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mdo7
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6268
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
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Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:13 am
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Polycell wrote: | Fun fact: The US Foreign Service Institute recommends 88 weeks of training to reach "General Professional Proficiency" for the Asian languages you listed(taking Chinese as shorthand for the multiple spoken languages), twice what they recommend for the next hardest, Russian(French is in the easiest category). French, German(second easiest category) and Russian are also part of the same sprachbund as English, so their grammar is all extremely similar to begin with. |
Yeah I'm not surprised that Asian language you would need 88 weeks to study, probably because of the written part (Hangul, hiragana, and Chinese letter being the most difficulty when it comes to writing). I know Chinese (whether it's Mandarin, Cantonese, etc...) is the most difficult in the Asian language.
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Banken
Joined: 29 May 2007
Posts: 1280
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Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2013 10:11 am
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As a professional Japanese/English translator (thanks, years of anime and manga fandom!), I can guarantee that without human-equivalent AI and a supercomputer, you will NEVER be able to accurately machine translate anime or manga. Japanese and English simply aren't compatible in that way. It's a highly context-based language spoken/written by a people who LOVE to be vague and noncommittal, whereas English is almost entirely syntax-based, spoken by people who are generally considered worldwide to be direct, if not overly frank.
And that's ignoring the fact that the entence structure is backwards, meaning you can't translate a spoken sentence from J to E until the speaker finishes it, which is why people who can interpret Japanese simultaneously get paid hundreds of dollars a day (for a few hours work).
And it's also ignoring the fact that you need an encyclopaedic knowledge of traditional, pop culture, and scientific terms to translate manga/anime/games. Or at least the ability to search google and interpret the results contextually. Neither of which a computer program has, yet.
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mdo7
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6268
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
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Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2013 10:24 am
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Banken wrote: | As a professional Japanese/English translator (thanks, years of anime and manga fandom!), I can guarantee that without human-equivalent AI and a supercomputer, you will NEVER be able to accurately machine translate anime or manga. Japanese and English simply aren't compatible in that way. It's a highly context-based language spoken/written by a people who LOVE to be vague and noncommittal, whereas English is almost entirely syntax-based, spoken by people who are generally considered worldwide to be direct, if not overly frank.
And that's ignoring the fact that the entence structure is backwards, meaning you can't translate a spoken sentence from J to E until the speaker finishes it, which is why people who can interpret Japanese simultaneously get paid hundreds of dollars a day (for a few hours work).
And it's also ignoring the fact that you need an encyclopaedic knowledge of traditional, pop culture, and scientific terms to translate manga/anime/games. Or at least the ability to search google and interpret the results contextually. Neither of which a computer program has, yet. |
I could say the same for other languages too. It's not only Japanese, but maybe Chinese, and Korean too but I can't verify this too. But yeah translation is not 100% perfect and it'll never be no matter how good the translation technology is.
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Banken
Joined: 29 May 2007
Posts: 1280
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 7:22 am
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You might be able to translate/interpret reasonably well between Japanese and Korean because the grammar and some of the vocab is similar.
But you will never get an algorithm-based J>E translation that's even as good as 95% accurate for translation of media, because that level of translation requires real understanding, which only humans are capable of (so far).
Of course, a lot of fan subs/scantalations are only about 90% accurate... but that's another story.
E>J is by comparison much easier if you only care about an accurate direct translation, assuming you don't care about pop culture references and colloquialisms.
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mdo7
Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6268
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 9:25 pm
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Banken wrote: | You might be able to translate/interpret reasonably well between Japanese and Korean because the grammar and some of the vocab is similar.
But you will never get an algorithm-based J>E translation that's even as good as 95% accurate for translation of media, because that level of translation requires real understanding, which only humans are capable of (so far).
Of course, a lot of fan subs/scantalations are only about 90% accurate... but that's another story.
E>J is by comparison much easier if you only care about an accurate direct translation, assuming you don't care about pop culture references and colloquialisms. |
Well I'm not sure how translating Korean to Japanese (and the opposite) works and how accurate it is. But for all translation, anything can get lost. ever heard of the term "lost in translation", happens in all languages and translations.
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Banken
Joined: 29 May 2007
Posts: 1280
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Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:37 am
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"lost in translation" means that the nuance, feel, joke, or exact meaning is lost.
It doesn't necessarily mean the translation is incorrect, just that the other language doesn't have the exactly right word (100 Inuit words for snow) or a pun doesn't work (akita kita kedo akita).
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Polycell
Joined: 16 Jan 2012
Posts: 4623
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Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 2:06 pm
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Banken wrote: | 100 Inuit words for snow |
Not really true - the number of "base" words for snow is about the same as English. Most of those <insert> words are abusing Inuit's polysynthetic nature at best(most often, it's just made up).
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Banken
Joined: 29 May 2007
Posts: 1280
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Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:50 pm
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I know it's not true, I was speaking metaphorically. My point is that there are a lot of words in other languages that have no real direct translation in English. Some of them actually get brought into English, like Zeitgeist.
Another example, the most commonly used Japanese phrase (in daily life in Japan), "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" has no real direct meaning in English and can be translated in at least ten different ways I can think of on hand depending on the context, so without context it becomes meaningless.
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simona.com
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 332
Location: Tokyo
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Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 3:56 am
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mdo7 wrote: |
simona.com wrote: | problem is, google translate really sucks at Japanese |
How are you so sure, maybe the translate problem is the same for other languages too (french, German, Russian, Korean, and maybe even Chinese). |
I've been participating at tests that used google translate so I can state that from a professional POW. I am not sure about other languages but I also don't see your point; it does suck at Japanese, and this I know
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Leebo
Joined: 14 Nov 2005
Posts: 660
Location: Somerville, MA
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Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 7:10 am
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mdo7 wrote: | How are you so sure, maybe the translate problem is the same for other languages too (french, German, Russian, Korean, and maybe even Chinese). |
I don't think the quality of the translation of any of those languages would impact how good the Japanese translation is.
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