Name: 為什麼計算機不擅長翻譯 (Why Computers Suck At Translation)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T07:14:56.000Z
Duration: 5 min 5 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。

未來簡單式

Machine translation is incredibly difficult.
And to prove that, I will now read this introduction

形容詞最高級

again, after it's been sent through Google's
translator -- currently one of the best in

過去簡單式

the world -- and then translated back into
English.

Machine translation is very difficult. Back
then translated into English - is one of the

best in the world right now - it is to prove
that, after being sent through Google's translator,

Okay, I chose a difficult language, but each
one I tried introduced subtle errors in different

ways. Via Chinese, it had been translated
by “Google hair”. Via French, the introduction

became a “he”, not an “it”. And those
sentences were incredibly simple.

Folks who only speak one language -- and I
am embarrassed to say that's a group that

includes me, I'm sorry -- folks who only
speak one language often assume that you can

open a translation dictionary, pick an appropriate
word, faff around with the grammar a bit,

and have a functional sentence in another
language. For simple sentences, yes, that's

true: but very few sentences in the real world
are actually that simple.

Google recently released a paper about how
they'd reduced machine translation to a

problem in vector space mathematics, representations
of concepts in an abstract language space.

Which is great for mapping concepts to words,
and it'll even deal well with homographs,

identical words that mean completely different
things. You can deal with those through context:

the days of “hydraulic ram” being translated
as “water sheep” are pretty much in the

For formal, technical documents, it might
even start to work well.

But for more casual communication, it's
not so easy.

Heck, translating between British English
and American English isn't always easy.

Not because your car's “hood” is our
“bonnet”, but because “that's a brave

idea” isn't a compliment in British English,
it means you're a prat and your idea is

There are concepts which don't quite match
between languages. “Bonne nuit” might

literally mean the same as “buenas noches”
-- I'm sorry about my pronunciation there

-- but one is meant for saying goodnight at
bedtime and the other's for saying hello

Then you have the concepts that don't translate
between languages at all. In French, “you”

translates as “vous” if it's someone
you should be respectful towards, and “tu”

if it's a more casual conversation. Or if
you're talking to God. No, really. God is

“tu”. A computer will crush both of those
to “you” when translating to other languages,

and it won't have any idea which of them
to use when translating into French.

And that is just a simple “honorifics”
system. Korean has a much more complicated

set of pronouns for all sorts of situations.
Remember this? That repeated line: oppan Gangnam

style. The English translation of “oppa”
is usually “a woman's older brother”:

but in everyday speech, “oppa” is used
to refer to someone based on a series of complicated

and fuzzy rules that make instinctive sense
to native speakers. To make it worse, PSY

is referring to himself in the third person
there, which sounds really weird when translated

out of Korean. There is no way to translate
all of the meaning in those words into one

Then you have the problem of shared expectations.
English-speaking cultures tend to be monochronic:

if you make an appointment to meet someone
at 11am, you are expected to be there at about

11am. I mean, groups of friends can often
get around this -- “the party starts at

6” often means people will turn up anywhere
from 6:30 to 9. But imagine if that lack of

punctuality, and that acceptance of a lack
of punctuality, expanded to all aspects of

everyday life. Welcome to the rest of the
world. Massive parts of this planet run on

what is called polychronic time. Two appointments
at the same time? That's fine, they'll

Needless to say, there is often quite significant
culture clash when monochronic and polychronic

people meet. But a machine translation isn't
going to see an English sentence like “I'll

meet you at 7pm” and add a note for someone
in a polychronic culture that, no, they really

do mean 7pm, and they're going to be annoyed
if you're late.

Ultimately, to accurately translate something,
you don't just need to know how words map

to concepts: you need to understand social
structures, subtext, nuance, innuendo. You

need at least a basic theory of mind: the
idea that the speaker and the listener both

have beliefs and desires expressed by the
particular words they've chosen. Translators

need to be able to ask questions of the original
author, so you can check that the subtleties

that you have to add to their work reflect
their intention.

The problem isn't that language is messy
-- computers can cope with messy, heck, they

can pretty much solve CAPTCHAs better than
humans these days. The problem is that language

relies on intent, on shared secrets, on group
identity, and on hidden knowledge. Machine

translation is a useful tool, don't get
me wrong, but trying to get a machine to translate

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為什麼計算機不擅長翻譯 (Why Computers Suck At Translation)

ultimately

assume

pronunciation

incredibly