BS: language translation and accent database

Subject: BS: language translation and accent database
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Aug 03 - 06:57 PM

well..not at the same place, but sort of related, so I decided to just start one thread

here is an online spot for translation of MANY languages:
http://www.faganfinder.com/translate/

I have not tested or evaluated it, but theoretically, you can translate between Polish & Hawaiian...which could be interesting! I assume this would be a VERY rough approximation..

and here is a collection of recordings of many accents from around the world http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/

this is a 'bit' strange, as it is a collection of many people reading the same sentence in English, and one can get weary of the same phrase over & over. I wonder how they chose the words to use? It is probably useful to certain research.

Subject: RE: BS: language translation and accent database
From:
Date: 25 Aug 03 - 07:23 PM

A bit of info about the Translation Wizard http://www.faganfinder.com/translate/ .

If you read the about page http://www.faganfinder.com/translate/info.php , you will see that it uses *other* translators, and that not every language combination will have a translator that can handle it. Also not all languages have machine translators, they may just have dictionaries.

Subject: RE: BS: language translation and accent database
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Aug 03 - 07:49 PM

Bill, they probably chose the words to get in as many sounds as possible.

Subject: RE: BS: language translation and accent database
From: Jim McLean
Date: 26 Aug 03 - 12:53 PM

I only listened to a couple from the accent database but the Birmingham, England was in no way even near to a 'Brummy' accent, the 'Glasgow' accent was very flat and even the Danish two were, in my opinion having lived and worked there, not very representative. Does anyone else have a comment?

Subject: RE: BS: language translation and accent database
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Aug 03 - 06:06 PM

what I suspect is that the participants were trying too hard to to not sound accented, and to read that sentence as they imagined it should sound. It was a very 'English' batch of words, and not what many of the folks would be saying in their daily routines.

A number of them had also learned English in school and had 'practiced'.

Project needs some work, huh? (Still interesting)

Subject: RE: BS: language translation and accent database
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Aug 03 - 02:40 AM

Hi

I tried the translator and this is what I wanted:

Good Morning ! It's 8 o'clock and I am tired. My friend woke me up 5 minutes ago.

BUT this is what I got from the translator :

good day they are the 8 of the mñana and I am sleepy my friend woke up to me 5 minutes ago


Well, I have seen worse.



My speakers weren't working on my pc so I couldn't listen to the accents on the database, but I thought it looked great. I will try it out later.

Subject: RE: BS: language translation and accent database
From:
Date: 27 Aug 03 - 02:53 AM

>I tried the translator

You didn't say which languages you translated from, and what the original text was.

Anyhow, as I tried to explain in a comment above, my translator uses *other* translators, each of which has various levels of accuracy. In other words, I have zero control over the quality of translation, other than in which translators I choose to include in the Translation Wizard

Subject: RE: BS: language translation and accent database
From: mike the knife
Date: 27 Aug 03 - 02:13 PM

I love these translation sites (babelfish, etc.)- I have friends who would plug English into the machine, turn it into "German" and E-mail me the results. Some days I didn't get any work done at all because I was either laughing until coffee came out of my nose or I was so perplexed as to the original meaning, I could only sit & ponder.

Subject: RE: BS: language translation and accent database
From: RangerSteve
Date: 27 Aug 03 - 03:51 PM

I looked up various phrases that I use at work (license and registration, please), unfortunately, there's no pronunciation key. We have a lot of Eastern Europeans in New Jersey, and there's no way I'm going to try and pronounce those languages. I could start an international incident without knowing it.

And why would I need anything translated to or from Esperanto? Are there people who speak that tongue and no other? Anyway, I looked up some words, and Esperanto comes up lacking. For example: there's no word for "Driver". Then again, William Shatner did a movie filmed entirely in Esperanto (really, I'm not kidding), so now I can rent it and figure out what's going on.

Subject: RE: BS: language translation and accent database
From:
Date: 28 Aug 03 - 12:38 AM

I take it your a police officer?

No, there isn't a pronounciatin key yet, however several of the translators have audio files of words. These are denoted when you choose "list all the translation matches" on the Translation Wizard.

As for Esperanto, there are websites written in it that are not be also in English. That's just one example, I'm sure others could think of plenty more.