Friday, March 08, 2013

translated from Japanese

About what North Korea has rebounded to such sanctions in the UN Security Council, the government has been cautious "There is a possibility of an act of provocation" further, and take all possible measures to such collection and analysis of information We have decided to synchronize with, and will seek restraint in North Korea in cooperation with the countries concerned.

In opposition to the military exercises in South Korea and the United States and the sanctions of the UN Security Council, 8 days, North Korea will declare and destroy all agreed so far decided not to invasion force each other to and from South Korea was.

In this regard, the official residence of the Prime Minister, "in the House of Representatives Budget Committee on March 8, Prime Minister Abe, corresponding preparations formed a crisis management under the superintendent. Life and property of the people and said "We will firmly defend, I have an idea to take a thorough response. We have analyzed, "the North's statement, we use the strong expression than ever before, there is a possibility that does not pause, do further provocations" and also executives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The government has decided to hold a meeting by, for example, director-general level of the ministries concerned and cautious trends in North Korea, committed to such collection and analysis of information from these things.

In addition, we have decided to work together with the countries concerned, such as China, which is the ally of the United States and North Korea, it will seek the DPRK restraint.

translated from Chinese (3)

Horrible bunch of people telling anyone chopped people axed to fall to the ground! "While Beijing's NPC, CPPCC" two sessions "held around the guard guarded the occasion of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the startling news of the 7thvicious killings. The downtown business district of the southern border Ayutthaya Korla Uighurs came on the same day at noon with a knife knives to injure official announcement has caused four Han Chinese were killed and eight others injured, the city has a martial law.

Claiming to be the time of the incident the people who are on the scene in the online message said assailants apparently premeditated, all of them armed with long knives, telling anyone chop, not sparing even the students.

Korla City Public Security Bureau office earlier, an official confirmed on Radio Free Asia to the occurrence of an event, but declined to give details, merely saying that the Public Security Bureau in meeting the investigation. . To 8 before the deadline, the official Xinjiang neither publish news network message appeared immediately be deleted.

But the director of the Information Office of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China's National People's Congress meeting in Beijing to attend the Hou Hanmin confirmed, the southern border of the 7th attacks killed four people, eight people were injured. He did not confirm this is due to the Uygur and Han conflict, merely saying that the Police are investigating.

Hong Kong's Oriental Daily News "reported that the incident happened at Korla City, called the" Golden Triangle "business district; After the incident, the police immediately blocked the surrounding streets. Some netizens claimed his friend was stabbed to death, otherwise Witnesses said the time of the incident saw two groups of people with a knife in the street fighting.

Been disclosed in the microblogging, the cause of the incident is an electric toy store dispute, deceased the supermarket two 20-year-old female clerk, as well as a six-year-old child, are Han Chinese, the assailant refers to is an Uighurs incident caused a girl is cut-throat and many injured. Local transportation department had sent the message, "due to unexpected events, the Golden Triangle, West Renmin Road towards the direction of the people of East temporary traffic control, indirectly confirmed that something had happened.

From the incidents in dispute about a video game store at 2 p.m. on the 7th, followed by the assailant will slaughter attack women and children, shot and killed one of the police officers heard the news rushed

translated from Chinese (2)

Xinhua Beijing, March 8 (Suncrest, Lihua Ling Han Miao) Pema Lin, the Tibet Autonomous Region People's Congress Standing Committee, to participate in the second session of the National People's Congress meeting Tibetan delegation said that self-immolation is immoral inhumane acts. Evidence that this was instigated by the Dalai clique.

He said that many years of history of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism is not killing, not encourage self-immolation and trampling lives, inciting self-immolation is not right, everyone should understand.

He said, we have evidence that is instigated by the Dalai clique. The self-immolation itself is immoral, inhumane, not to stop even encouraged, by some means of compensation, continue to encourage them to do such a thing, I think it is more inhumane.

Tibet Autonomous Region, deputy party secretary said Qiangba 1-2 ten thousand Tibetan Buddhist temples, is recurrent then several temples, this problem after verification foreign contact with the Dalai clique, domestic outside collusion. The evidence is very conclusive. Some time ago, the Chinese media published inciting abetting the self-immolation, and some sentenced, these are published.

He said the self-immolation as a national hero in Tibet, chanting, praying for him and for his salvation, and makes some believers think we should do so, and thus embarked on the road of no return, with the Dalai clique stakeholders.

Tibetan areas in the vast majority of temples, monks and nuns, no self-immolation, only concentrated in some places, he said. We are saddened by the death of innocent people, and do not want to inflame.

Chairman of the autonomous region, said Lobsang Gyaincain, we always put the maintenance of stability as the first responsible and hard task, waged a resolute struggle against the Dalai clique, infiltration and sabotage activities and resolutely crack down on various secessionist forces, resolutely safeguard the social stability of Tibet.

Tibet to strengthen national unity, safeguard social stability, he said, to achieve leapfrog development in Tibet, security and premise. No social stability, economic development and the realization of the goal of a well-off society is fully completed empty.

Said Lobsang Gyaincain, national unity and progress will carry out activities to create a "cherish their own eyes cherish national unity" excellent situation to cherish harmony and stability, consolidation and development of equality, solidarity and harmonious socialist ethnic relations.

translated from Chinese

Beijing appointment and removal of 120 cadres Wang Quan any Wuxi acting mayor of Zhangjiajie appointment and removal Release date of "three secret policy" to safeguard the sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands top ten events strengthen defense Sustained high winds caused the three railway in Xinjiang at least 23 trains stop round shelter Veterans Sen: 3 vitality left to others Fujian People's Armed Police rescued by jumping into a river Male Intentional homicide and theft of the Changchun auto theft infanticide suspects involved have been arrested Chavez remains will be placed in the glass coffin for permanent pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands of people bid farewell to Chavez Yuan Guiren Zhai Meiqing China Dream: Do not Let the children left behind into family education blind spot Ministry of Education: Notice for more strict at the doctoral enrollment link academic corruption behavior Any resume Wang Lei, Tao Shandong TuanShengWei secretary Laiwu Municipal Committee Qinghai-Tibet railway extension line - pull date railway is expected to be completed in the end of this year or early next year Beware of "urbanization" how to hold the "red line" of 18 million mu of arable land become a "real estate." Temperatures soared another Jizhui Meteorological Observatory issued a cold wave warning Beijing Ying windy dust The female half of the sky thirty-eight "welfare" The hardest hair who is the most willing to spend money for women CCTV survey: 2012 people rising happiness happiness in women than in men Berlusconi conspiracy leaked jailed US-Middle East policy: pull constantly tangled

Monday, March 04, 2013

implications of innovations

My quick overview of Google's innovations has been interesting. I am most interested in Google Translate (see below) but have discovered Google Glass and Google Now. Google Now is a personalized Google that will basically combine all your data and give you what you want. Google Glass is literally the ability to carry around a screen in your vision, i.e. in your glasses, that will bring all kinds of navigation aids to bear; for example, as you walk around a new city, this little screen up in the corner of your glasses can tell you where you've been, where you're going, where the nearest Italian restaurant is, etc. All for about $1500.

There is what is known as the law of unintended consequences, but without delving into these innovations I'd like to explore, instead, the consequences of Google Translate itself. It so happens that GT is aggressively researching in many languages, and that they consider this a very useful direction to be going in the future. Even now I feel confident in saying that the average English speaker can use GT to catch every Spanish-language newspaper and get the news in reasonably good English, with of course a few idiomatic trouble-spots. French is not far behind. GT is a little slower with the languages, such as Korean, that require massive shifting and reconstruction, but, it is whaling away at these also and adding new ones, such as Kazakh and Yiddish, to the list.

Naturally the sex industry has found this first. I'm not sure how that happened, or what they use it for. It seems to me that since the sex industry deals mostly in pictures, it doesn't really matter what language the captions are in. But it does matter, what's found by search engines, what gets called up when you type in certain things, etc. So in that sense, maybe GT has become useful just as a machine-based, instant encryptor.

Based on the law of unintended consequences, I think there are a lot of uses of this new set of GT tools. For one, the group of bright people who chose to learn a language, such as Spanish, is not necessarily the same as the group of people who would have time, or patience, or work for the low pay necessary, to cull through every Spanish-language newspaper for any given kind of information. But now, virtually anyone can do that, without having to learn Spanish. And similarly, people are observing our society through similar glasses. It is no longer necessary to know us or even talk to us in order to find out, for example, where everything happens, or who lives where, or where the banks are.

Second, we have these languages, like Yiddish and Kazakh, which have machine-translatable abilities associated with them. But let's say the speakers of Yiddish don't keep very good track of the archives of things written in Yiddish. I've said this before, actually: lesser-known languages provide the user with probably the best if not only kind of privacy on the web. You put something in Yiddish, you encode it, or make it look like old archives, and it will sit there forever, and even the search engines won't find it. Or maybe they will, but everyone will say, that's some old Yiddish document. And they'll only be able to read it by going through trouble that nobody will think to go through.

My sense is that there are other unintended consequences here. I'm worried, of course, about the entire ESL profession, but only because it sustained me for 20 years. My time is over; I'm retired. If a machine does what I used to, that's not such a big problem for me. I'm considering going into the obscure languages business, though.
Glister, P. (2013, Feb. 10). Google Now offers glimpse of where the search giant is headed. newsobserver http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/02/10/2668352/google-now-offers-glimpse-of-where.html#storylink=cpy. Available 3-13.

Padmanabhan, G. (2013, Feb. 20). Same words, many languages. The Hindu. http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/same-words-many-languages/article4435002.ece. Available 3-13.

translated from Arabic

Tulkarem - Jerusalem dot com - visited the director of language services, and an official translation and localization, in the company "Google", Dr. ultra Aweys, on Monday, the University of Khadouri city of Tulkarm. Aweys delivered during the visit, a lecture aimed at defining students of computer systems and telecommunications engineering students at the university, the content of "Google" Arab, and localization services, translation, in Google. He reviewed "Aweys" language services company "Google" and the importance of localization and translation of various contents of the search, using engine "Google", and other services using the system "Android".

He pointed to the Arabization of the network, and the use of the terms Arab, and the development of special solutions in Arabic, especially recipes combining masculine and feminine, in addition to publishing blogs in Arabic.

And Dr. Aweys expressed readiness to provide all forms of support, for gifted students, and the adoption of their initiatives, and provide all forms of support and training to help them get their ideas out constructive scientifically meaningful way.

The Acting President of the University, Air owners, that students at the university, two of the ambassadors of "Google" in Palestinian universities, namely: Noor Mahdavi, specialty computer engineering, and Uday Sobei, a specialty communications engineering.

as Google Translate matures

I took the following three posts from newspapers in Mexico, France and Korea and crunched them through Google Translate, when I heard, from a student, that Google Translate was getting better. It would only make sense that Google Translate's skill at making a difficult language comprehensible to us, English speakers, would increase, as is their skill, certainly, at going the other way, or from going from one of these languages to any of the others.

Before I bring up some questions about what is happening, I'll point out the obvious. We are looking at an equation that looks like X > 1 (X approaches 1) where its rendition gets steadily closer to standard English as we know it, given enough time and attention. Presumably GT has put more time and attention into translating Spanish into English than, say, Korean into English. Presumably it has put even less attention into the more obscure languages, i.e. Estonian, and their translation into, say, Korean or Spanish. Having to translate through another language (say, Estonian -> English -> Korean) would be an inconvenience which would more than double the translation glitches.

But my point is: We are looking at a moving target, as they are getting better all the time, not worse. If they just give you the straight translated words (as the Korean post does, pretty much) that's still better than nothing. If they rearrange some sentences grammatically, that's already an improvement. But they are getting better, not worse. Second, presumably every student knows about this service. Any chunk of language can be translated completely and instantly, any time. We can do pretty well cruising the net and simply GT'ing every single Spanish-language article, as we get pretty lucid English in response; it's passable, clear, almost usable in a formal English setting. The Korean one, not so much. It's pretty clearly butchered English, and we have to wade through it.

translated from Korean (Chosun Ilbo)
translated from French (France24.com)
translated from Spanish (La Jornada)

Now here are my questions: First, as a practical matter, for most businessmen, it doesn't have to be perfect.  As a document reaches a certain point, and I would say that the GT version of both French and Spanish seem to be at that point, you say, ok, that's good enough, I don't need a translator any more, except to write contracts. GT is, as my student said, "pretty good these days." So to some degree the entire need to learn has been completely undermined. The ESL market - gone. The need to actually know what something says - why bother?

Second, you'd obviously have these translated documents that make the author look reasonably fluent, when in fact the author can't say a word about what he/she has written. One question, and a "false fluency" would be revealed. We could define faux fluency as the appearance of being fluent, completely or reasonably fluent, when in fact the author has no real fluency (it might be pointed out that this is possible in the real language-learning world as well, where I once practiced a fluent phrase of French, got the pronunciation pretty well, and received in turn a torrent of incomprehensible French from a speaker who presumed I was fluent). The dangers of faux fluency are obvious; people assume you are fluent, and sometimes you don't even hear that they say that. 

Finally, I remain curious about the learners who are aware of the technology from the very start; who use it, can't avoid it, and try to learn a language by overpowering the force of technology, or by watching the machine and doing what it does, or by in other ways adjusting to the immutable presence of a machine's actions on language. What effect does it have? Are these learners better off canning the machine?

An industry has been built upon crunching songs through GT and back, and making semi-poetic representations of English that make sense in a kind of truncated, dismembered way. This is the grammar-soup world that all intermediate-level, non-fluent word translators live in and have to adjust to. 


translated from Korean

Strung homeless son was bullied imsejin group, accepted to the universityCooped up in the house "... like your dad, you Homeless" Two years ago, the neighborhood on the type of banter after fistfight"Persuade" You are the most precious person in the "social worker with more than 10 times, I can" jjokbangchon meDevoted to study, free evening classes around last year goip assignment GED, this year's admission to the University Police gyeonghohakgwa"You like your father doegetda homeless."

The day the fistfight to hear the banter of the neighborhood two years ago, imsejin (18) of the group mind, the door firmly closed. Time, bang on live near Namdaemun imgun did not go to school, and at home all day watching TV and was F-in happens Rise Living was repeated. The room was filling up the size of two people facing the table.

Imgun's father was an alcoholic. Ever slapped a drunk mother. 5 years old when mother can not stand the violence, imgun took two-year-old sister went out of the house. Terrible difficult, my mother was forced to take your daughter back in tears. Bottle or father eventually went to the 2009 Long Term Care Hospital.

Grandma (73) receives government subsidies 58 won 'bang' family imgun of your income was all.Found friends know imgun matter of "Se Jin's father, the homeless mother supposedly went home" rumors. Redundancy when teasing imgun school friends to erase the name from imgun papers hit the joke even. Classmate of your dad to alcoholism "homeless" shook his fist at the end of 2008, the first year of junior high school summer day, my teacher imgun only every heard. The day imgun quit school. At this time, "What are you doing here" hate "his father's son" and muttering sounds people did not treat. The hermit type loner like imgun was transformed. He said, "people homeless finger at son called me to go out just outside seemed imgun.

 Three years later, in March of this year, the imgun of Gangwon Province attended a college freshman orientation. He is "school in a long time too worried about sludge", and did not conceal his laughter. Him what would happen.

10000000000000000 three days 'jjokbangchon boys' imsejin (middle) group is having a good time with friends with the same orientation. / Imsejin group providesNamdaemun Area Counseling Center bakhanwoo (65), nurses and social workers found what Sejin's a house in June 2011. Imgun 3 years had to be cooped up in the house. "PC rooms Alba" was imgun eyes to the question "In the future, what do you want to be," stammered he said. Counseling center airfoil mounted and staff, "You know how precious that you can know how many days," said 10 times imgun persuaded. December 2011, imgun eventually the house and me went to the counseling center.New extremely gardening imgun of the day was busy since. Free evening classes from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00, Mapo-gu, Hapjeong undergraduate heard languages, English and math classes. English ABC starting level. 9 am to 5 pm at the counseling center where preparation and review. Lunch and dinner to imgun of studying social workers helped you was responsible. Study began six months after May 16 last year imgun received notice goip GED.

 But water to 637 minutes of vehicle tax bill was passed the day his father died in the hospital with the news. Was the father when the homeless due to give proof to seal off the stranger involved in a fraud and identity theft. Fortunately, the Counseling Center and the connected contact a lawyer take on imgun debt jumped in every way so that gave step 'limited approval application process. August last year, and continue to concentrate on studying imgun wolen assignment GED pass.

 He proudly supported Yeongwol 10000000000000000 police gyeonghohakgwa warrant of fitness this year received was a college student. Peers, rather than taking the GED goip and assignment imgun speed went to college one year early. Gave attending nokbeondong Flame imgun two churches, Lotte Scholarship Foundation, philanthropists have heard the story from the Counseling Center, Student vs.Around campus school orientation, new friends and a imgun every moment is captured on camera. Imgun "it's your special day back to school again," he said.

 "Bang was hiding in a desperate one, I want to say to kids, 'not hurt and you do not know, anyone can do this?" Difficult to empower people want to be a police officer. " Bang left jjokbangchon boy finally said.

translated from French

Environmentalists and tourism professionals in Namibia took off not: they accuse shooting the fourth episode of Mad Max, "The road rage" have damaged in 2012 protected areas in the Namib desert, destruction confirmed by report which AFP has consulted a copy Monday.

The filming of the Australian George Miller, the cast of which is the South African Charlize Theron, took place between July and December in a region of the Namib Desert National Park recently become DoroB.

"They created tracks in pristine areas and they even once prevented visitors walk in a tourist area because they were filming," he accused Tommy Collard, a tour operator based in the seaside town of Swakopmund (west ).

"The worst is that the film crew attempted to erase traces pulling nets above (sand, ed) and uprooting plants," said Mr. Collard. "We met a lot of photographic evidence with other coastal tour operators," he said, adding that small animals such as lizards, geckos and chameleons had suffered as a rare variety of cactus.

The independent authority for the conservation and management of the Namibian coast (Nacoma) was seized and commissioned a report, released in December Namibian Ministry of Tourism."Yes, areas of the Namib Desert have been destroyed," confirmed the report's author, Joh Henschel: "In one area, a plow was used."

"The environmental permits and authorizations issued by the Ministry of Environment for the project Mad Max were not specific enough to guide the management of environmental," said the report, seen by AFP.

Namibia Film Commission (NFC) has responded by purchasing a full-page advertisement in the government newspaper New Era for "refute allegations" about the shooting. Production "to our satisfaction has faced up to its responsibilities in Namibia (...) We have no objection," said she, accusing the local media to report "against truths" and "dull" the country's reputation.

The Ministry of the Environment for his part issued a statement expressing his satisfaction on how the film crew had completed the rehabilitation of the area of shooting.

In 2012, Namibia has submitted an application to UNESCO for the southern part of the Namib is declared "heritage of humanity". This area offers a landscape of dunes crystallized remarkably sculpted by wind and transformed over time.

translated from Spanish

Mexico City - At least seven people were killed in a clash in Agua Verde, El Rosario in Sinaloa, during a clash between police and suspected criminals. Four of the dead are agents, according to early reports.

The month of February brought at least 75 executions in the state, according to a count by the local press. So now comes Enrique Peña Nieto on his first tour as President of Mexico to Sinaloa.

The mayor of Rosario, Edgar Gonzalez, told local media that four of the victims are preventive agents. He said the four were "raised" in a guardhouse. Were found dead along with other civil hours later.

These killings add 11 crimes the last 24 hours in southern Sinaloa. In the mountainous area of ​​Mazatlan were ambushed two people in the community of El Tecomate, while two others were killed in San Ignacio.

Peña Nieto today began a tour of Sinaloa

Peña Nieto The President today began a working visit to Sinaloa. On the premises of the company "Rene Produce" in the locality of El Dorado, Culiacán, the head of the federal executive will witness the signing of the agreement for Agricultural Development.

According to the agenda provides for the intervention of state governor, Mario Lopez Valdez, who is also the current president of the National Conference of Governors (Conago) and Agriculture Secretary Enrique Martinez y Martinez.

Also speaking will Faustino Hernandez, president of the Regional Livestock Union of Sinaloa; Armando Castro, president of the Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives Center that entity, and Germán Escobar Manjarrez, the League of Agrarian Communities state.

It is expected that President Peña Nieto return to Mexico City at 17:00 hours on Monday.