Lost in Translation

The other day in the family car, my 3 year old daughter and her Japanese grandmother, attempted to jump a vast lingual divide.
It was like watching one of Evel Knievel's daredevil stunts. Not pretty. But you couldn't argue with the entertainment value.

I had just told my daughter that she was invited to jump on our neighbor's trampoline. I could see in the rear view mirror that she was excited. She repeated the word. "Champo-lean. Champo-lean. One champo-lean. Two champo-lean."

Her grandmother, who often gets her understanding of a conversation by focusing on random key words that are barely relevant to the discussion (example-- Me: "The car was sandwiched between the truck and the building." Her: "Today, I ate roast beef."), overheard my daughter and asked aloud, "Japanese?"

That's when the fun started.

My daughter replied, "Champo-lean."
"Japanese?"
"Champo-lean."
"I am Japanese."
"CHAMP-o-lean," snapped my daughter, not to be outdone in this inter-generational throw down. Having too much fun to mediate, I asked my daughter if grandma could go on the trampoline.

"Yes. But she has to take off her shoes. GRANDMA you have to take off your shoes!"
"Of course. I do. I take off my shoes. I am Japanese."

The best translation tools and voice recognition software in the world couldn't have saved this conversation. Google should know. They are among the industry's leaders in providing online translations. But despite the ability to process billions of English words, a few billion more than their competitors, Google translations aren't the most reliable. But if you'd like to give Google a shot at translating your letter to an overseas relative or reading a web page that was not composed in your native tongue, try some of their tools.

The latest Google venture certainly holds a great deal of promise for the hearing impaired. Google is applying its voice recognition software on videos that are shown on its subsidiary, You Tube. If you're watching a You Tube video, check the bottom right corner of the screen for the [CC]. Most often, you'll find that Closed Captions are not yet available on You Tube videos. But if you do, you may find not only an option for on-screen transcription, but an on-screen translation of that transcription in a slew of languages.

For instance, here is 9/11 era speech from President Bush and an essay on race in America from President Obama. The transcriptions on both speeches are mostly effective, although on President Obama's video I did notice one slight discrepancy when he referred to Ezequiel, but the translation said something about gills.

Still, for the hearing impaired, closed captioning on You Tube videos offers context that wasn't available before and is therefore a step in the right direction. Ken Harrenstien, the man who's spearheading Google's effort to add captions to their videos, is deaf. These days he can laugh at the absurd calculations produced by Google's data-driven translations. He's even quick to point out that the name You Tube comes out of the voice recognition program as You Too. Still, he's confident that the technology will continue to improve.

For now, if you're up for a good laugh, consider this: translation is a dish best served... scrambled. So if you're in no rush to catch the next trambilla, remember that life can be unpredictably joyful, when you don't aspire to literal meanings and settle instead for something that is completely different.