It has been estimated that over £59,000 is spent on translation services daily in the UK within the NHS and a new translation software is said to cut down costs by up to 40 million pounds annually. The software which is launched by a Coventry company has been designed so that it is accessible online on the NHS website. It will allow doctors to communicate with non-English speaking patients directly through an electronic machine translation. It provides translations in 33 languages of which 22 are audio enabled.

This system of translation has been described as ‘potentially life-saving’ in emergency situations however, at Veritas we know that literal translations that machines offer cannot replace the power of human translators. When it comes to emergency situations, machine-like software could potentially do more harm than good especially when translating a message in order to save lives. Directed translations focus on interpreting “word-for-word” from one language to another, not taking into account the ‘sense’ of the original message which can lead to misinterpretations that result in confusion. A great and rather funny example of a translation software fault is the one of an American T-shirt maker in Miami. When asked to print T-shirts with the slogan “I Saw the Pope” (”el papa”) for the Hispanic market to commemorate the Pope’s visit, the T-shirts read “I Saw the Potato” (“la papa”).

It is therefore apparent that any language translation ...

Contrary to what many people believe, no piece of software can produce human-quality technical translations. Yet this doesn’t mean that computers have no place in the translation industry, and developments in CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) technology have meant that technical translators can use CAT tools to increase their productivity and ensure consistency.

So, what are these CAT tools, and what do they do?

CAT tools come in several different forms, and should not be confused with MT (Machine Translation) systems. While MT software is able to automatically translate texts in their entirety, their output can be unreliable. This is due to the fact that computers can’t understand the context in which words appear. At best, this means that translations may sound a little clunky and strange. At worst, translations can be incomprehensible, often to the point of hilarity (just google ‘bad translations’ – you’ll soon see!).

The difference between CAT and MT software is that MT is designed to do all the work itself, and CAT tools are designed to simplify the process for translators. Some CAT tools include Translation Memory (TM) programmes, and Termbases. This software is particularly useful in technical translations, where there is often a lot of terminology to keep track of.

TM software saves previous translations, and can suggest translations for matching phrases in future technical translations. While this might not be very useful when translating literature, it can greatly increase ...

Today I had to buy an adaptor for my Italian mobile charger. I finally succeeded and, while I was looking at it, I thought that checking the instructions would probably be a good idea. The English text was slightly different from the rest, but this is more or less what it said (correctly):

The Visitor to UK Travel Adaptor. Ideal for all foreign travellers visiting the UK.
Safety Warning: Please read carefully and use in accordance with our safety instructions below. Suitable for plugs from all around the world. Fitted with a replaceable 13A fuse.

And here is the magic of machine (at least I hope so, otherwise it would be even more horrifying) translation:

German: Besucher zu UK Reise Adapter. Ideal für allen ausländischen travelers besuchend der UK Nimmt Stöpsel von um die Welt an Gepaßt mit einer ersetzbaren 13 A Sicherung.
Sicherheit Warnen: Vor dem Gebrauch liest bitte vorsichtig und benutzt gemäß unserem eingeschlossene Sicherheitsanweisung unten hat.

Spanish: El Visitante el Adaptor del Viaje de UK. El ideal para todos viajeros extranieros que visitan el UK. Acepta tapones de alrededor del mundo. Quedado con un reemplazable 13 fusible de amp.
Advertit de seguridad Antes uso leyó por favor detenidamente y usa de acuerdo con nuestro ha la instrucción encerrada de la seguridad abajo.

French: L’Adapteur de Voyage de Royaume-Uni de visiteur. L’idéal pour tous voyageurs étrangers qui visitent le Royaume-Uni. Accepte des bouchons de vers le monde. Ajusté avec un ...

Well, the title of this blog doesn’t need much explaining: some programmers from the École Supérieure d’Informatique Électronique Automatique (ESIEA), in Paris, have come up with a clever programme for the Xbox Kinect, which is able to translate sign language.

For those who don’t know, the Kinect is a motion-detecting webcam that allows the Xbox games console to be played with the player’s own bodily movements, rather than a traditional controller. The programme uses this technology to recognise certain body shapes and then displays the corresponding word on-screen.

So far, this project is in the development stages, and can only recognise the words “hello” and “sorry”, but this is a huge step toward an accessible gesture recognition programme for sign language. Now that the framework of the programme has being laid out, adding words to the software should be a relatively minor task. Once the software’s vocabulary is increased, this could prove to be a very useful tool for non-signers who need to know what a specific sign means. As the word is displayed on-screen, rather than spoken, the deaf person can verify that the sign has been translated correctly, and won’t have to worry about their words being misinterpreted without their knowledge.

The applications of this software aren’t limited to translation, either: it has already been widely suggested that this could be a useful teaching tool for students of sign language, and it is almost certain ...

When browsing the internet recently, I came across the following piece of news: the USA are building a robot translator for military purposes. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in America has started work on a robot-translator with artificial intelligence capable of understanding various languages, instantly translating into English, and maintaining dialogue with humans through its own robot voice.

The project is called BOLT, or Broad Operational Language Translation, and its objective is to support North American troops in territories where they speak languages other than English. The robot will serve as interpreter between soldiers and civilians in the foreign country, especially in countries where, due to the complexity of the language, learning it quickly is difficult. The highest priority languages will be Arabic and Chinese.

Apparently, the robot translator will have an appearance similar to C-3PO from the Star Wars films.

There are those who doubt that this project is worth the 15 million dollars that the agency has requested from Congress for its development.

No further details are known about the project, so we’ll have to wait and see if it achieves its objectives.

Whatever standard of translation this robot reaches, personally I doubt that it will be equal to the quality of a professional human interpreter. After all, it is a machine translator, with all the risk of possible error or incorrect interpretation which they are associated with.