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Introducing the Google Translate app for iPhone

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Re: Introducing the Google Translate app for iPhone

#11

Post by jokermatt999 »

axiom wrote: post #3

So, you do realize that once you can fit something like this in your ear you have a bona-fide Star Trek universal translator.

Bluetooth headset?

I'm not sure about the iPhone, but a lot of tasks on Android can be done with (albeit still inaccurate in my experience) voice control. Combine that with a text-to-speech program, and you can theoretically use most of your smartphone's functions without having to even touch the thing.

Re: Introducing the Google Translate app for iPhone

#12

Post by jrnkntl »

ylem wrote: post #7

I think it's cool. I played with it for Android (not the voice input, but the text based input and the voice output). I was with a Russian and Turkish colleague (I speak American English). We found that the translation was pretty good--but that the speech synthesis was pretty bad for both Turkish and Russian. Has anyone checked it out for Chinese, Japanese, or Spanish?

I just tried it for Dutch, and it got one out of the ten 5-word sentences I tried, correct. Some sentences only got one word right, and I sure was articulating like they do on national television ;) They just got a much greater sample size for English, matter of time for the rest of the languages I hope.

Re: Introducing the Google Translate app for iPhone

#13

Post by jodrellblank »

notyourwork wrote: post #6

I find it amusing that google has an application that can translate from language to language yet when I call 's automated system they cannot decipher what I am saying worth a damn.

If the Google system is anything like the Youtube auto-transcribe feature or the voicemail to text system, it can't really decipher what people are saying worth a damn either. ;)

Re: Introducing the Google Translate app for iPhone

#14

Post by hawflakes »

ylem wrote: post #7

I think it's cool. I played with it for Android (not the voice input, but the text based input and the voice output). I was with a Russian and Turkish colleague (I speak American English). We found that the translation was pretty good--but that the speech synthesis was pretty bad for both Turkish and Russian. Has anyone checked it out for Chinese, Japanese, or Spanish?

I've tried certain phrases in Chinese and I'm not sure if it's my accent or what but it can't seem to recognize the word "河蟹" (river crab). Incidentally, it's also Chinese Internet slang for harmonizing/censorship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_crab_(Internet_slang)

Re: Introducing the Google Translate app for iPhone

#15

Post by jawee »

My own experience with the app on Android would have me warn you that speech recognition is sub-par. English generally works, but it is sketchy. Spanish didn't work with me; I thought maybe it was my non-native accent, yet it managed to fair worse when I had some native speakers try it. It couldn't catch even basic phrases no matter how many times tried.

Re: Introducing the Google Translate app for iPhone

#16

Post by dstein »

This is ridiculously awesome. I have had a lot of fun hacking the google translate API before, but this wraps everything up in a sweet interface.

But it's too bad that Google is strapping everybody down to their services like this. The Google API shuts you down after too many requests per second. For this stuff to really take off what we need is this technology to be build right into the web browser, and have a JavaScript API for control over the translation and TTS engine.

Re: Introducing the Google Translate app for iPhone

#20

Post by draz »

jrnkntl wrote: post #12
ylem wrote: post #7

I think it's cool. I played with it for Android (not the voice input, but the text based input and the voice output). I was with a Russian and Turkish colleague (I speak American English). We found that the translation was pretty good--but that the speech synthesis was pretty bad for both Turkish and Russian. Has anyone checked it out for Chinese, Japanese, or Spanish?

I just tried it for Dutch, and it got one out of the ten 5-word sentences I tried, correct. Some sentences only got one word right, and I sure was articulating like they do on national television ;) They just got a much greater sample size for English, matter of time for the rest of the languages I hope.

"... and I sure was articulating like they do on national television" Not sure what they trained their algorithm on, but this articulation might have been the culprit. If they have a corpus of "normal people" speaking Dutch, and then you go and articulate, you will get poor results.
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