[sldev] Please help testing the SL Viewer with integrated universal translation

[Henri Beauchamp]

On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:55:50 -0500, Timothy Horrigan wrote:

> Henri Beauchamp wrote:
> >
> > Automatic translators are utterly useless and totally unable to translate
> > properly from simple languages such as English into more complex and subtle
> > languages such as French, German, Chinese, Japanese...
> >
> > My advice is therefore: don't bother. Most people will mute you rather
> > than enduring the clueless translators.
> 
> LOL, Henri... English when spoken by native speakers is just as complex 
> and subtle as any other language.

You can say and explain very complex things, even with "simple" languages,
but I assure you that English is incredibly simpler than French or German
(since I did learn all three, I know what I am speaking about).
The grammar is incredibly much simpler in English, and the vocabulary is
simpler too. For example, you can translate "to get" in at least 30
different verbs in French. or "power" into two different names (these are
just two examples out of my head, but cases are countless).
Fact is that at school (some 4 decades ago), I just needed a couple of
months to learn the basis of English, while even after three years, I
could never express myself as fluently in German (and since forgot
pretty much everything I was taught in this language). That's also one of
the reasons why English is so successful as an international "common"
language: it's easier to learn and use than most (if not all) other
languages.

It does not mean that you can't have the same meaning expressed in English
and other, more complex languages such as French, but it does mean that
these latter languages are way more accurate when it comes down to the
choice of words and/or grammar constructs (why do you think French is
still considered and used as the diplomatic language in many iternational
instances (such as the UN) ?... It's certainly not just to please the
French People), and choosing the wrong word when translating results in a
meaningless translation, or worst, into the another meaning than the
proper one.

To get back on topic, the result is that to properly translate from
English to French you need more context than to translate from French to
English, and that's why real time translators (almost always) fail so
lamentably in the former case while (sometimes) doing an acceptable job
in the latter case.

Henri.