Subject: Re: Universal translators and Education
From: Marc Pembroke (maplawqb@clic.net)
Date: Fri 12 Nov 1999 - 00:24:49 MET
From: "Marc Pembroke" <maplawqb@clic.net> Subject: Re: Universal translators and Education Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 18:24:49 -0500
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Greetings,
While I have not tested the translator you mentioned, I have seen several of
the others which have excellent reputations. However, they all have similar
limitations. Nuances vary from one region to another, and escape the rules
of logic. For instance, in translating from French to English, how to you
know when Saint Jean is Saint John and when it is Holy John? When going from
English to another language, how do you tell the computer that a "fat
chance" and a "slim chance" are the same thing, but that a "wise man" and a
"wise guy" are opposites? Do the French say "that's soccer" when Americans
say "that's baseball?" And even if you do manage to get all the ambiguities
covered today, how long will it be before teenagers, comedians, poets, and
politicians have added and subtracted enough words to require an update?
Be that as it may I have heard of people in Quebec taking online courses in
English using translators. Apparently, the machines are close enough to get
the gist of the content across. However, I tend to doubt that we will ever
be able to fully dispose of language learning.
Marc A. Pembroke
Directeur, Institut Auguste Lecerf
University of Phoenix practitioner faculty
6401, rue des Camomilles Apt 2
Charny, QC G6X3E8
Canada
(418) 832-7168
maplawqb@clic.net
http://www.clic.net/~maplawqb
----- Original Message -----
From: Mary Harrsch <mharrsch@oregon.uoregon.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list IFETS-DISCUSS
<IFETS-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.READADP.COM>
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 1999 11:28 AM
Subject: Universal translators and Education
> List address to send message to everyone:
ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
> Details of current discussion:
http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>
> I was interested to see that a Star Trek-like universal translator is now
a
> reality thanks to Lernout &
> Hauspie:
>
> http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?991110.pivoice.htm
>
> Just think what this device could do for higher education especially in
> distance education! Trying to attain a suitable TOEFL (or other language
> equivalent) score for admission to a particular program or institution
could
> become a thing of the past. Students could participate in global
> discussions without the need to standardize on a particular language. Of
> course the technology will need to get substantially cheaper (right now
it's
> $2,000 in large quantities) and include many more languages (With the
> exception of Mandarin Chinese, the included languages were rather
> Eurocentric - Russian, Middle Eastern, and African languages were
noticeably
> absent) but that is only a matter of time.
>
> Mary Harrsch
> Network and Information Systems Manager
> College of Education
> 102-K Education
> University of Oregon
> Eugene, OR 97403
> (541) 346-3554
> http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~mharrsch/index.htm
>
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