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China Idle

Skype Translate Reportedly Has a Swearing Problem In Chinese 82

Posted by samzenpus from the keep-it-clean dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Skype Translate was supposed to be Microsoft's attempt at the "Star Trek" universal translator, offering real-time voice and text translation. It launched with one of the most challenging of languages, Chinese. And apparently, thanks to the Great Firewall, it has its problems. An American expat using it in China reports: "A glitch in the beta software misinterpreted the words I spoke. 'It's nice to talk to you' was translated as 'It's f*cking nice to f*ck you,' and other synthesized profanity, like the icebox robot in 1970's sci-fi flick Logan's Run, but with Tourette Syndrome. It was quite funny to me - I couldn't help but laugh during repeated takes, to Yan's exasperation - but the tech team were none too happy about it as they worked late into the night."
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Skype Translate Reportedly Has a Swearing Problem In Chinese More

Skype Translate Reportedly Has a Swearing Problem In Chinese

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  • It's the *Star Trek* translator (Score:3)

    by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @12:39AM (#50165769)

    Of course it's profanity-ladden when it's trying to translate for people that it thinks are KHAAANNNNN!!

  • The problem is GAN1/4 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    There is a Chinese character with too many meanings.
    http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005195.html

    • "Gan" would never be used for "it's nice to talk to you." This hasn't been a problem with automatic Chinese translation for the last 10 years, and I only ever saw it with "dry" being translated to "fuck."

      Also, we're talking conversation here, not characters. Sure the Chinese word for "fuck" has homophones, but that is just a normal part of the Chinese language. There's no more reason they'd be stuck over "fuck" than a million other homophones, like how "shi" can mean "ten" "is" "stone" "lion" or many oth

      • I imagine it was probably just an error message. Talking with someone from beijing and all skype got was 'er 'er'r'er'rr'er'er'er'er'er'er so the software just said fuck it!

        • I wouldn't trust Skype AI to tackle anything like this since the time I wanted to change the credit card I had my World Subscription attached to The Payment Methods page on the site lets you add a card, but you can't delete an old card and you can't tell it which payment method to use. You just have to hope it picks the right one.

      • As noted in the link provided in the post to which you replied, this is not a question of homophones but rather a result of a simplified Chinese character serving triple duty. That discussion also points to another article by the author who states:

        I am trying to make sense of how this phenomenon actually came about. It seems that the twenty or so different meanings of the three-stroke calendrical graph that is used to write GAN1/4 (a total of three distinct graphic forms in the traditional script -- , , -

  • Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)

    by the_Bionic_lemming ( 446569 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @12:54AM (#50165803)

    ROLLER CAPTION: IN 1970, THE BRITISH EMPIRE LAY IN RUINS, FOREIGN NATIONALS FREQUENTED THE STREETS - MANY OF THEM HUNGARIANS (NOT THE STREETS - THE FOREIGN NATIONALS). ANYWAY, MANY OF THESE HUNGARIANS WENT INTO TOBACCONIST'S SHOPS TO BUY CIGARETTES...
    Enter Hungarian gentleman with phrase book. He is looking for the right phrase.
    Hungarian I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
    Tobacconist Sorry?
    Hungarian I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
    Tobacconist No, no, no.This ... tobacconist's.
    Hungarian Ah! I will not buy this tobacconist's, it is scratched.
    Tobacconist No, no, no ...tobacco...er, cigarettes?
    Hungarian Yes, cigarettes. My hovercraft is full of eels.
    Tobacconist What?
    Hungarian (miming matches) My hovercraft is full of eels.
    Tobacconist Matches, matches? (showing some)
    Hungarian Yah, yah. (he takes cigarettes and matches and pulls out loose change; he consults his book) Er, do you want ... do you want to come back to my place, bouncy bouncy?
    Tobacconist I don't think you're using that right.
    Hungarian You great pouf.
    Tobacconist That'll be six and six, please.
    Hungarian If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? I am no longer infected.
    Tobacconist (miming that he wants to see the book; he takes the book) It costs six and six ...(mumbling as he searches) Costs six and six ... Here we are ... Yandelvayasna grldenwi stravenka.
            Hungarian hits him between the eyes. Policeman walking along the street suddenly stops and puts his hand to his ear. He starts running down the street, round corner and down another street, round yet another corner and down another street into the shop
    Policeman What's going on here then?
    Hungarian (opening book and pointing at tobacconist) You have beautiful thighs.
    Policeman What?
    Tobacconist He hit me.
    Hungarian Drop your panties, Sir William, I cannot wait till lunchtime.
    Policeman Right! (grabs him and drags him out)
    Hungarian My nipples explode with delight.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao

      • Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)

        by jez9999 ( 618189 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @09:50AM (#50167419) Homepage Journal

        Heh. Literally the first words out of my mouth were "Is that something from Monty Python? because it's not at all funny."

  • This is a poor article. What does The Great Firewall have to do with this particular problem.

    • What does The Great Firewall have to do with this particular problem.

      It is about China - of course the Great Firewall has to be mentioned, otherwise, what's the point of anything? Otherwise we would have to mention things like democracy, freedom of speech or Tibet, and that would be even less relevant. (Note: this was an attempt at sarcasm)

  • That's not a 'glitch' ... (Score:4)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @01:00AM (#50165817) Homepage

    A glitch in the beta software misinterpreted the words I spoke. 'It's nice to talk to you' was translated as 'It's f*cking nice to f*ck you,' and other synthesized profanity

    I refuse to believe someone didn't do that on purpose.

    That's too damned funny to be by accident.

    Please fondle my bum [wikipedia.org]

  • ... fix the bugs. The whole thing is awesome. Render the language barriers meaningless.

    At some point people are going to put a little hearing aid into their ears and auto translate anything.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nyder ( 754090 )

      ... fix the bugs. The whole thing is awesome. Render the language barriers meaningless.

      At some point people are going to put a little hearing aid into their ears and auto translate anything.

      I'd rather have a fish in my ear.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      At some point people are going to put a little hearing aid into their ears and auto translate anything.

      Long before that people will have figured out that speaking one of the big global/regional languages is useful. I wouldn't go so far as that we'll all join up on one language, but say one of the top 6 - Mandarin, English, Spanish, Hindi, Russian, Arabic. And I'd likely strike Hindi from that list, since like Portuguese, Bengali, French, Malay, German and Japanese (7-12) it has no significant tendency to spread beyond its current native regions. That is, if they ever get around to learning a second language

      • Mandarin is not much different from hindi really.

        There is no way the west is speaking Russian so we can strike that off.

        Arabic... lolz no.

        Spanish not really.

        then english... which is already the defacto trade language of the planet.

        THe only thing that would make any of those other languages credible would be the systemic and sustained collapse of the english speaking world. I wouldn't hold my breath for that happening any time soon.

        That said, I don't believe regional languages will go away. I think this tech

        • Re:Its a neat bit of tech (Score:4, Informative)

          by dunkelfalke ( 91624 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @04:53AM (#50166283)

          *facepalm* the stupid is strong in this one.

          Hindi and Mandarin aren't even in the same language family. They are as different as two languages can ever be.

          There are more than enough Russian speakers in the west. I, for one, speak Russian as a second language. Same goes for Spanish and Arabic, by the way, so you are definitely talking out of your arse. Your provincialism is really showing, except that even in your own country 13% of the population speaks Spanish.

          And this "exposing them to modern western culture" is laughable.

          • My comment was in reference to this statement:
            "I'd likely strike Hindi from that list, since like Portuguese, Bengali, French, Malay, German and Japanese (7-12) it has no significant tendency to spread beyond its current native regions."

            To which I said:
            "Mandarin is not much different from hindi really."

            The point being that I was saying Mandarin is unlikely to spread either much less become a global language. We were talking about language roots. We were talking about the propensity for languages to spread a

            • Oh, but I know you are.

              And saying that any language is unlikely to spread beyond its native region is stupid as well. No lingua franca stays forever. Chinese used to be the trade language in the whole Southeast Asian region and it might very well become that again in the next 100 years - even now people in Europe are encouraged to learn Mandarin because China is where the money is. Russian is still a trade language in countries bordering Russia and German used to be the language of science not very long ago

              • I wasn't presuming to comment on eternity... merely the foreseeable future.

                Fuck off. You've never made an intelligent comment so far as anyone has seen. You're of no value.

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by Anonymous Coward

                  You're a sore loser.

                  • Login and we'll see, troll. Stay in lurk mode and I'm going to waste my time with you.

                    • You realize that by making trollish AC comments you validate my position. And you're doing little more than making laugh at you because you're so obviously butthurt about how I won't engage with you anymore.

                      What is funnier one top of that is that you're also admitting that despite not talking to you for ages you're still e-stalking me.

                      Here's a question... are you a just an AC troll? Or are you a sock puppet of an existing account that is AC trolling?

                      Just curious. :D

                      You people are so stupid... why are you so

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tomhath ( 637240 )
              Language is hard. Even if you aren't translating between two of them.

            • The point being that I was saying Mandarin is unlikely to spread either much less become a global language.

              I saw a TV news item last night about kids in Africa being taught Mandarin. I wouldn't rule out Mandarin becoming a global language if I were you.

              • We will have to agree to disagree there.

                China is ultimately insular. They're not a people given to evangelism... that is the spreading of their beliefs or culture.

                A great many other cultures are evangelistic. The US is the most powerful of these and is strongly evangelistic. Exactly why in the foreseeable future would Mandarin overtake English? Its not credible.

      • When I lived in the Philippines, most Filipinos around the major military bases all spoke English to each other, because they were from many different Philippine provinces and islands, most of which each have their own (mutually incomprehensible) dialects of Tagalog.

  • The "traditional" joke concerning computer translation is about 30 years old - at least, because I've been telling it that long, and I heard it from somebody else.But it's still a classic.

    The original translating computer wasn't voice-recognition; you had to type in your statement in English, and it would be translated to Chinese on the screen. So in order to demonstrate how good it was with colloquial English, the programmer typed in a common saying, "Out of sight, out of mind". The computer whirred and chirped for a couple of minutes, and a column of Chinese characters appeared. The Chinese operator looked quite puzzled, but to play along, he typed (in Chinese characters) exactly what he had read on his screen.

    Chirp, whirr, beep, and the machine produced the translation back into English.

    It said "Invisible Insanity".

  • Skype would become the world leader in calls if and when these bugs are worked out by them before another service leapfrogs them. This will be a wonderful technology to commonly use someday.

    • Skype would become the world leader in calls if and when these bugs are worked out by them before another service leapfrogs them. This will be a wonderful technology to commonly use someday.

      I agree that this has the potential to be awesome and skype is great for remote communication but they need a way to use it in person locally.
      If I'm having lunch with someone, we don't want to have to have 2 ipads and communicate over skype when we're sitting right next to each other.

  • Translate the mind (Score:4, Funny)

    by lorinc ( 2470890 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @03:05AM (#50166059) Homepage Journal

    'It's nice to talk to you' was translated as 'It's f*cking nice to f*ck you,'

    Seems the damn thing is actually translating what's in your mind instead of what your saying...

  • Here I thought that I accidentally called a really polite phone sex operator.

  • Swearing? That's nothing. (Score:3)

    by roesti ( 531884 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @05:36AM (#50166427)

    Someone on Skype just said to me, "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle". Little punk. If I ever find him...

  • It launched with one of the most challenging of languages,...

    Nothing challenging about Chinese - it is pronounced like it's spelled, as the old joke goes. Seriously, though, Chinese is relatively easy to learn, even beyond the elementary stage. There are no grammatical inflections in the way we have in Indo-European languages, for one thing, the grammatical rules are simple and regular (unlike in English), and transcriptions like pinyin represent the sound of the spoken language well, unlike in English: there are many words in the English vocabulary that are pronounc

  • That's not a f*ckin' bug... (Score:3)

    by s0litaire ( 1205168 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @07:20AM (#50166671)

    ...it's an f*ckin' undocumented feature!
    "Skype translate : Gordon Ramsay Edition"

  • Obviously, it's not the Star Trek translator, it's the Firefly translator. :-)

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