Google Gtalk Translation: Less than Perfect
I have been reading about Google's new translation bots that you can inject into a Gtalk conversation. I tried them out with my friend Hosokawa in Osaka. The results were less than perfect. The way it works is that you invite the bots in to your group chat to act as translators. There is a bot en2ja for the english to Japanese translation and another, ja2en for translating the other way.
Here's a partial transcript:
me: How is the weather?
en2ja: 天気予報はどのようにしますか？
12:42 PM toyohiko: 今日の大阪の天気は曇りです。
en2ja: 今日の大阪の天気は曇りですます。
ja2en: Today's weather is cloudy Osaka.
me: Is it cold?
en2ja: それは、寒いの？
toyohiko: 寒いけれども昨日よりは暖かい。
en2ja: 寒いけれども昨日よりは暖かいます。
ja2en: But yesterday was warm from the cold.
12:43 PM me: It is hot and humid here today.
en2ja: それは高温多湿本日ここにいます。
toyohiko: 気温は？
en2ja: 気温はか？
ja2en: Temperature?
toyohiko: こちらの気温は18度ぐらいです。
en2ja: こちらの気温は18度ぐらいですます。
ja2en: The temperature was 18 degrees much more.
me: Hold on, I'll check my widget.
en2ja: ちょっと待って、私が私のウィジットをチェックします。
12:44 PM me: It is 29 degrees here.
en2ja: それは29度です。
me: Any snow this year?
en2ja: 今年はどんな雪ですか？
toyohiko: 雪はまったく降りません。
en2ja: 雪はまったく降りませんます。
ja2en: Snow was降RIMASEN.
12:45 PM me: I understand.
en2ja: 分かりました。
toyohiko: 梅雨ですか？
ja2en: The rainy season?
en2ja: 梅雨ですかか？
me: Summer is the rainy season here.
en2ja: ここでは、夏の雨季にします。
me: We are getting a lot of rain recently.
en2ja: 私たちは、多くの雨が最近取得します。
12:46 PM toyohiko: こちらは雨も雪もふりません。
en2ja: こちらは雨も雪もふりませんます。
ja2en: More rain and snow is also FURIMASEN.
toyohiko: 降りません
ja2en: 降RIMASEN
12:47 PM toyohiko: 降ることはありません。
en2ja: 降ることはありませんます。
ja2en: It is not down.
me: haha. Bad robot!
en2ja: だってします。ロボット悪い！
12:48 PM me: What will you do for the coming holiday?
en2ja: 何をするために、今後の休日ですか？
toyohiko: 明日から3連休だけど予定はありませんよ。
en2ja: 明日から3連休だけど予定はありませんよます。
ja2en: Tomorrow from the three-day weekend, but I have no plans.
12:49 PM me: We are staying home too.
en2ja: 私たちはあまりにもホームに滞在します。
me: The roads are crazy this time of year.
en2ja: 道路がクレイジー年のこの時期にします。
12:50 PM toyohiko: クレイジー？ 渋滞？
en2ja: クレイジーですか？渋滞ですか？
ja2en: Crazy? Congestion?
me: Yes. and bad drivers.
ja2en: Yes. Drivers and bad.
en2ja: はい。悪いとドライバがあります。
toyohiko: 運転が下手な人が多いのですか？
en2ja: 運転が下手な人が多いのですかか？
ja2en: Driving is a lot of poor people?
12:51 PM me: no.
en2ja: ありませんします。
me: Terrible drivers.
en2ja: ひどいドライバがあります。
me: That's better.
en2ja: それは良くなりました。
me: You should come to Australia some time.
en2ja: オーストラリアのいくつかの時間になる必要があります。
me: I would like to show you around.
en2ja: あなたの周りに表示したいと思います。
12:54 PM en2ja has left
ja2en@bot.talk.google.com has left
me: Nooo! come back.
en2ja: nooo ！戻ってきました。
The technology has a long way to go - but I'm going to say 10 years before Google makes near-perfect on-the-fly tranlation work.
7 Comments
ravenCan you say 'confusing'? Damn... hard to make sense of who was asking who what... is it easier in real time as its taking place?
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
It's a little bit easier - as you are only focusing on one bit at a time, but still confusing.
I suppose it would be similar in a heads of state meeting where each guy brings his own translator.
When it gets better, I suppose it would be better to just supress the bot chatter, and foreign language original. Then you would just type in English, and receive in English, and not even worry about the rest.
blankfistOr, you could just learn Japanese.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
I know some Japanese - enough to realize how bad the translation is. But I don't know enough kanji to write fluently.
gorgonheapThat is a horrible translator. I bet you could say something like "are you going to see the folks later?" And it would translate to "I'm going to rape your wife and beat your children while taking a dump on your face." Yeish, now I know how wars start.
MINKi dunno guys, i am pretty damn impressed. consider the fact that japanese and english are completely different languages, and the fact that english is so fucked up it is difficult to translate even if you are a human (my girl is at degree level and still struggles with the idioms and ridiculous exceptions and constructions).
Compared to just getting a load of kanji, i think this was highly understandable!!
ok, i couldn't renegotiate the kyoto protocols with this shit, but chatting to a friend and saying a clumsy "hello!" is a big big step up from saying nothing at all.
Consider it took me 2 years to get this good at lithuanian, i think this bot is pretty cool. Hope it's possible to make it better, but anyway, a good start.
JAPRHAHAHHAHAHA. No→ありませんします
massive fail, but some of the translations were fairly decent considered the difficulty for a machine translator to deal with idiomatic and colloquial phrases. Still, not good enough to really hold a realistic conversation on even simple topics, since it seems to have trouble with anything longer than short phrases (and sometimes even with them, as in the "no" instance haha).
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