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

Learning Arabic online

To me, Arabic is a language that's fun to learn. I've recently started learning it, and discovered many free resources online that teach Arabic to foreigners. Here are a few. I recommend Madinah Arabic, but that is just my personal preference. Other sites may suit your need better. I hope you enjoy it too!

Madinah Arabic
Comprehensive site that offers 2 free courses, Arabic Reading Course and Arabic Language Course. Arabic Reading Course aims to help you learn the Arabic script, before learning the language itself. It suits me best because I want to learn reading, writing, speaking and listening. Also native Arabic speakers said that it's much easier to learn conversational skills if I can read the script

Gulf Arabic
It teaches the Arabic dialect spoken by people in Gulf countries, i.e. UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Southern part of Iraq. The whole website is in Roman (English) characters. Therefore, even if you don't want to learn Arabic script, you can still learn Arabic for casual conversation purposes

Islamopas
It focuses on letter recognition, with each lesson teaching you a few characters. The short lessons, may not teach you the most number of words, but ensure that you remember most of the words being taught

Arabic 2000
It is a commercial site that offers a full Arabic language curriculum online, at a price. It offers 1 free lesson, which is indeed quite long, starting with basic grammar

2 related stories - An Autumn's Tale (秋天的童話) and Daniel Fung (馮華健)

Life is full of surprise. At one of the Jumeirah hotels in Dubai, I randomly bumped into Daniel Fung (馮華健). He was with some African delegation then

Daniel is quite an influencial person in Hong Kong. A few years ago, he was narrowly passed over for the Secretary of Justice, now belongs to Mr. Wong Yan-lun. He is now head of the Hong Kong Broadcasting Authority, the city's regulator of mass media. Apparently Daniel is not a fan of pop culture. Recently, he ruled against broadcasting one of my favorite movies, An Autumn's Tale, or Chou Tin Dik Tong Wah (秋天的童話, or 流氓大亨), in full

An Autumn's Tale is a classic in 1987, starring Chow Yun-fat (周潤發) and Cherie Chung (鍾楚紅). It tells a lot about how life used to be in New York's Chinatown. The script was so well-written that some phrases are still well remembered among people in Hong Kong. No wonder Daniel's decision has triggered much public outrage

Here are some phrases that resonate among people in Hong Kong. I only wish I had the talent to write something similar
1. 船頭尺：「女人真係茶煲。」十三妹：「你話乜野係茶煲？」船頭尺：「茶煲呀，Trable (Trouble)，你唔識英文嘅咩？」
2. Vincent：「Woody Allen講過，愛情要好似條鯊魚咁不停向前游架。」船頭尺：「阿倫邊有咁講過啫！阿倫凈係話『這陷阱！這陷阱！偏我遇上』之嘛！Bullshit！」

Daniel doesn't want the movie broadcast on TV in full because it contains vulgur expressions.
Based on what I heard from the movie, let me list them out
1. 你老母
2. 仆街
3. 躝癱
4. 隊佢
5. 你阿媽，大減價，益你阿爸！
6. 做乜成晚去痾尿

While these expressions may not be the most polite ones, I hear them ALL THE TIME! Be it at school, at work, in Chinatowns of US cities. This is just one way how some people communicate with each others

For more information

Profile of Daniel Fung

More on An Autumn's Tale (秋天的童話)

Autumn Tale's DVD

News coverage about Daniel Fung's rulings on An Autumn's Tale
Singtao Daily
Yahoo News