There’s no denying that automatic language translation has its problems, but in some instances it’s a godsend. For example, take eating out in a restaurant where nobody speaks your language.  You’re not going to hire someone to translate for you, so unless you’re traveling with a local who speaks the language or there’s someone working at the restaurant who speaks English, you’re stuck making educated guesses about what to order.

Unless, of course, you have the new smart phone app from Purdue University. This app is designed to accurately translate menus, alerting you of possible risky ingredients like raw meat and of potential allergens like shellfish and peanuts.
Associate Professor  Mireille “Mimi” Boutin explained how the app works in a university press release:

“You type in the menu listing and the application translates it automatically without talking to a server. It only takes a fraction of a second, you don’t need connection to the Internet and it won’t empty your battery.”

In addition to translating menu items, the app also helps people on special diets catch potential problems and request accommodations. Professor Boutin provided some real-world examples of how this functionality could be useful:

“People who must follow a medical diet are often reluctant to travel for fear of putting their health at risk. The problem with menus is that even if you know the language you may still have to ask questions to clarify what a dish contains. For example, in German, ‘Schinken’ means ham, but it can be raw ham or cooked ham. If you are going to eat the ham, you might want to know which.”

But how does the app manage to avoid the pitfalls of using something like Google Translate? Basically, the narrow focus on food items helps improve accuracy.

The prototype app was developed in Spanish. Unfortunately, it’s not available in the app store yet; hopefully someone develop a commercial version of it soon.

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Need a Menu Translated? There’s An App for That!

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One of the most intimidating parts of learning to use Twitter is the lingo. Confronted by words like “retweet,” “hashtag” and the “Twittersphere,” new users often find themselves wondering:

“What language are these people speaking?”

English, as it turns out – Twitter is just changing the way we speak it, adding new vocabulary words and even influencing the way people talk and write when they aren’t using the service. No less an authority than the Oxford Dictionary just added the words “Twittersphere” and “ZOMG” to the lexicon, according to Time Magazine.

Meanwhile, digital anthropologist Brian Solis observes that the popular social networking service  is also changing the way people communicate outside of Twitter, even offline:

“At some point, a chasm emerges between those who use Twitter and those who do not. In other channels where Twitter users and other non-users are connected, for example email or text messaging,  the culture of conversation becomes noticeably divergent. To begin with, Twitter users, like texters, are groomed to speak with brevity.”

Then, there’s the hashtag. On Twitter, users often affix the pound sign and a word or short phrase to the end of their tweets. These “hashtags” help organize the chaos of the Twittersphere, making it possible to find out what people are saying about certain topics.  That’s the official purpose at least, but people often use them to attach ironic commentary to their tweets as well.

Hashtags, too, have now escaped the confines of Twitter. You’ll see them in articles on newspapers and in magazines, and they’ve even, somewhat awkwardly, made it into our speech. The New York Times notes that “Hashtags have also made their way into the vernacular.” and quotes Ginger Wilcox of the Social Media Marketing Institute, who said, “Because of the use of hashtags, you can use one word to describe something and it’s kind of a mental hashtag. So it’s like, ‘Awkward!’ or “Winning!’ And yes, definitely ‘Fail.’ For that one I often hear ‘Pound fail.’

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Twitter is Changing Language

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Arfon Gwilym, a Welsh folk singer, author and the director of Gwynn Music Publishers, has been denied a visa to visit the United States, according to Celtic News.

Mr. Gwilym had been invited to perform at the Smithsonian Institute’s cultural festival, which takes place next week. However, the US Embassy denied him a visa based on “moral turpitude” for acts he engaged in many years ago as a Welsh language activist with Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, the Welsh Language Society.

What does it take to get denied a visa on grounds of “moral turpitude?” Not that much, apparently. According to Wales Online, although Mr. Gwilym was sent to jail three times, his crimes consisted of non-violent activities like taking down road signs as part of a campaign for bilingual road signs and occupying a house to protest against English speakers occupying second homes in Wales.

In the UK, Mr. Gwilym is even considered to have a clean record, because the crimes all took place in the late 60s and early 70s. Under UK law, after a certain period of time, convictions become “spent” and fall off your record. In the United States, however, there is no such thing as a “spent conviction:” once something is on your record, it stays there.

Mr. Gwilym has appealed to US President Barack Obama for assistance via email. From the Celtic News article referenced above, here’s an excerpt of the email he sent:

“After September 11 I can understand the concern for safety in your country, and I can understand also why you do not wish to see murderers and rapists enter your country. May I respectfully suggest that you would not be in your present position were it not for the great battle for civil rights in your country when it was necessary to break the law in order to succeed. Can you imagine Martin Luther King and other civil rights campaigners being refused entry into Britain for ‘moral turpitude’?”

You know, the man has a point…

Orginal Article on K International's Language Blog | Welsh Language Activist Denied US Visa

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