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HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

news.rthk.hk

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Re: HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

#11

Post by s_Hogg »

throwawy123 wrote: post #10
s_Hogg wrote: post #4

I tried feeding some of the phonetically spelled stuff into google translate and it was completely lost at sea. So no worries about the claim this could stuff up NLP/search, then.

No, you can actually type this straight into Google Translate and it will work fine. After selecting Chinese as the language, you have to set the input method as "Cantonese." Of course, Google Translate is banned in China. ;) This isn't a secret code or anything; it's a standard romanization that almost everyone who learns Cantonese formally will learn. The thing is---formal education in Cantonese and other non-Manda…

Yeah, I just tried it and didn't know which characters to pick after the initial "heung gong" in "heung gong ya gan yau". So even if it doesn't actually break automatic translation, it does break the user like you say :)

Re: HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

#12

Post by throwawy123 »

s_Hogg wrote: post #11
throwawy123 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can actually type this straight into Google Translate and it will work fine. After selecting Chinese as the language, you have to set the input method as "Cantonese." Of course, Google Translate is banned in China. ;) This isn't a secret code or anything; it's a standard romanization that almost everyone who learns Cantonese formally will learn. The thing is---formal education in Cantonese and other non-Manda…

Yeah, I just tried it and didn't know which characters to pick after the initial "heung gong" in "heung gong ya gan yau". So even if it doesn't actually break automatic translation, it does break the user like you say :)

You also might try Bing Translate, which actually has Cantonese translation. Google Translate can take Cantonese input, but since it's really just a Mandarin translation engine, it won't correctly interpret Cantonese words and grammar.

Re: HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

#13

Post by spacehunt »

throwawy123 wrote: post #10
s_Hogg wrote: post #4

I tried feeding some of the phonetically spelled stuff into google translate and it was completely lost at sea. So no worries about the claim this could stuff up NLP/search, then.

No, you can actually type this straight into Google Translate and it will work fine. After selecting Chinese as the language, you have to set the input method as "Cantonese." Of course, Google Translate is banned in China. ;) This isn't a secret code or anything; it's a standard romanization that almost everyone who learns Cantonese formally will learn. The thing is---formal education in Cantonese and other non-Manda…

Jyutping is not taught in Hong Kong schools here, and it shows: people are coming up with random transliterations that are often quite hard to read.

Re: HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

#14

Post by s_Hogg »

throwawy123 wrote: post #12
s_Hogg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I just tried it and didn't know which characters to pick after the initial "heung gong" in "heung gong ya gan yau". So even if it doesn't actually break automatic translation, it does break the user like you say :)

You also might try Bing Translate, which actually has Cantonese translation. Google Translate can take Cantonese input, but since it's really just a Mandarin translation engine, it won't correctly interpret Cantonese words and grammar.

Hmm, at your suggestion I've just tried Bing and it doesn't seem to know what to do with the Romanisation? Interesting to know that Bing explicitly has Cantonese translation catered for but Google doesn't. Wonder why that is?

The step that's missing for me is how to turn the Romanisation into Chinese characters.

Re: HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

#15

Post by throwawy123 »

spacehunt wrote: post #13
throwawy123 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can actually type this straight into Google Translate and it will work fine. After selecting Chinese as the language, you have to set the input method as "Cantonese." Of course, Google Translate is banned in China. ;) This isn't a secret code or anything; it's a standard romanization that almost everyone who learns Cantonese formally will learn. The thing is---formal education in Cantonese and other non-Manda…

Jyutping is not taught in Hong Kong schools here, and it shows: people are coming up with random transliterations that are often quite hard to read.

I always assumed they taught the Yale Romanization in schools, since that's what every book I've bought in Hong Kong has used.

Outside Hong Kong, Jyutping seems pretty much universal.

Is everybody really typing with Cangjie/handwriting? xD

Re: HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

#16

Post by probablybroken »

I remember this being similar to the reason claimed for the use of leet speak back in the day (i.e, that it prevented searching of messages by 'the man' ); Interesting to see something so similar actually being practically applied in the present.

Re: HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

#17

Post by spacehunt »

throwawy123 wrote: post #15
spacehunt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jyutping is not taught in Hong Kong schools here, and it shows: people are coming up with random transliterations that are often quite hard to read.

I always assumed they taught the Yale Romanization in schools, since that's what every book I've bought in Hong Kong has used. Outside Hong Kong, Jyutping seems pretty much universal. Is everybody really typing with Cangjie/handwriting? xD

Many people type with Cangjie because that's what gets taught. Very few people know Jyutping, and even fewer type with it; most people encountering Jyutping for the first time wouldn't know how to pronounce it, largely because of the unfamiliar 'j' and 'eo'.

For day to day transliterations of names etc there's actually no standard, just some loose rules based on English pronunciation.

Re: HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

#18

Post by hardmaru »

Hi!

Here is some information about romanisation of Cantonese if you are interested:

Romanisation system for Cantonese has an interesting history! Yale romanisation system [1] is (IMO) the most readable and also later on refined as Jyutping [2], another method used in more academic contexts which IMO is less readable (both used in GBoard as Cantonese input methods). However most persons and place names in HK use older system [3] developed in 1880s by Christian missionaries.

When people use Cantonese romanisation as part of their casual text chats on instant messaging or social media platforms, it’s usually a mix of both systems [1, 3], but rarely [2] but without the tone information (so lots of many-to-one mappings), mixed in with bits of English, making it hard to understand (even for a local Hong Kong person) without having good prior context of the entire conversation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_romanization_of_Cantonese

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Romanization_(Cantone...

Re: HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

#19

Post by s_Hogg »

hardmaru wrote: post #18

Hi! Here is some information about romanisation of Cantonese if you are interested: Romanisation system for Cantonese has an interesting history! Yale romanisation system [1] is (IMO) the most readable and also later on refined as Jyutping [2], another method used in more academic contexts which IMO is less readable (both used in GBoard as Cantonese input methods). However most persons and place names in HK use older…

Somewhat off topic: any chance you know how come Google doesn't have an explicitly cantonese model for translation?

Re: HK social media users writing phonetically spelled posts to shut out trolls

#20

Post by spacehunt »

s_Hogg wrote: post #19
hardmaru wrote: post #18

Hi! Here is some information about romanisation of Cantonese if you are interested: Romanisation system for Cantonese has an interesting history! Yale romanisation system [1] is (IMO) the most readable and also later on refined as Jyutping [2], another method used in more academic contexts which IMO is less readable (both used in GBoard as Cantonese input methods). However most persons and place names in HK use older…

Somewhat off topic: any chance you know how come Google doesn't have an explicitly cantonese model for translation?

Not a Googler so I can only guess. But it seems like Google did try to treat Cantonese as a Chinese variant in the past, eventually they dropped it probably because they realised they're too different.

I know Google is actively working on the Cantonese version of Google Assistant, though not sure when it'll be officially released.

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