Merry Christmas all.
- Thread starter Ben Brand
- Start date
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ChinaVoodoo
Moderator
Alpine
Moderator
Merry Christmas to all forum members!
pier
pier
Merry Christmas
Playing Snotit with my oldest grandson
Playing Snotit with my oldest grandson
That second photo is worth framing. Merry Christmas.
Bob
Bob
Petzi
Active Member
Joyeux Noël !
Séb
Séb
col555
Well-Known Member
Merry Christmas everyone
Sometimes I forget how challenging it used to be to translate another language. Before there was an Internet.....a spirit transports us to the recent past...
I could usually recognize the identity of the language, if it was a romance language (i.e. Roman-Latin derived), and could then hope to locate a printed dictionary for that language. Or sometimes the orthography (alphabet characters) would give away the identity of the language.
καλά Χριστούγεννα -- Hey! I think that's Greek! Now, to find a Greek-English dictionary.
счастливого Рождества -- Hmmm. That's either Russian or maybe one of those other languages that uses Cyrillic, like Ukranian.
When it came to east Asian languages, I was screwed. If there was a 中 in there somewhere, then it was likely Chinese. A 日 meant maybe Japan. And 한 suggested Korean. These meager clues came from my childhood hobby of stamp collecting. Gosh. Do I have a Korean-English dictionary on the shelf?
South Asia? Forget about it. And there are not just dozens of different languages, but thousands.
*
*
Today, any text content that can be "selected" on a computer screen can be pasted into GoogleTranslate, and mother Google will even figure out what language it is. And I have noticed over the last few years that the translations themselves are getting better and better. The quality (and computational power) of today's GoogleTranslate artificial intelligence (AI) is breathtaking.
Have a HappAI New Year!
Bob
EDIT: After posting this, my thoughts turned to my humble collection of foreign language dictionaries. They really need a good dusting.
I could usually recognize the identity of the language, if it was a romance language (i.e. Roman-Latin derived), and could then hope to locate a printed dictionary for that language. Or sometimes the orthography (alphabet characters) would give away the identity of the language.
καλά Χριστούγεννα -- Hey! I think that's Greek! Now, to find a Greek-English dictionary.
счастливого Рождества -- Hmmm. That's either Russian or maybe one of those other languages that uses Cyrillic, like Ukranian.
When it came to east Asian languages, I was screwed. If there was a 中 in there somewhere, then it was likely Chinese. A 日 meant maybe Japan. And 한 suggested Korean. These meager clues came from my childhood hobby of stamp collecting. Gosh. Do I have a Korean-English dictionary on the shelf?
South Asia? Forget about it. And there are not just dozens of different languages, but thousands.
*
*
Today, any text content that can be "selected" on a computer screen can be pasted into GoogleTranslate, and mother Google will even figure out what language it is. And I have noticed over the last few years that the translations themselves are getting better and better. The quality (and computational power) of today's GoogleTranslate artificial intelligence (AI) is breathtaking.
Have a HappAI New Year!
Bob
EDIT: After posting this, my thoughts turned to my humble collection of foreign language dictionaries. They really need a good dusting.
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