Skip to main content

One language will be enough.

A few weeks ago Google released a tool that provides voice translation into several languages for free. This is a major breakthrough in democratizing voice translation technology that could bring us to an era where knowledge of foreign languages looses its importance. This is a bold statement, but I think it will happen in a few decades or maybe years.
Nowadays fluency in several languages is important for several reasons including applying for a job, communicating with foreigners, travelling, education (especially for countries that don't publish enough books in their own language), accessing the internet and online resources and much more.
In exception of some businesses and institutions that depend of high quality formal translations the wording required to understand a foreign text is relatively small. Most humans are not very dependent on high quality translations. For example, a tourist doesn't need to master the language of the country he's visiting, nor does an internet user from e.g. Slovenia need to speak English in order to access the internet and all its content. This is due to both an increase of articles and other content in their native language and the availability of tools that can quickly translate any content that is not in their foreign language to a language that they understand.
Free online translators can quickly translate a website from many languages to many others. The Chrome web browser prompts the user if he needs a translation of the website he's reading whenever the language of the site is not the language of the country where the user is located (or any other language that he specified as unknown).

Chrometranslate

Text translation tools are not new; they have existed for many years. However translating voice is much harder and accessible tools permitting it are not widely known. Audio transcribing tools will probably never achieve 100% accuracy, however their quality is sufficient for most common day issues. Once voice is translated into textual information it is relatively simple to translate it into another language[1]. We can then use a Text to Speech (TTS) program to play the translated content back to the receiver.
Imagine just how easy it got for a tourist to speak with a native. The ease of use of the tools can allow him to have longer conversations, which in turn can help him memorize a few words, simplifying communication during his next visit.
The availability of such tools can really revolutionize the way we communicate with foreigners. It facilitates the flow of verbal information, and reduces misunderstandings. It helps remove false stereotypes that obstruct the interchange of ideas between foreign nations and ease travelling around the globe.
The world has become smaller again.
[1]The quality of tools that can translate textual contend can hardly match the work of an educated translator. However there are enough tools that get the job done well. What I find amazing is that a group of very talented developers can write a translating application without speaking a word of the languages their tool can translate into. Such a tool is Google Translate which does it with statistical analysis of content. Indeed there are no long list of words manually included in their software, the translation is generated algorithmically by analyzing all their indexed web content.
Labels:

Comments

  1. William JessieMarch 20, 2020 at 2:01 PM

    Amazing post, Which you have shared here about the Text to Speech. Your article is very informative and I really liked the way you expressed your views in this post. Thank you. robot voice generator text to speech

    ReplyDelete
  2. Car Leasing In SingaporeSeptember 9, 2020 at 9:36 AM

    You made such an interesting piece to read, giving every subject enlightenment for us to gain knowledge. Thanks for sharing the such information with us to read this.car leasing company

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownJuly 6, 2021 at 11:40 AM

    I am impressed by the information you have on this blog.....
    car valuation
    free car valuation
    online car valuation

    ReplyDelete
  4. klausDecember 6, 2024 at 2:15 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Basic cell counting and segmentation in Matlab

Counting cells manually is a tedious error prone process for humans. Given a large data set of microscopy images this task can be achieved much faster by means of basic computer vision techniques. In this tutorial we will segment cells from an image following a method similar to the one presented by Yongming Chen in 1999. The method uses basic morphological operations  and the watershed algorithm to segment the cells. Nowadays better methods for cell segmentation exist. This method was chosen for its simplicity and ease of implementation. We start with an image of cell-like structures by Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis and Virginia E Papaioannou . A = imread('cells.jpg'); We convert the image to grayscale: I = rgb2gray(A); To be able to extract the dimmer cells, it is necessary to perform some local contrast adjustments I = adapthisteq(I); Objects on the borders can be caused by noise and other artifacts. We can eliminate objects on the borders...
1 comment
Read more

The Increased Addictiveness of Today's Video Games

This is a guest post by Miles Walker, a freelance writer and blogger who usually  compares car insurance  deals over at CarinsuranceComparison.Org. His most recent review looked at the best  car insurance quotes . Video games have always held some addiction, but now more than ever that addiction is growing. People are spending more time than ever playing the games, and game designers are constantly finding new ways keep it that way. Their efforts have a been a complete success, and some games have true addicts, addicts who play 24 hours a week or more. Visual enhancements Video games have come a long way since a certain duo of Italian plumbers started showing up in people's houses in the late 1980s. By leaps and bounds, video game graphics have become alarmingly sophisticated. Each graphical improvement increased a game's possibilities and added more depth to video games. Designers began thriving on this depth, making games with more achievements, unlocks, lev...
19 comments
Read more

A more confusing Internet with .brand TLDs

A few months ago, I wrote a post proposing to remove top level domains from the internet, as many people don't understand why we need TLDs. At the time I didn't know either. Removing TLDs would simplify browsing an possibly increase security by reducing phishing sites that make use of URL similarity to gain visits to potentially dangerous websites, or sites filled with ads. The ICANN, the body that manages Internet names, has for years been preparing something different but that produces a slightly similar effect than removing TLDs: allowing brands to register their own TLDs . The proposal may soon be approved has been approved . Brands would therefore be able to register their own TLDs. Google could register .google a potentially powerful TLD for their services, like Google Maps: maps.google instead of maps.google.com. Brand TLD don't improve short urls like google.com, but seem to be effective for use in subdomains. Registering a .<brand-name> TLD will cost...
1 comment
Read more