Babel and Lost in Translation - machine translation

Thoughts on cultural gaps

Posters of the movies Babel

Communication breakdown is a big challenge for human society. They are illustrated vividly by the tragic scenes of the movie Babel. Cultural similarity can also bring seemingly unrelated people together, especially when they cannot blend in to a different culture. Lost in Translation gives this a somewhat romantic touch. The more common variations are the social groups and online forums for Western expatriates in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Also worth mentioning are the Japanese associations and China towns in major cities

Poster of the movie Lost in Translation

There have long been dreams that technology can bridge this gap, enabling everybody to communicate with others from different cultures

Experiment using technology to bridge language gaps

I tried to use online machine translation tools to translate phrases from English to other languages, and see what comes back. I recommend a website, Babelize, that makes this really easy and fun! It translates your phrase into 10 languages and then back into English. I tried to play with the question "Do you believe in God?" Here are the results

Translated to Japanese:
神を信じるか。

Translated back to English:
Is God believed?

Translated to Chinese:
上帝被相信吗?

Translated back to English:
God is believed?

Translated to French:
Dieu est cru ?

Translated back to English:
Is God believed?

Translated to German:
Wird Gott geglaubt?

Translated back to English:
Is God believed?

Translated to Italian:
Il dio si crede?

Translated back to English:
The God believes itself?

Translated to Portuguese:
O deus acredita-se?

Translated back to English:
The god gives credit itself?

Translated to Spanish:
¿El dios da el crédito sí mismo?

Translated back to English:
The God gives to the credit itself?

Machine translation still has a long way to go, until it can spit out meaningful words. Good news for language teachers, otherwise students can always excuse themselves from learning foreign languages

Playing with word combinations - Anagrams

I've always struggle in word games like scrabble, because I only know a limited number of words. At school, I once played a word game called Anagrams. It required me to rearrange a word to form other words. For example, the word "Arts" can be rearranged as
- Tars
- Rats
- Star
- Tsar

Lately I've come across a few websites that automatically solve this type of word game . They give me a relaxed way to learn new words. I can type some words that I am curious about, and boom! In a split second, a list of words with the same letters arranged differently, come up. Here are some words that I find interestingly sarcastic (although politically incorrect)

Japan's rime minister
- Shinzo Abe -> Sob in Haze
Taiwan's president
- Chen Shui-Bien -> Nice Bush in he
Korean actress who once had an affair with a Hong Kong singer
- Kim Hee Sun -> I sue HK men
The world's hybrid car
- The Toyota Prius -> Oh, auto is pretty! -> Ahoy! Prostitute
The intertwined relationship between 3 celebrities in Taiwan
- Jay Chou, Petty Hou, Jolin Tsai -> Oh! jauntily, joyous, pathetic

Enough examples. Among all anagram-generating sites, I recommend Anagram Genius as it generates the most natural phrases without advanced user settings (try it yourself!), and without bombarding you with numerous combinations to choose from

Here are some other sites that help you generate these funny phrases. Enjoy!

Wordsmith Anagram Solver
Good for basic and advanced users. It contains advanced options for users to limit the number of words in each anagram, force anagrams to include or exclude a word, etc.

Andy's Anagram Solver
Very similar to Wordsmith, but allows user to choose the dictionary to limit / expand phrases generated. There are 4 English dictionaries to choose from
- English (20000 words)
- English with proper nouns
- Massive English dictionary (>100000 words!)
- Massive English dictionary with some proper nouns

Brendan's On-Line Anagram Generator
Very simple interface The only configuration you need is the minimum number of letters of a word