tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post6832611489029954668..comments2024-03-22T21:02:55.051+13:00Comments on Bat, Bean, Beam: Employment, HistoryGiovanni Tisohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-23352667052784537972009-09-13T22:07:37.274+12:002009-09-13T22:07:37.274+12:00Something seems to happen across the Indonesian - ...Something seems to happen across the Indonesian - Irish - Italian translation, and then again coming out of Korean, Persian and Thai. I've enjoyed playing around with machine translations ever since Babelfish was the best option, so this seemed like a natural opportunity.Megan Claytonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03584562106579704547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-8333156717642092962009-09-13T21:33:15.224+12:002009-09-13T21:33:15.224+12:00That is quite something... why had I never thought...That is quite something... why had I never thought of doing that before? Very interesting how the phrase got shorter and shorter, and the Italian (God's principles / The word of Chance) is just brilliant.Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-34142104465534189432009-09-13T13:44:19.157+12:002009-09-13T13:44:19.157+12:00... with apologies for the lack of right justified...... with apologies for the lack of right justified-margins for the Arabic, Hebrew and Yiddish lines.Megan Claytonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03584562106579704547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-16452485456766655952009-09-13T13:43:39.313+12:002009-09-13T13:43:39.313+12:00Google-Babel-Alphabet-Whispers
In the beginning w...Google-Babel-Alphabet-Whispers<br /><br />In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God<br />and the Word was God<br /><br />In die begin was die Woord, en die Woord was by God <br />en die Woord was God<br /><br />Në fillim ishte Fjala dhe Fjala ishte me Perëndinë <br />dhe Fjala ishte Perëndi<br /><br />في البدء كان الكلمة والكلمة كان عند الله <br />وكان الكلمة الله<br /><br />У Megan Claytonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03584562106579704547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-33139868271595572322009-09-07T23:46:55.931+12:002009-09-07T23:46:55.931+12:00'Half-pie' here is mainly 'half-pai&#...'Half-pie' here is mainly 'half-pai' - unenthusiastic/not well-done/half-hearted job:<br /><br />"So, how did the working party go?"<br />"Half-pai really."<br />"O bugger."Keri hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-1171345172999013272009-09-07T18:44:29.391+12:002009-09-07T18:44:29.391+12:00Thank you. I have always, but always, wondered ab...Thank you. I have always, but always, wondered about translators. I love when I find a good translation of a good book, one that either stays true to the author's original text or that lifts it with the translator's own voice and flavour. <br /><br />Thanks for letting me know about Half-pie too, much appreciated.Di Mackeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00273089782589416134noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-30299051345243973932009-09-07T13:40:50.147+12:002009-09-07T13:40:50.147+12:00Going forward = Veni vidi vici?
On having a soul.....Going forward = Veni vidi vici?<br />On having a soul...a Surgeon (cap S) once said...<br />"I have cut many bodies open and I have yet to see one."<br />Me personally, avoid the S word like a plague...(translate that in 12 languages why dontcha!).<br /><br />wordverf; antioust, "yes" is definitely off the cards in Franglais.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04424066726955708314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-4656165423866313492009-09-07T13:25:00.668+12:002009-09-07T13:25:00.668+12:00It is a well constructed adverbial phrase and it s...It is a well constructed adverbial phrase and it stands to reason that platitudes should be well represented in a corpus. But spare a thought for the translator, who has to come up with an equally trite phrase in the target language. <br /><br />Some of my colleagues will tell you of the nightmare of having to deal with technical translations in obscure topics. The empty phraseology of marketing Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-70580719858950158432009-09-07T12:40:19.078+12:002009-09-07T12:40:19.078+12:00Googling "going forward" got me 6,410,00...Googling "going forward" got me 6,410,000 results. Conclusion: this phrase is so popular that it must be good English.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08024440694895271805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-54650388157040871652009-09-06T21:55:59.116+12:002009-09-06T21:55:59.116+12:00It can be a bit of a trap, though, no? Google &quo...It can be a bit of a trap, though, no? Google "millenium" and you'll get over 14 million results. We could discuss whether the fact that so many people get it wrong means that actually it ought to be considered right, but you're likely to get pinged for it by a more traditionally minded editor if you choose to trust Google on that one.Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-85115182587275276872009-09-06T16:30:31.059+12:002009-09-06T16:30:31.059+12:00Every week for about three of the years I lived in...Every week for about three of the years I lived in Tokyo I met with a computational linguistics researcher for chat and occasional editing of his papers. His thing was HPSG parsing which is where they try and teach the computer to learn grammar, as opposed to programming the computer to apply grammatical rules. His first love was computers, rather than language, and he came to computational katyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15742280289613450293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-41693726616590164132009-09-06T12:17:13.052+12:002009-09-06T12:17:13.052+12:00I'd love to have a go at it, too. Is it small ...I'd love to have a go at it, too. Is it small enough to email?<br />Sounds a little like Mishima's 'Sea of <br />Fertility'- maybe it's just the idea of linked novellas.robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11518548366478775367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-89983287143879996782009-09-06T09:15:49.320+12:002009-09-06T09:15:49.320+12:00Oh, pick me please. The idea of a limited digital ...Oh, pick me please. The idea of a limited digital release is intriguing in and of itself.Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-90448207359836492002009-09-05T12:24:31.098+12:002009-09-05T12:24:31.098+12:00Upon this theme I recommend the recent Three Novel...Upon this theme I recommend the recent <i>Three Novellas for a Novel</i> by Carl Shuker, which was released online in limited edition. It concerns a man who works for a machine-translating company in (near future?) Japan. The second novella of the three is a machine-narrated version of some horrible events with historic precedents. There's also quite a lot of amnesia and bafflement. It&#Megan Claytonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03584562106579704547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-83512196973510864522009-09-04T13:25:22.286+12:002009-09-04T13:25:22.286+12:00@Daleaway. Nice that it brought back memories, I w...@Daleaway. Nice that it brought back memories, I was quite struck by that image when I researched that particular translation. Now apparently they have high tech banana bags, sun filtering and laced with insect repelling stuff. <br /><br />@George. Thank you, great link. One of the aspects of the Google settlement that is getting less coverage is the potential that opening such a huge corpus Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-73531650044948188562009-09-04T12:25:44.277+12:002009-09-04T12:25:44.277+12:00Giovanni, are you familiar with Ethan Zuckerman? H...Giovanni, are you familiar with Ethan Zuckerman? He's written some interesting things, including on <a href="http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/index.php?s=translation" rel="nofollow">translation</a>.GZhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07756723544792981390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-44144005525878418112009-09-04T12:23:50.785+12:002009-09-04T12:23:50.785+12:00Oddly enough it's the photo of the bananas tha...Oddly enough it's the photo of the bananas that brings back memories for me - I have some similar photos I took in Queensland 45 years ago. At the time we were told it kept spiders and snakes and weather out of the ripening bunch.Daleawaynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-66598218406390477112009-09-03T08:22:16.293+12:002009-09-03T08:22:16.293+12:00Don't worry Mr. Gio, from what I have seen of ...Don't worry Mr. Gio, from what I have seen of them, the machines have no Deus, and they don't want to translate for us anyway.<br />Bad machines.<br />wordverf; "phompi" acid prayer = circumference of square.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04424066726955708314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-10412758865490716992009-09-02T16:09:48.276+12:002009-09-02T16:09:48.276+12:00If it happens, I'll console myself by recyclin...If it happens, I'll console myself by recycling this post with a slightly amended title: Unemployment, History. Think of the savings.Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-6089528804315438652009-09-02T16:03:23.125+12:002009-09-02T16:03:23.125+12:00I'd be surprised if machine translation wasn&#...I'd be surprised if machine translation wasn't standard within ten years for major languages. With the use of huge parallel corpus, things are progressing very quickly. It won't be perfect, but for 95% it will be "good enough".<br /><br />Captcha: ingism - a phrase that can only be captured with badly translated English.GZhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07756723544792981390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-79499497808513179252009-09-02T14:21:16.090+12:002009-09-02T14:21:16.090+12:00Ok, ok, I found a Gannet primary feather on the sa...Ok, ok, I found a Gannet primary feather on the sand, made a quill of it, ground some charcoal with stream water for ink and wrote a poem on a dessicated seal bone...true story.<br />Years ago though i did work in advertising pre-crash for a multi-national on a HUGE account, I can't even begin to tell you what the typists did with my garble...heh, I was 23 and i thought everyone drank Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04424066726955708314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-23674440442829857802009-09-02T14:19:06.672+12:002009-09-02T14:19:06.672+12:00This is going to turn into Four Yorkshirmen any mi...This is going to turn into Four Yorkshirmen any minute, isn't it?<br /><br />Love the story about the two full disks, neither of which could be removed from the respective drive without undoing the work.Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-7896579933713310032009-09-02T13:42:15.865+12:002009-09-02T13:42:15.865+12:00I had a Word Processor, by which I mean an assista...I had a Word Processor, by which I mean an assistant - a human being - who typed all my letters (which I wrote with a <i>fountain pen</i> on a huge machine which I never touched; then she would return them to me for my signature. <br /><br />Good times.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08024440694895271805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-33498710967023504262009-09-02T13:34:14.849+12:002009-09-02T13:34:14.849+12:00Wordstar- yep, that picture brings it back.
Wrote...Wordstar- yep, that picture brings it back. <br />Wrote a master's thesis on it, on our first computer, a reject from the journalism programme my partner was on. <br />It ran an OS on one 5 1/4" leaving another 5 1/4" drive for Wordstar and the text. When I filled the disc, I had no idea what to do. Pulling either disc out wasn't an option.<br />Somehow I managed to copy robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11518548366478775367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9057225441101183394.post-64312212152788614642009-09-02T10:22:38.945+12:002009-09-02T10:22:38.945+12:00@Merc: Yes, the tiranny of the words you must use,...<b>@Merc</b>: Yes, the tiranny of the words you must use, and those that you must not - you'll either put it out of your mind or go mad. These days when I translate the phrase "in these tough economic times" my brain barely hurts. <br /><br /><b>@artnandmylife</b>: *gasp*! I came in at db3, maximum respect. Gave myself flashbacks <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Giovanni Tisohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618534731338616708noreply@blogger.com