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View Full Version : Bon Jour! Habla Se Deutsch?


Brad Adrian
09-24-2002, 09:55 PM
<a href="http://www-3.ibm.com/software/speech/desktop/translator.html">http://www-3.ibm.com/software/speech/desktop/translator.html</a><br /><br />IBM has recently announced the latest release of the ViaVoice Translator product, and the neat part is that it now works on iPAQ Pocket PCs. Translator uses a powerful text-to-speech engine in order to rapidly translate words and phrases to and from English and French, Italian, German and Spanish. The user simply types in a phrase in English, and Translator prints and actually speaks the translated phrase aloud.<br /><br />Features include:<br /><br />• Convenient translation of words, sentences and paragraphs<br />• Intuitive interface and portable format<br />• Choose from among 50 preloaded Starter Sentences<br />• Editable Starter Sentence list <br /><br />As with all applications of this type, Translator is a real system hog; the German module requires 64MB of RAM and the others require 32MB (All modules together require a total of 128MB.). I also tried to purchase this software from the IBM site, but that link didn't seem to be working. It looks pretty cool, so if anybody has had any experience with this, please let us know.

butch
09-24-2002, 10:25 PM
It's Bonjour, not Bon jour. :-)

danmanmayer
09-24-2002, 10:58 PM
This would be another thing that makes a pocket pc more usefull than a laptop while travelling. How often do you carry your laptop around while sight seeing. But with the pocket pc you can pop into a locals restraunt and have it translate what you would like even if you can't read the menu.

rubberdemon
09-25-2002, 12:21 AM
I can't wait for the day that it will take voice input and do the translation on the fly. Then you could walk into that Italian or German restaurant and your Pocket PC could let you hear something like:

"Hello, are ours specials evening the lamb, duck and let us accumulate the ham and the cheese. Did it become to like a wine list?"

Ah the joys of machine translation. This could do more to spread laughter and joy around the world than a hundred Jerry Lewises.

Foo Fighter
09-25-2002, 12:47 AM
It's Bonjour, not Bon jour. :-)

Yep. And it's "Sprechen Zie Deutch"...not "Habla Se Deutch". :P

Chad
09-25-2002, 01:19 AM
Yep. And it's "Sprechen Zie Deutch"...not "Habla Se Deutch". :P

Actually, it's "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" or "Sprichst du Deutsch?" if you are speaking to a friend. :lol:

Jason Dunn
09-25-2002, 01:33 AM
Uh, guys? I think Brad made those mistakes on purpose - he combined French, Spanish, and German into one greeting...isn't that pretty obvious?

Sometimes you people take things too seriously. :lol:

butch
09-25-2002, 02:16 AM
Uh, guys? I think Brad made those mistakes on purpose - he combined French, Spanish, and German into one greeting...isn't that pretty obvious?

Sometimes you people take things too seriously. :lol:

I can't tell if he made mistake in the spanish part of his sentence, but he made one in french...
What I've understand he wanted to says is:

Hello! Do you speak German?
in French it is:
Bonjour! Parlez-vous allemand?

Anyway....

Brad Adrian
09-25-2002, 02:44 AM
Ey-hay, eople-pay, I-ay annot-cay elieve-bay uo-yay idn't-day et-gay y-may ittle-lay anguage-lay umor-hay. Eck-hay, even-ay y-may en-tay ear-yay old-ay aughter-day ought-thay it-ay as-way unny-fay. Ext-nay ime-tay, I'll-ay eak-spay a-ay anguage-lay at's-thay ore-may "andard-stay," ike-lay Ig-pay Atin-lay.

Brad Adrian
09-25-2002, 02:45 AM
It's Bonjour, not Bon jour. :-)
Yeah, I LOVE that guy's music!

sponge
09-25-2002, 03:03 AM
Heh.. I thought that when I first read Bon Jour..

GadgetDave
09-25-2002, 05:02 AM
Anyone know if this will work on other PocketPC 2002 devices? I know they talk about the IPAQ - but unless they've built to hardware hooks, it should run on any PPC2002, right?

cyj
09-25-2002, 05:32 AM
Brad; you said you "tried to buy." Does that mean you'll be getting it and posting results down the road - since it appears no one else posting has experience with it yet?

I think it's great to see forward steps taken along this line, but from my standpoint I'm always skeptical about buying the product unless I can get some idea how many words it can translate.

I'm worried that the size of the installation has more to do with the voice files than with an application that has a substantial database of words that can really aid a person.

I didn't notice a demo. Did anyone else?

DerekTheGeek
09-25-2002, 10:49 AM
I looked for a link to a demo but was unable to find one. They did have a "Money Back Guarantee" but nothing about a demo. If anyone purchases it, please let us know how it works out? I would be interested to see just how much is slows the Pocket PC down. Wouldn't it be great if it were X-Scale optimized? :o

Brad Adrian
09-25-2002, 02:34 PM
Brad; you said you "tried to buy." Does that mean you'll be getting it and posting results down the road - since it appears no one else posting has experience with it yet?
I was going to try to just buy it, but couldn't even do that. I'll keep trying, though, and post my results.