This has always been one of those
all too obvious technical problems clearly solvable by technology when
performance and speed aligned to allow it to happen. This work suggests that we are effectively on
the last leg of the journey to having a true universal translator.
The actual addition that I find
welcome is that the output is done in the voice of the user. Thus this can be used to enhance language
training itself. The student is asked to
mimic his own voice rather than that of a teacher. I suspect that this could produce accent free
language training.
And of course, right behind all
this we have two way voice communications across any language barrier. We forget that it does not take all that much
comprehension to understand each other in the first place as the mind will
almost subconsciously fill in the blanks once we are used to each other.
It does help to have a person’s
lips moving also, but we can not have everything.
Star Trek becomes reality as Microsoft 'Universal Translator' turns
spoken English into any of 26 different languages
By ROB
WAUGH
PUBLISHED: 14:27 GMT, 13 March
2012 | UPDATED: 18:54 GMT, 13 March 2012
It has long been used by James T Kirk to speak to aliens and blue women
from space - but now Microsoft is on the brink of making a real, working
Universal Translator.
Frank Soong and Rick Rashid have created software which converts
English language speech into any of 26 foreign languages - and which 'speaks'
in the user's own voice.
All the user has to do is speak English into the machine and it will
convert it into anything from Spanish to Mandarin.
###
William Shatner as James T Kirk: The new device is similar to the
Universal Translator used in Star Trek, and takes around one hour to get used
to a person¿s voice then works by comparing the words that have been recorded
with stock models for the target language
###
Frank Soong and Rick Rashid have created software which converts
English language speech into any of 26 foreign languages - and which 'speaks'
in the user's own voice
The hope is that the device will one day allow visitors to foreign countries to have conversations with other people, even though they do not speak the same language - just like in Star Trek.
Mr Soong told Technology Review that his breakthrough could help
language students and might also work with navigational devices.
In theory it could one day be installed into a smart phone meaning
tourists have a ready made translation device sitting in their pockets.
Mr Soong said: ‘We will be able to do quite a few scenario
applications.
‘For a monolingual speaker traveling in a foreign country, we'll do speech recognition followed by translation, followed by the final text to speech output in a different language, but still in his own voice’.
‘For a monolingual speaker traveling in a foreign country, we'll do speech recognition followed by translation, followed by the final text to speech output in a different language, but still in his own voice’.
Mr Soong and Mr Rashid work at Microsoft’s HQ in Redmond, Washington.
They created the system with colleagues at Microsoft Research Asia inBeijing
They created the system with colleagues at Microsoft Research Asia in
The two Microsoft researchers believe the technology could be used in
smartphone translation apps
In Star Trek it was supposedly introduced in the late 22nd century and helped the crew of the
Mr Soong and Mr Rashid however have made their version today, even if
the voice which comes out in the foreign language still sounds a little
mechanical.
Their device needs around one hour to get used to a person’s voice then
works by comparing the words that have been recorded with stock models for the
target language.
The technology has been designed so that it does not just translate
words, which would give it a computerised and disjointed sound.
Instead the sounds are carefully manipulated to mimic real speech as
realistically as possible.
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