas about languages, and a distorted perspective on language issues. When you say "English is all over the world, and other languages are fast losing ground", what you mean to say is that many people use English as the "lingua franca". However, this does not mean that all those people are stopping using their mother tongues.

      So you're not going to find all those Spanish, French, Chinese or whatever speakers suddenly stopping using their own languages and speaking exclusively in English. As far as I am aware, that isn't happening anywhere in the world.

      So, if you want to make generalisations about English being many people's second language and being the new lingua franca, then fine, I agree with you. However, if you are trying to argue that other languages are dying out because of English, I would suggest you learn another language and hang out with native speakers of that language. Then you'll have a better perspective about language issues.

      • We don't another language, but that doesn't mean we know nothing about them. I've personally taken enough German and Spanish that I could at one time hold a simple conversation in either. (In the case of spanish I knew everything needed for a complex converstation except a few words). Lack of practice means that I no longer can speak either one.

        Those who speak something other than english as a first language and also speak english generally have reason to use english so they keep it up, and advance in

      • I agree.
        Not being a native English speaker however, I do tend to use English *when it makes sense*.
        As I work for an "international company" I *do* communicate in English to anyone not from my country, even though I speak and write other languages (like German and French), because I have more experience using English and speak it rather fluently which makes conversation easier (when you don't have to actively think about grammatical issues or try finding the exact wording). English is a simple language and e
    • Interestingly, cnn recently ran an article stating that Chinese is not ahead and losing ground fast, but rather that the share of native English speakers is actually declining [cnn.com] and Mandarin is numero uno. But the professor the story is about doesn't see any one language taking over.

      It's hard to know what to make of this stuff though. 15 years ago a lot of people thought we'd all soon be learning Japanese to converse with our bosses.

    • Esperanto is a rich and beautiful language that is easy to learn. Esperanto should be everyone's second language.

  • Options? (Score:3, Funny)

    by aero6dof ( 415422 ) <aero6dof@yahoo.com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:20AM (#8475918) Homepage
    Can you get the robot in a polished gold finish or in trash-can sized form factor for repair and interface?

  • children are overrated (Score:5, Funny)

    by surreal-maitland ( 711954 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:21AM (#8475933) Journal
    this thing is too cute. *and* it's useful. i'm going to buy a dozen in different languages. it's probably cheaper than having a couple of kids.

    i can't wait for "robots say the darnedest things"

  • I'll be interested to see how this pans out. Its not neccisary to stress the differences between asian languages in general and english, obviously. Best of luck to them. After 4 months in asia, I'm curious to see what the Japanese version of decent english produced from a PDA would sound/look like. it'll be quite the accomplishment if they can make this work well. Engrish is never pretty for anyone. (see http://www.engrish.com for further details);)

    this paired with the sleek technology/wifi lounge se

  • Learn the language, if you can (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aelfric35 ( 711236 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:24AM (#8475973)
    While I am naturally in favor of anything that promotes communication between human beings, I hope that advances like this won't stop people from learning other languages. For me, living in a foreign country and being compelled by necessity to learn the local language was the most profoundly educational experience of my life. Learning another language forces one to learn how other people think, how their cultural worldview differs from one's own. It offers perspective that can't be gained in any other way.

    That said, to learn _every_ language is too much to ask. If the technology takes off, and airports, etc., start implementing it, these PDAs could become indispensible tools for travelers of all kinds.
    • There will always be a bias where humans will prefer to communicate/do business with other humans who can most accurately speak their language, right down to the dialect.

      You can find it in your own country and every country; esp. between the northerners and southerners!

      This tech is just a quickie stop-gap that lowers the barrier of travel for a lot of people.
      • I'm with you. Fittingly, learning another language made me a lot more patient with people who can't quite speak mine (with a degree in English, many people expect me to be intolerant of their less-than-perfect grammar).

        I also learned the value of picking up local dialect. People in Copenhagen actually laughed at my accent when I first moved there from West Jutland. They thought I spoke good Danish; I just spoke it like a hick. The Copenhagen accent I subsequently picked up got me squinty looks when I r
    • I agree absolutely.

      I read the other day that the troops in Iraq have a PDA thingy that automatically translates the local language into English. That is really going to disuade the troops from learning the local language and will keep a strong barrier of misunderstanding between the locals and the troops. Language isn't just about communicating fact, but it's about culture and ways of thinking.

      • It takes a long time to learn another language for many people. Especially one that is very different from their mother tongue (arabic is nothing like english). And soldiers on the ground need to know *now*. But I bet this little device doesn't stop the soldiers from learning. Think of it as a teacher. You hear the same word often enough (terrorist, tunnel, weapons, etc) and get a translation of it from your device, then eventually you'll learn it.
  • Sounds like a lot of work has gone into this just to get it to work between just two specific languages.

    While the ability to speak in the colloquial language is useful, I would imagine a robot that could speak in MANY languages, with lower accuracy, would be more useful.

  • It will speak Engrish (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dusabre ( 176445 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:26AM (#8475994) Homepage
    This is a quote from the article (Engrish!):

    "Most certainly, it is absolutely ideal and it is most likely this technology will be utilised," - Chris Shimizu, NEC's corporate relations manager.

    If he's using it, then all his base belongs to us. If he's not, then perhaps he should.

    • Re:It will speak Engrish (Score:4, Interesting)

      by badasscat ( 563442 ) <basscadet75NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:49AM (#8476253)
      This is a quote from the article (Engrish!):

      "Most certainly, it is absolutely ideal and it is most likely this technology will be utilised," - Chris Shimizu, NEC's corporate relations manager.

      Yeah, and? There's nothing grammatically wrong with that statement; it's better English than I hear most Americans use. Yeah, he used the words "most" and "it is" twice in one sentence, but that's really the only nitpick - he used them in grammatically correct ways. Just because it sounds strange to you doesn't mean it's incorrect, and it doesn't make it "Engrish" either.

      I clicked on the link to this thread because I've used Narita Airport several times and thought it was odd that they'd start using these translators when all Narita customer service employees already speak at least practical English (it's a requirement for the job). I'm a little surprised at the undercurrent of racism going through a lot of the replies here so far. I've looked and laughed at the Engrish.com site myself in the past (as has my wife, who is Japanese, and many of our friends) - I'm not saying we all need to be PC here. There's a time and proper context for that kind of thing.

      But when you see a new translator hit the market, why would your first thought be to make fun of the people it's trying to help? It's just juvenile.

      Anyway, I think Narita is sort of a strange place to test market these translators only because Narita is already one of the most bilingual places in all of Japan. Being there is similar to being at San Francisco International. All signs are in English, all ticket agents and other reps speak English (usually perfect English), even prices on goods are often listed in both yen and dollars. I just don't see how translators are particularly necessary at Narita; they could be put to better use at various locations inside Tokyo itself.
      • The fact that it sounds strange doesn't make it incorrect, but it DOES make it Engrish, as it is a translation from Japanese.

        Narita is a perfect place to test market these things because if they don't work, people can fall back on their own language skills, instead of being totally fucked. By the same token, another perfect place to test them is some place where people don't have overlapping language skills, because it will get more of a workout. It's just perfect in a different way.

  • Oh boy. (Score:2, Funny)

    by t1nman33 ( 248342 )
    "Thank for being to fly with us today! Happy! Are we to join you in this service to be your continued enjoyment! Isn't you the joyful? Coming with us to the skies of friendly ancestors!"

  • I'd call this a new low, but the robot would hear (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ianscot ( 591483 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:26AM (#8475999)
    What a freakin' article. This has got to be a low in sloppy technology journalism. It's also deeply ironic that the story itself seems to have been badly translated. I mean:
    Papero is the first all-hearing, all-seeing robot to be able to talk in conversational colloquialisms.

    All-seeing?? "Papero" is omniscient?!?

    We have this 2-to-1 ratio of Japanese to English colloquial words, which immediately made me curious about why the japanese vocabulary would need to be twice as big... Nope, our reporter(s) don't seem to have been curious about that.

    There are subtitles on the story -- "Lend me your brain?" and "Local challenges" -- that seem to have little to do with the text under them.

    Neither our /. blurb nor the BBC article give examples of it working. You'd think they'd at least give us an example of sentences put in and out. Ask it where the bathroom is, and have your japanese-speaking reporter judge the results, at the very least.

  • perfect... (Score:2, Funny)

    by coolguy81 ( 322371 )
    ...now everyday can be like an old kung-fu flick

  • Key phrases include... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:27AM (#8476008)
    'Bear is driving? How can that be?'

    'Let me show you how kareoke is really done'

    'Could you direct me to the nearest bootleg toy store?'

    'Overweight anime fan seeks cute Japanese girlfriend.'

    'So, why don't you guys like the X-Box?'

    and

    'If I said I liked Princess Monoke, would you sit on my face?'

  • Protocol Droids? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So are the robot versions jealous if the PDA version catches on more?

    "That malfunctioning little twerp. This all his fault. He tricked me into going this way, but he'll do no better."

  • It'l be Wizard! (Score:3, Funny)

    by BHS_Turf ( 8387 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:29AM (#8476023) Homepage
    "I have a bad feeling about this ... They are using a very primative dialect, but I do believe that they think I am some sort of god."
    1. - quote from first brass-plated Papero

  • Business travel (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IEEEMonkey ( 669772 ) <Paul.Herbstritt@nosPam.GMail.Com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:30AM (#8476033)
    I travel on business quite a bit. Last year I was outside of the US more than I was in it. I was in Yokosuka Japan and Naples Italy for more than half the year. I tried to learn enough of each language to be polite, but the truth is that I will be in Greece, Japan, and Singapore this year and I do not have time to keep refreshing myself on the languages. One of my biggest concerns, when I travel, are the local customs and laws. I have to admit that if this works, I mean works well, it may take some of the stress of traveling abroad for those who go to many different countries. I need a PDA that tells me the local customs and helps me with the language.
    • I've made a number of trips to Singapore over the last 10 years and English is the language of business over there so I don't think you'll have much trouble communicating. I think most people are at least bilingual there as I've met people that speak Mandarin or Malay as well as English. Leave you're chewing gum at home or on the airplane if you bring any as it's against the law to import and chew gum in Singapore. People would drop gum on the sidewalk or stick it under seats and so the government got fed u

      • Re:Business travel (Score:1, Flamebait)

        by Dusabre ( 176445 )
        You've been to Singapore. Tell me what part of Japan is Singapore in? THIS IS AN ARTICLE ABOUT A JAPANESE AIRPORT.

        NARITA.

        In Singapore they speak fluent English because they were occupied by Oxford educated officers.

        In Japan, they speak Engrish because they were occupied by GIs (just joking).

        For heaven's sake. Mod the parent down.
        • For heaven's sake GET A GRIP!

          Parent post (my grand parent) is answering questions posed in Grand parent post (my great-grand parent post).

          This is an article about international communication, bitch! Its completely on topic! Let the moderators be the topic-nazi's.

          For heaven's sake- stop coming to slashdot. You are an asshole.

  • Remember the Babel fish... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Conspiracy_Of_Doves ( 236787 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:31AM (#8476054)
    by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

  • Bilingual Nitpickery (Score:3, Informative)

    by spoonboy42 ( 146048 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:37AM (#8476109)
    In actuality, this should be from the "nihongo *o* amari hanashimasen" department. The particle "o" (the phonetic o, that is, historically it is the hiragana wo) is used in this case because nihongo (the Japanese language) is the object of the sentence. The particle wa (hiragana ha) is a suffix appended to the *subject* of the sentence, which in this case, it can be inferred, is the speaker (if we wanted to be more long-winded, we could say "Watashi wa nihongo o amari hanashimasen"). As it stands, the sentence says that the Japanese language doesn't talk much. While this is correct (languages themselves are, as far as I know, mute), I don't think it was the speaker's intention. ;)
    • The particle wa (hiragana ha) is a suffix appended to the *subject* of the sentence, which in this case, it can be inferred, is the speaker (if we wanted to be more long-winded

      Actually, it marks the topic of the following sentences- not the subject. "GA" is the subject marker- its just not used as often or in ways an English speaker might use such a thing.

    • Re:Bilingual Nitpickery (Score:3, Informative)

      by kahei ( 466208 )

      Sigh.

      The particle wa (hiragana ha) is a suffix appended to the *subject* of the sentence

      It's appended to the topic, not the subject.

      As it stands, the sentence says that the Japanese language doesn't talk much.

      No, it doesn't. It is correct. The 'o' version sounds less natural to me.

      Please learn things and THEN post about them. You are doing it the other way around.

  • All green of skin... 800 centuries ago. Their bodily fluids include the birth of half-breeds. Self-determination of the cosmos. For dark is the suede... that mows like a harvest.

  • On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by philv2 ( 711410 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:51AM (#8476276) Homepage
    One could argue the other side of the coin and say that if we end up speaking less languages, we'll lose that much more of our intellectual prowess. Speaking different languages is definitely a good brain excerciser and provides the speaker with a different perspective on the world, events, etc, than other languages. Providing of course, that the speaker is (for example), thinking in french rather than translating word per word from his native tongue.

    Different languages isn't something i'd like to see vanish either, they're definitely a rich part of our cultures. With translators like the above, once perfected, will allow us to communicate perfectly with each other and permit us to keep a significant portion of our cultures intact. Living in Quebec, god knows I've heard a lot about that!

    • I'd disagree. Everyone should speak one language, with no thick accents. By thick I mean hard to understand, I don't care if that means everyone switches to "southern", so long as I can understand them and they can understand me. That way when I have an idea I can communicate with all the experts, whereas today there is a lot of duplication just because of the need to translate

      Sure learning another language makes you think. I'd prefer you dedicate all that extra thinking to making the world a better p

  • Super Fun Translate Boy GoGo! (Score:3, Informative)

    by saladpuncher ( 633633 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:53AM (#8476314) Homepage
    This is a great idea but Japanese isn't that hard to learn to speak. Compare it to Finish or Dutch or even German. What's nice is that Japanese has a set of rules and it hardly ever breaks them: no conjugation of verbs, the verb always comes last in the sentence, etc. Sure, there are those tricky adjectives and politeness words but they aren't that hard. I cringe when I think of hundreds of foreigners running around with little PDAs asking questions like

    "Where the bathroom be?"
    "How much the coffee if milk in it?"
    "Where the titty show for cheap?"

    At least learn a little bit of the language when you travel. It really impresses the locals when you try. Also, could you imagine going to a business meeting and trying to use some talking robot to give your presentation...hmmm...on second thought that would be kinda cool. Now if they made one of these to translate kanji my wallet would be all a quiver.

  • papero patting sensor (Score:3, Funny)

    by SilverSun ( 114725 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @11:56AM (#8476340) Homepage
    Papero has quite some features. Especially cute is the "Patting Sensor" in his forehead. I wonder if it has also a "Kicking Sensor" in his butt....

    Cheers
    • Papero is a pretty lame name. When I picture a "Partner-Type Personal Robot" I picture something that looks a lot more like this [realdoll.com] than this [nec.co.jp]. Incidentally the touch sensor has been done on a zillion toys which are much cutter than papero, like fuck-me-in-the-butt elmo.

  • Papero: "I'm a protocol droid..." (Score:3, Funny)

    by Total_Wimp ( 564548 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:14PM (#8476524)
    C3PO's great, great, great grandfather.
  • I think of that it is the thought this being good. To designate feasibility concept completely as this, the computer sufficiently is the powerfuly complete brusqueness coming. As for me in everyone it is within these 1 Tsugas several years and thing, it verifies that heriage of home country language is maintained.

  • Mirror (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:20PM (#8476571)
    Here is a mirror of the BBC website, translated from English to German to French and back to English again for your amusement:
    Small robots with friendly faces helped outside in the development the handhelduebersetzungsgeraete with being tested by the pieces of race in Japan. The visitors, with the airport Narita de Tokio land, of the SIND in the situation to employ a device that the local weight for of Harnischfaeden can translate. The technology of speech of speech was developed by NEC, examined in the robots of Papero and sat down then in PDAs. Papero is the first capacity of hearing of universe and robots all-sieht, to speak in the situation zuSEIN, Unterhaltungscolloquialisms. * PDA-Mieteentwurf a part one of a broad project, EFlughafen, of international Japan hauptsaechlichflughafen it it majority of HalloHi-tech in the world to form.
    I think I'll stop now.
  • Following to BBC, "you write commanderfoxtrot, as for the Narita Airport it can employ from PDAs which can translate the word where Japan of 50,000 and England of 25,000 spoke. This is part everything of e airport mechanism in Narita: Technology of speech was developed in speech by NEC, tested placed with the robot of Papero, and at PDAs. next... Papero (private robot partner type), being oral between two languages of tongue of the spoken language which is the first robot which it should translate. "
  • Before my wife and I went to Japan for our honeymoon, I spent numerous hours learning the basics of Japanese, gleaning key words and learning the Katakana and Hiragana alphabets. I felt pretty good knowing that I would be able to get around the country without having to resort to pantomine or asking for a translator. When we arrived in Narita, after standing in the customs lines for over an hour and a half, I had my first chance to use my mad language skills when we noticed our luggage was sitting on a ca

  • On a related note... (Score:3, Informative)

    by mynameis (mother ... ( 745416 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @12:42PM (#8476783)
    Does anyone know of any hear-aid form factor bluetooth earpieces?

    All your nihongo listening exams are belong to me!

    In reality, I think it might be difficult to get to correct meanings unless you know some Japanese to start with. Among other things, Japanese:

    1. doesn't really use pronouns
    1. sentences tend to not be simple Sub-Verb-Object
    1. you avoid directly referring to things
    1. you drop unneeded words when they can be directly inferred from the conversation
    1. Use 'post'positions [a type of particles] instead of prepositiong. 'Over the chair' becomes 'chair (of) above (location)' with the words in ()'s being single characters called particles.
    1. Adjectives are often constructions involving the above
    The end result is the construct of noun-phrases that can be insanely long, confusing, and hard to directly translate. Ie "senshuu imouto no tanjoubi ni puresento o katta toki kaban o nusumareta" is basically 'the store I had my bag stolen at while I was buying a birthday present for my younger sister'[note:lifted from site by Kim Allen]. And that is all 'an' adjective. Literally 'last-week my-younger-sister (of) birthday (destination) present (direct object of) purchased time-of bag (direct object of) stolen.

    And there are nearly [if not] dozens of different verb forms/conjugations. Such that you could say 'Your gate is 2B' but do so in such a rude way that in reality the purpose of the sentence is an insult :) Converseley, your question would be phrased vastly differently for, lets say, a slightly older random other person, than if for an employee of an airline, etc. And you would likely cause discomfort...

    And now off to JPN102...

    Shi-tzu-rei-shimas [Goodbye, respectfully-literally '(I am)a rudeness committing'... However saying 'shi-tzu-rei-suru' would actually be rudely stating you are committing a rudeness [if said to anyone not a personal friend]. That is the same verb, same tense, and literally has the identical meaning- just different 'politeness' level..]
  • Narita doesn't need more English. Anyone at a sales counter or behind a airline desk already speaks English, Japanese, and who knows how many other languages. They've got that covered. There are three things that Narita needs to be a perfect airport:

    1. Free wireless networking. They have wireless already, but it wants a credit card.

    2. More than one shop that sells Meiji Black dark chocolate. I generally buy all they have when I travel through there, but it is not enough to keep me going until next
  • Why did the duck cross the street?

    "I give my language to the cat".

    Or is that a tongue? Maybe what that frenchman really meant was he gave up... but what a weird expression.

    Make fun of him and he'll answer it's no weirder than "bull's shit". (Damn, those robot really do have sex with their expressions, don't they?)

    Uhm, so yeah... these robotic helpers had better have a large list of expressions, and better yet, develop a way of learning new expressions in any given (sub-)culture. Or you will come to unde
  • Speech-to speech - that's great.

    Now for something simpler, can I have a PDA or "music/mp3" players which reads E-Books/websites. And one that takes dictation. Thankyou.

  • Language Monoculture? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by XaosTX ( 723612 )
    So what are the downsides to everyone speaking English (or Chinese for that matter)? Aside from the people who are ticked that nobody wants to speak in their language anymore.

    Is there any possibility of REAL issues such as exist in our Software monoculture today?

    I mean, if English dominated the lingual landscape, then it would make it harder for me to filter out all the spam I keep getting (about 1/3 is currently in Spanish now)
    • Though I really only speak English well, it would sadden me if no one spoke anything but English. Believe it or not, in the same way some computer languages express logical constructs better than others, each verbal language offers subtleties that allows some concepts and thoughts to be transmitted easier than others.

      As someone that likes to study the Bible, I've seen this first hand. Sure, you can get the idea across but it often takes lots of footnotes or multiple versions to explain how many things ge
  • Last month, I had a chance to try one of these things out while I was waiting for my plane. Translation from my spoken English into Japanese was surprisingly good. You press a button, and speak; and the Japanese translation appears on the screen fairly quickly.

    It didn't do so well in translating my spoken Japanese into English, which could have been my accent more than anything else, I suppose. They had a survey to fill out -- "Would you rent one of these", "How much would you pay", etc. and I got a fre
  • Forget Narita Airport, the Airport was fine the last time I was there. You got to get those translator things on the subway system. Foreigners don't get lost in the airport, they get lost in the subway. The signs in the subway are all in Japanese. Each subway line is owned by a different company, so sometimes, you have to exist one station to enter another station that has the same name. And everything else is compounded by the fact that their subway employees don't speak english and say yes to everything y

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