Forums Feature Suggestions Translation Engine

With the resources Khaled Mardam-Bey has backed by committed programmers world wide a translation engine should be installed in each mIRC.

Example: A Chinese person, speaking only Chinese, downloads mIRC in his/her language. After setup, the person goes into any channel and begins chatting in their native text.

When the text is sent to the channel it appears in Chinese. But a person in the US within the same channel would see the text as English. And vise versa. The translation is handled by the mIRC client on the fly. So both individuals speaking different languages can talk to each other without learning each others language.

Imagine how much closer the world would just become.

To be honest I would rather read a language I don't understand than read a babelfish-like programatic translation.

Seeing as how no-one anywhere has yet been able to make a reliable translator between just two distinct languages, I sincerely doubt that any amount of programmers will be able to write a 'universal translator' for the tens of thousands of dialects of the thousands of langauges used in the world today. Factor in computer jargon, slang, and 'txt spk' and the whole thing becomes nothing short of a nightmare. And let's not even consider the implications for resource usage.

It's a nice concept, but it's simply not gonna happen anytime soon.

But as the Translation Engine evolves the babble will start becoming clearer. Sure at first it may not work correctly but we have to start somewhere.

I think it is very possible to create this.

Well get on with it then!......

/me twiddles his thumbs......

have you finished it yet ?

/me wonders if nCogNito has any programming experience...

You're right, this would be a nice feature, but I would not want it. Online translators have been around for years, but they are still just as crappy as the day they were made. You said they would become cleaner as they are used, but that hasn't even happened to ones that are being used all the time already. Take WorldLingo.com for example. They even have human translators, and their computer translations are still crap. I also doubt any translation service would want to 'evolve', because they get their profit from human translation. Why evolve something free to such an extent that you lose your income?

I think if it was possible to make a perfect translation engine, then it would be worth far far far more than a team of human translators as the computer would be quite happy to do it without being paid. Unlike the human version.
I very much doubt that is the reason why we don't have a near perfect translation engine in existance.

Though I'm sure if someone did make one, they wouldn't exactly cover it with the gnu license and stick it on sourceforce.net. Just too much money to make from it.

The only technology that can in any way deal with translatting the 100s of languages and thousands of dialects is with a nueral net, and it would have to be one big momma of a network and computer to deal with the task.

Give it 10 or 20 years yet.

I would say even a nueral nets gonna get confused, as its not just translation, but sentence structures, and meanings that have to be dealt with.

How much for the the 3 fish?
I sell 3 times $5 dollar fish, ok?
Pardon?

naw not really, a neural net emulates neurons like the brain, but you'd have to teach it a ton of languages and it need tons of ram to support its weight, and insaine CPU power to process it in real-time.

so what ya saying is, No not really, but in fact yes. <grin>

Neural nets are meant to emulate human brain patterns, so in theory, if one could be made complex enough, it would be able to learn every language in the world including all dialects/slangs and also be able to translate from any one language to any other language. It would be a mighty large system though..

-genius_at_work

so, do you think this would increase the size of the mIRC download?

I only have 512mb RAM, is that enough?

the CPU is ok, AMD 2gz+ (2400) ya think that would be fast enough to translate l33t spk into chinese (all dialects) as well as slang german and the under 18 slang of British youth?

Or should I consider an upgrade?

naaa im sure a nerial net FX81 calculator program well do

Hmm.. you might have to take your CRAY out of the closet. :tongue:

-genius_at_work

i personally like this idea. i found http://www.chattranslator.com/ , that is about what we're talking about, which's already in use, crude as it may be. i say there's hope.