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de sudanglo, 2013-oktobro-08

Mesaĝoj: 34

Lingvo: English

efilzeo (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-10 22:10:12

Oijos:
In Finland, even the state-owned enterprises (and organisations) have imposed English on their employees. You don't get or keep a job if you don't speak English!!!
That's a real shame.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-11 08:37:20

In Finland, even the state-owned enterprises (and organisations) have imposed English on their employees. You don't get or keep a job if you don't speak English!!!
But would that still be likely in the era of ubiquitous and efficient machine translation.

The Esperanto movement needs to think not about what happens now but what seems probable in the near future.

Oijos (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-11 22:34:00

sudanglo:
In Finland, even the state-owned enterprises (and organisations) have imposed English on their employees. You don't get or keep a job if you don't speak English!!!
But would that still be likely in the era of ubiquitous and efficient machine translation.

The Esperanto movement needs to think not about what happens now but what seems probable in the near future.
Very likely.

Ubiquitous and efficient machine translation is not probable in the near future.

kaŝperanto (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-14 14:34:18

Oijos:
sudanglo:
In Finland, even the state-owned enterprises (and organisations) have imposed English on their employees. You don't get or keep a job if you don't speak English!!!
But would that still be likely in the era of ubiquitous and efficient machine translation.

The Esperanto movement needs to think not about what happens now but what seems probable in the near future.
Very likely.

Ubiquitous and efficient machine translation is not probable in the near future.
I believe he is talking about a "what if" situation; maybe where by some accident a company creates a semi-intelligent machine capable of fluent translation between languages. In my own opinion that is akin to the "everyone will have a flying car in the year 2000" idea of science fiction from the 20th century. But if it were to happen I would expect Esperanto to keep its position, since most of us are not using it to order a coffee in foreign countries. The users of this machine are not going to have the kinds of organizations that Esperanto has. Also, even with a perfect translator there will be some change in meaning through the translation in areas where the two languages don't match up one to one, or when colloquialisms/etc are used.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-15 12:28:55

Ubiquitous and efficient machine translation is not probable in the near future.
What makes you so certain of that? It seems a very probable extrapolation from current developments.
most of us are not using it to order a coffee in foreign countries
This isn't a simple task. I can hardly cope with it in my native English. What on earth is an Americano? Why can't you order 'a small coffee' any longer? How big is 'regular'? Why is the assistant baffled by my order for a 'milky coffee', needing to translate this into some obscure jargon?

Oijos (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-15 16:03:01

sudanglo:
Ubiquitous and efficient machine translation is not probable in the near future.
What makes you so certain of that? It seems a very probable extrapolation from current developments.
What is your near future in this context? You can't extrapolate from current trends. You need reliable machine translation. To that you need a whole new method and breakthrough, not fine-tuning to current technology. See for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-complete

If all this happens, you still have the inferiority complex. English is seen by many as superior and winner language.

Nokia Oyj isn't going to ditch all-English policy, because it would be seen as less professional. Different units in different countries would not be able to communicate with each other, without (perfectly reliable) machines.

Add to that the fact that most pros don't even know the terms in their native language. Or the terms don't even exist.

(I'm not going to continue this discussion in English)

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-16 11:11:04

Even if many technical terms in Finnish are borrowed from English this doesn't mean Finns have to learn English. English is awash with words borrowed from many different languages, but this doesn't compel English speakers to be multilingual.

Oijos (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-16 17:36:26

sudanglo:Even if many technical terms in Finnish are borrowed from English this doesn't mean Finns have to learn English. English is awash with words borrowed from many different languages, but this doesn't compel English speakers to be multilingual.
Who said that many technical terms in Finnish are borrowed from English? I did not say so. In case of Finnish, technical terms are not borrowed in good language, and there's absolutely no need to borrow. I've heard the situation is totally different in German. Finnish would be superior technical language compared to English.

Of course heavy borrowing from other languages does not mean you have to learn the language.

Did you read some Wikipedia?

Duko (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-17 08:30:37

We already have machines that can tell us where we are and how to find a specific address. However, I noticed that when someone asks me for directions, things can go two ways:
1) I know the answer and I give the directions right away. I takes little time and I feel smart. I also feel that I look smart, it's a good feeling.
2) I don't know the answer, so I say "hold on", take out the smartphone, search for the address, relay the information. It takes much more time. The smartphone looks smart, but I feel kinda useless and stupid.

Of course, when I am the one needing directions, the GPS navigator is a perfect solution.

Probably it will be the same with machine translation: perfectly fine when you're on your own and need to read a menu or information about the bus strike. Not so great when you have to interrupt the people that talk to you so that you can shove a smartphone under their nose: "please speak slowly into my machine".

So, yeah, an accessible common language is still a priority.

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2013-oktobro-17 11:13:02

To translate accurately, a machine must be able to understand the text (from Wikipedia).

This is patently not true. As even the current development of Google Translate demonstrates. GT makes different and seemingly intelligent choices according to context, but this doesn't imply understanding.

Esperantists need to get their heads out of the sand and develop a fresh approach to arguing successfully for Esperanto in this new environment in which Esperanto is going to be a hard sell.

In any case if more effective machine translation does in fact require advances in the field of artificial intelligence, how can you be so sure that they aren't just round the corner?

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