Universal Translator Designed in the United Arab Emirates - Case Study Example

Universal Translator designed in United Arabs Emirates A project proposal Submitted to DR. Katherine Lelia Hall Assistant Professor, English By Zulaikha Albusaeedi Aerospace Engineering at Khalifa University May 17, 2012 May 12, 2012 DR. Katherine Lelia Hall Khalifa University address Dear Dr. Hall, I am submitting to you the report, due May 17, 2012, that you requested. The report is entitled Universal Language Translator ULT that translates the voice of the speaker from one language to another in almost real time. The purpose of the report is to inform you of my design decisions for the device. The content of this report concentrates on the need for ULT design from United Arabs Emirate UAE as a country with a lot of international transactions and as a major tourist destination in Middle East. This report also discusses the Microsoft universal translator technology which forms the basis of this project. If you should have any questions concerning my project and paper kindly contact me on (address or phone number). Sincerely, Zulaikha Albusaeedi Introduction A common issue in an international business environment is the language barrier between two business people. This communication barrier may lead to problems such as slow business transactions, and misunderstanding. Some solutions proposed by Berardo [1] were to always speak clearly, to check if the other person understands you, to avoid the use of idioms and jargons, specifically, and to have an effective medium for the conversation. As an effective of this language difference, a lot of fictional objects that helps different languages communicate came about. In the book by Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, a thing called the Babel Fish was introduced in the story [2]. The Babel Fish was a live fish that, when placed inside the ear, will translate any language that a person hears. The name of the fish became of a popular online translator that is commonly used nowadays. Another famous online translator is the Rosetta stone, which was derived from the ancient Egyptian stone with three languages inscribed in it. A universal translator device was introduced to people through the popular television series Star Trek. Here, a universal translator enables the characters to speak to and listen to aliens as they explore the universe. In the University of Aberdeen, researchers are attempting to develop some software that translates sign language into text by the use of camera. Their primary objective was to approach the large number of people who are not fluent in sign language. They believe that this creation may help the people with speaking and hearing disabilities to communicate and live better with the people around them. Online translation software is available but a greater role of machine translation is on the part of a diverse audience. Making use of this system outside of the World Wide Web is more useful. Continuous quality improvements are needed to be done to provide the community with accurate output. The growing social web is diverse in its language as well and knowledge of other languages is becoming essential in the society. This apply in many different sectors of the economy; in business, in military, even in hospitals and other social welfare and development activities. Many different functions of these translators may be of good use in the world. It would help business transactions between two individuals with different spoken language. A universal translator may be very useful to soldiers in the battle field to communicate with civilians. Even in an ordinary conversation, maybe as a tourist in a foreign country, among the people from different languages, a universal translator that will suffice every need is very helpful. Machine translator’s full potential is yet to be seen as it attempts to make bridges for the gaps in the language across the world. Review of the current system On early years of development, a lot of investments failed to establish a machine translator. Finally, a machine translator was developed in the 1960’s but it appeared to be unrealistic. The existence of these machines was not to replace the human translators. The main purpose was to build a reliable system that can accurately and precisely translate in real time. In today’s industry, machine translation is a wide spread trend. Online translators are currently available on the internet for people’s use. The main factor for a translator is its effective conversion from one language to another. The translation must not only convert the words but also to still contain the meaning of the words combined. A major problem with the current machine translators is the monotonic digital voice used [3]. It may be perfect in its translation of the words but the tone, diction, and emotion of the user is neglected. Digital translators are also known to say their translation word by word and not a complete flowing sentence[4]. Needless to say verbal communication does not only require the words being said but also puts importance on how these words are said. The tone of the voice emphasizes on the emotions put into those words. Another issue regarding some translators is their capability to translate which languages. Online translators are limited in this area in which only major languages are covered. For several years now, Microsoft and its researchers have been trying to develop an accurate translating system. They created a hybrid statistical syntactic system, by using an approach that makes use of rule based logic and statistical methods. Substantial linguistic details are used for language pairing to maximize the precision of grammar and syntax. The absence of such information led to the use of a statistical model for scaling to match language pairs. Microsoft has already developed a translation machine since 2003. It has translated more than a hundred thousand base articles already into major languages. The company to lower the expense and widen their scope also used the technology. The machine translation team of Microsoft in 2005 was tasked to broaden their coverage outside the company. They provided online web services through Windows Live Messenger and Microsoft Office. The chief research officer of Microsoft, Rick Rashid, demonstrated prototype software during the Microsoft 2012 TechFest . He said a long sentence in English and has it converted to Italian, Spanish and Mandari; and still, it sounded like the voice of Rashid [5]. The machine needs to train itself for about an hour to recognize and analyze once voice. There are all in all, 26 different languages supported by the machine. It uses Microsoft’s text-to-speech model to translate from one language to another. After the machine is done with the training, translation can now be done real time. Its effect will be amazing. Imagine two people with different spoken language, the first person who speaks Spanish, for example, is heard by the second person in English. The person who speaks in English just has to use his or her own spoken language and the receiver will hear him or her in Spanish. Soong said that new discovery will help language students and may also be a navigation device. So far, the researchers attempting for the software to be installed into smart phones for better access. With Microsoft’s new development, it considers to copy the actual voice of the user. It identifies the tone, the accent, and other qualities of our own voices. It also accommodates a wide range of languages that is uncommon to other references. Discussion United Arabs Emirates UAE is the Middle East country that recently has attracted the attention of foreigners not only as tourist but people who want to invest in the fastest growing country. Arabic is the official language of this state which is also spoken by most of the middle east countries. UAE has Persian, Dialect of Pashto, Hindi, and Balochi Language as other spoken languages by its citizens [6]. Does the Microsoft universal translator device cover languages such as Balochi? When tourists come to this country they visit tourist destination in this areas and they are anxious to hear from the locals with a human translators. language barrier is a major challenge where translators are required in most of the transactions while some business opportunities are lost due to lack of translators. Researchers from other countries may find it difficult to comprehend some of the fundamental ideas they are looking for since a translator may not have knowledge about the subject. It is with this reason that I propose a universal language translator that addresses these issues. Two of their researchers, Rick Rashid and Frank Soong, led a new breakthrough in Microsoft industry. They reside in the headquarters of Microsoft in Redmond, Washington; and worked with their colleagues at Microsoft’s research lab in Beijing [7]. Language has different intonation, accent and timbre of the voice compared to western languages and the Chinese language therefore the device does not effectively address the issues in this country and the region at large. With the proposed system there will be thorough research in the national language the accent and timbre of the voice. UAE as one of the Arabic speaking nation which of recent is experiencing technological advancement is therefore in a better position to come up with own designed universal translator. There are enough expertise in the language as the first speakers with enough linguistic details to ensure that there is proper pairing of the language to ensure that there is accuracy in the grammar and syntax. TNT is one of the largest express operator from UAE which in 2009 found out that there has to be a way to retrain or test its workforce for internal language given that it had increased it’s international transactions to over 4 million each year (www.vantage-siam.com). It is expensive to retain workers international language. It is not only expensive to in terms of money spend is such activities but may deter or demoralize workers thinking they are perceived as ineffective this will eventually affect the overall output. International students are having difficulties in learning English or any other foreign language but with devices that can translate their works from their first language to other languages it will be effective in their studies. The Microsoft universal translator according to the experts in web blogs have referred to it as ‘the big thing’ as far as language translation is concerned. The technology with its ability to give real time translation with much improvements from the current system. This device will be the basis of device design and improvement with the aim of having locally designed system that addresses the local language. Recommendations From the review of the current universal system and the discussions above it is recommended that a universal translator should be designed with the detailed linguistic and syntax of Arabic language and other languages to bridge the gap between two parties that speak different language. Local languages such as Persian are important for the growth of UAE hence they should be incorporated in the system. To reduce the learning or training time of the device, artificial intelligence should be used where past experiences are fed into the learning system in advance. This does not only reduce training time but accuracy of translation. Reference 1. Kate Berardo , 2007, 10 Strategies for Overcoming Language Barriers. Internet: http://www.culturosity.com/pdfs/10%20Strategies%20for%20Overcoming%20Language%20Barriers.pdf 2. BBC, Explore the BBC, the Babel Fish the hitch-hiker’s guide to the galaxy, internet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/babelfish.shtml 3. Joseph Seasly, “Machine Translation: A Survey of Approaches”, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2003. 4. Kemal Altintas, Dept. of Computer Engineering, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, “A Machine Translation System Between a Pair of Closely Related Languages”. Internet :http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~ilyas/PDF/iscis2002.pdf 5. Microsoft translation hub, 2011. Internet: http://hub.microsofttranslator.com/SignIn?returnURL=/Home/Index 6. United Arabs Emirates, 2010 Language and religion. Intenet: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/615412/United-Arab-Emirates/257040/Languages-and-religion 7. Sebastian Anthony on March 12, 2012, Microsoft unveils universal translator that converts your voice into another language. Read More