Re: [tlug] Free program translates Euro languages to/from English

["Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon" <ronfaxon@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> I don't believe in Yamato-damashii in language (sorry, Mr. Ohta!), but
> Japanese definitely is going to be hard.  My linguistics professor
> ex-girlfriend whipped me and beat me into submission, so I hasten to
> say that Japanese is not inherently any less accurate than any other
> language.  All natural languages have equivalent expressive power,
> they say.  But I think that Japanese is "designed" for speakers with
> large brains capable of bringing huge amounts of context to bear on
> even apparently simple communication.  That makes it hard to translate
> to or from more context-free languages, and very hard for machines.

Yes!  I had a hard time at a PR agency (or "h**l", if you want to be 
more accurate) that I worked at for a couple of years.  I'd be given 
something either in Japanese or in very low-level English and asked to 
"just fix it".  The context was missing 97.9% of the time and I had 
daily fights with all and sundry dragging the context out of them so I 
could convert it into meaningful English.  At least the president of the 
company realized I was just doing my job - which is why I was there for 
two years (in a company that most people left in one year).  What 
finally got me out of there was a protracted fight over hexane gas - 
they were using this highly toxic spray glue in a new office they moved 
to a little over a year into the job - which had a sealed recirculating 
air system (with 10% or so of fresh air mixed in on it's way back).  The 
Health and Safety Agency (I forget the correct name) came out (someone 
called them...), there were angry meetings, shouting, e-mail storms... 
etc. etc.

Lyle