Current Events > Do you think AI will make foreign language learning redundant?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I mean the AI is basically already there, and human speaking language is one thing its pretty good at.

So then you would just need some method of translating spoken voice immediately to someone listening.

Basically I'm picturing going on holiday somewhere and using AI to translate to locals what you're trying to say.

For the most basic amount of communication necessary to get by? Sure. For professional translation or having a meaningful conversation with a friend or colleague? Hell no. Machine translation does not and never will be able to grasp things like context, wordplay, or slang. Especially when languages are constantly evolving.

pokedude900 posted...

For the most basic amount of communication necessary to get by? Sure. For professional translation or having a meaningful conversation with a friend or colleague? Hell no. Machine translation does not and never will be able to grasp things like context, wordplay, or slang. Especially when languages are constantly evolving.

You think?

I dunno, I tthink even chatgpt is pretty good at slang and different ways of talking.

I asked chatgpt this:

Here is a paragraph of text:

"I went to the supermarket and bought some things for dinner. My wife and I felt like having a big celebration, so we invited some friends around. It was a really good time."

Can you rewrite the above paragraph into several different regional ways of speaking:

1. As a Scot from Glasgow
2. As someone from New orleans
3. As a Victorian era londoner
4. As a cab driver from new york

Here's what it gave me:

1. "Ah went doon tae the shoap n' got some stuff fur dinner. The missus 'n me fancied a big bash, sae we asked some pals o'er. It wis pure magic, like, a right guid time."
2. "I headed on down to the market, picked up some grub for supper. Me and the missus, we was feelin' like throwin' a real shindig, so we called up some folks, y'know? Turned out to be one hell of a good time, let me tell ya."
3. "I ventured forth to the mercantile establishment, procuring sundry victuals for our evening repast. My esteemed spouse and I harbored a desire for a grand festivity, thus extending invitations to acquaintances. It proved to be a most delightful soire, indeed."
4. "So, I swung by the market, grabbed some stuff for dinner, y'know, the usual. Then the old lady and I, we figured let's throw a bit of a bash, so we rounded up some buddies. Turned out to be a helluva night, driving folks around, swapping stories, good times, you know the drill."

I can't really speak for 2 or 4, but 1 and 3 are really not far off at all. Maybe a little bit overwrought, but not exactly wrong.

That's not a foreign language. That's English to more flowery English. Different languages have completely different rules and syntax. Japanese is especially difficult for machines to understand because it's normal to remove the subject of a sentence if it can be inferred through context clues. Every single time I run a paragraph of Japanese text through a translator, it struggles to accurately portray who is speaking to whom or even get the pronouns right.

pinky0926 posted...

Basically I'm picturing going on holiday somewhere and using AI to translate to locals what you're trying to say.

there are already tools that can essentially do this as long as you're both willing to talk relatively simply and are willing to struggle through the occasional weird misunderstanding
https://www.pocketalk.com/product/pocketalk-voice-translator

not a subsitute for a real conversation where you both know the language but should generally be good enough to convey meaning in most cases

If we ever have true AI, it will easily be able to understand any kind of evolving language. And by true AI I mean one that is self aware and can think independently of programming.

pokedude900 posted...

That's not a foreign language. That's English to more flowery English. Different languages have completely different rules and syntax. Japanese is especially difficult for machines to understand because it's normal to remove the subject of a sentence if it can be inferred through context clues. Every single time I run a paragraph of Japanese text through a translator, it struggles to accurately portray who is speaking to whom or even get the pronouns right.

True, but language translators are getting much better at this too.

I took that sentence, translated it into japanese characters using chatgpt, then asked it to translate the japanese back to english (in a seperate tab). It punched back this:

"I went to the supermarket and bought some things for dinner. My wife and I were in the mood for a big celebration, so we invited some friends. It was a really enjoyable time."

Basically what's kind of scary impressive is how rapidly this stuff is improving iin just the past couple of years. It feels like it's accelerating all the time.

If the exponential growth of other areas of AI can be applied to translation, quite possibly within 10 years.

Ok, fun test. I took that same paragraph. Translated it from english to japanese, then japanese to arabic, then arabic to mandarin, then mandarin to norwegian, and then norwegian back to english. I used seperate tabs for each so that it wouldnt use context clues. Heres the final result:

"I went to the supermarket and bought some ingredients for dinner. My wife and I were both in a good mood, so we invited some friends over to celebrate. It was truly a pleasant time."

I dunno, that's obviously a very simple sentence but it's very good. i remember just a few short years back you could play a fun game of butchering sentences completely in just two iterations.

pinky0926 posted...

I took that sentence, translated it into japanese characters using chatgpt, then asked it to translate the japanese back to english (in a seperate tab). It punched back this:

Okay. Now try doing that 100 times through 5 different languages and see what happens.

Or more importantly, try something that isn't incredibly basic. Talk about Pokemon or various real-world animal or plant species and I guarantee it won't retain its original meaning for more than a few iterations.

pokedude900 posted...

Okay. Now try doing that 100 times through 5 different languages and see what happens.

Ok, but remember that what I'm asking here is how far away do you think AI is at translating one person talking in one language and then being able to translate that to another person talking another language. I don't doubt that if you punch it back and forth 100 times in 5 different languages that it will get worse over each iteration.

Or more importantly, try something that isn't incredibly basic. Talk about Pokemon or various real-world animal or plant species and I guarantee it won't retain its original meaning for more than a few iterations.

let's try. From english to mandarin to english:

Original paragraph:
"I'm playing final fantasy 10 and I keep messing up kimahri's sphere grid. I never know if I should take him down yuna or Rikku's path. Does he work better as a white mage or better as a thief/support character? I prefer Rikku's mix overdrive tbh."

Translated:
"I'm playing Final Fantasy 10, but I always mess up Kimahri's sphere grid. I never know whether I should develop him along Yuna's or Rikku's path. Is he more effective as a white mage or as a thief/support character? To be honest, I prefer Rikku's mixed overdrive skills."

I dunno, that's pretty impressive. It's a niche subject matter, going from a germanic language to a Chinese one and then back to english without losing any important contect.

I think the kind of people who put large efforts into language learning will still keep doing that because they're after a level of communication and interaction that translating tools don't really give them.
People who are immigrating to a new location will still put in the effort for language learning as well, I'd imagine.

I think it will make things easier for the casual traveler though, which seems like a good thing.

Mandarin isn't Japanese. I don't know enough about the former to understand the reason, but in my experience, it's a lot easier to translate it into English than the latter.

Also something very important that you're ignoring. You don't know if the initial translation it's spitting out is even accurate to that language in the first place. There may be a bunch of grammatical errors or additional context that wouldn't be present in something written in that language by a native speaker.

My brother recently visited Thailand and used an ai translator with his in laws. It was a complete disaster so he just fell back to using his wife as translator

pokedude900 posted...

Mandarin isn't Japanese. I don't know enough about the former to understand the reason, but in my experience, it's a lot easier to translate it into English than the latter.

Also something very important that you're ignoring. You don't know if the initial translation it's spitting out is even accurate to that language in the first place. There may be a bunch of grammatical errors or additional context that wouldn't be present in something written in that language by a native speaker.

Ok, I took it, translated it from mandarin to japanese, then to arabic, then to english. It returned;

"I play "Final Fantasy 10," but I always mess up Kimahri's skill grid. I'm not sure if I should develop him on Yuna's path or Rikku's, or if I should develop him as a white mage or thief/support, which one is more effective. It's really confusing, honestly, I love the versatility of Rikku's offensive skills."

I'm still impressed. it lost the context of rikku's Mix overdrive", but maybe if i had capitalised it it would have recognised it as a noun rather than a descriptor.

I realise it's not a perfect translator, but I think the job of a professional translator is a dead end in the future.

boomgetchopped3 posted...

My brother recently visited Thailand and used an ai translator with his in laws. It was a complete disaster so he just fell back to using his wife as translator

Do you know how it failed? I imagine one of the things it struggles with is attaching the right respect/honorifics depending on who you're speaking to, which is fundamentally really hard to translate if it doesnt come from the source.

pokedude900 posted...

Okay. Now try doing that 100 times through 5 different languages and see what happens.

Ok gonna be totally honest with you, if you do this with a real human translator it will probably also distort the sentence to a noticeable degree <_<

pinky0926 posted...

I think the job of a professional translator is a dead end in the future.

I think "dead end" might be a little harsh but I do think AI is, in the relatively near future, perfectly capable of doing to translation the same thing it will to many other jobs: crowding out all but the top 5-10% of the profession, without really any hope for anyone who isn't at top quality of skill level / output. There are people who currently get paid for translating that are probably barely better (if at all) than AI, and the AI is still improving while they are not

Learning a language is more than direct translation, and localization will always be subjective. AI might get the job done for a menu or a tourguide list, but it wont explain things to you you can only learn and experience when actually learning a language since culture is too ingrained with it.

pinky0926 posted...

Ok, I took it, translated it from mandarin to japanese, then to arabic, then to english. It returned;

"I play "Final Fantasy 10," but I always mess up Kimahri's skill grid. I'm not sure if I should develop him on Yuna's path or Rikku's, or if I should develop him as a white mage or thief/support, which one is more effective. It's really confusing, honestly, I love the versatility of Rikku's offensive skills."

I'm still impressed. it lost the context of rikku's Mix overdrive", but maybe if i had capitalised it it would have recognised it as a noun rather than a descriptor.

I realise it's not a perfect translator, but I think the job of a professional translator is a dead end in the future.

Losing context like that is a pretty fucking huge deal for professional translation, dude.

And we're still only talking about the matter of base-level accuracy. A proper translation of something like a story needs a deep understanding of who the characters are and who they're talking to. Like the different ways one can show respect or disrespect to someone. In Japanese it may be through omitting or adding certain particles, while in English it may mean swearing or using more formal language. Even if you have an "accurate" translation, it will be a really dry one without a real human looking it over and making adjustments. And at that point, why not have said human translate it from the start?

pokedude900 posted...

Losing context like that is a pretty fucking huge deal for professional translation, dude.

And we're still only talking about the matter of base-level accuracy. A proper translation of something like a story needs a deep understanding of who the characters are and who they're talking to. Like the different ways one can show respect or disrespect to someone. In Japanese it may be through omitting or adding certain particles, while in English it may mean swearing or using more formal language. Even if you have an "accurate" translation, it will be a really dry one without a real human looking it over and making adjustments.

It was able to nail nearly every aspect of the paragraph, with the last bit something that could be easily explained. And this is now. The question was, "will it ever be able to?"

I agree with you on the subtleties of human interaction though, that's obviously harder for it to learn/get right.

And at that point, why not have said human translate it from the start?

The same reason we use AI for anything. Time and expertise. I don't know arabic, japanese, mandarin or norwegian. but I was able to get a niche topic translated almost entirely correctly across all of these languages without any skill or time.

The use-case for this is pretty obvious. It may not be as perfect as a human translator, but it's incredibly more accessible. How many genuine polyglots do you know? I don't know if I've ever met anyone who spoke more than a 3 or 4 languages to anymore degree of accuracy than what this just spat out.

I refer back to my original post giving my stance on the matter.

pokedude900 posted...

For the most basic amount of communication necessary to get by? Sure. For professional translation or having a meaningful conversation with a friend or colleague? Hell no.

Alternative answer: AI has already replaced human translators
https://twitter.com/_akhaliq/status/1745635529721340395

the tweet summarizes it pretty well without having to read the full report, I think, but the idea here is that for all but the top few most commonly used languages, a significant portion of all online content is machine translated. This isn't some theoretical thing about replacing translators because in many cases there are probably no translators to even replace, or at least there are but a handful compared to the sheer amount of text out there to bbe potentially translated

No, language is always changing, especially slang. It's the same thing with other languages around the world. Not to mention there are some words that can't properly be translated to English.
If you need a quick translation, yeah it's fine in a pinch. Like you couldn't wait to read your favourite manga, and bought it in Japan. So you use A.I to translate it for you. But for diplomatic trades, or communications, it's better to have a human translator to make what say sound better. To better communicate with the locals, knowing the language is usually more impressive than having an A.I translate.

dragonstar13 posted...

No, language is always changing, especially slang. It's the same thing with other languages around the world. Not to mention there are some words that can't properly be translated to English.
If you need a quick translation, yeah it's fine in a pinch. Like you couldn't wait to read your favourite manga, and bought it in Japan. So you use A.I to translate it for you. But for diplomatic trades, or communications, it's better to have a human translator to make what say sound better. To better communicate with the locals, knowing the language is usually more impressive than having an A.I translate.

Slang is especially hard because most language books are old to ancient. Its one of the reasons some non-English people speak proper English, they just learn old a shit language. Meanwhile they will have lots of issues understanding contractions and mistakes everyone accepts but arent in books. Some language departments in my country started opting out of books entirely, they learn basic rules and move on to speech and hands-on experience ASAP.