How machine translations were used for evil

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Recently you might have heard all over the news channels the reports of the National Health Service (NHS) being ‘cyberattacked’ by hackers using ransomware to try and get payments. Parts of the NHS were affected during the initial outbreak of the ransomware called WannaCry, or as it is also sometimes referred to as WanaCrypt0r 2.0, WannaCry and WCry. It was not just the NHS systems that were infected; the massive shipping company FedEx Corp, German railway operator Deutsche Bahn, Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica, Nissan, and Hitachi were amongst the high profile companies to be hit by the attack. The list goes on as around 300,000 more computers in 150 countries were also infected, with Russia being the worst hit.

The ransomware has come about when hackers stole a hacking tool called ‘Eternal Blue’ which was developed by American military organisation the National Security Agency (NSA) to gain access to all computers operating with Microsoft Windows in order to stop criminal activities such as terrorism. Although it is not known for sure who is responsible for the WannaCry with most people strongly linking it to a group of hackers from North Korea. But security firm Flashpoint have suggested after linguistic analysis that it may have emerged from Southern China through the help of machine translations services.

On their blog post, Flashpoint say that after analysing the ransom note sent to victims demanding payment, the person who wrote the note was “native or at least fluent” in Chinese. They also go on to say that after looking at all of the 28 notes sent in different languages only 3 out of the 28 were actually written by a human; the English, Chinese Simplified and traditional version; with the remaining 25 being translated from English with the help of fast translation software Google Translate.

The way in which WannaCry works is often through a technique known as ‘phishing’ where an email is sent out fooling people into opening the attachments which contain malware, once opened it spreads onto your computer locking your files and encrypting them and the message or ‘ransom note’ appears demanding $300-600 payment through bitcoin in order to re-access your files. If not paid after a few days WannaCry threatens to delete your files. Although some experts have urged against paying as it is believed there is no guarantee once paid and such a big financial translation could see more attacks like this occurring.

Ever wanted to talk to the animals? You might be able to very soon

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Translation services, whether it is translating a sentence or a whole advertising campaign, it is a very important tool in understanding or getting a message understood in another language. Sometimes to convey your messages to an audience who speak the same language but different locale you need localisation services, for media translations you might need transcription services or if you needed a simultaneous translation the interpretation services are what you need.

Whatever the type of translation service you require you would be pretty well covered by the vast amount of professional translation agencies out there, But how about if you wanted to talk to the animals? Dr. Dolittle comes to mind whenever the idea of being able to communicate with animals is brought up, that the idea is nothing but nonsense some have even argued that if communication between humans and animals was to exist the outlooks and reference points of two different species could be so different that it would be pointless even trying.

Well it turns out that the notion of being able to understand animals through the means of translation services could be realised sooner than you think! We previously talked about the ‘Temptation catterbox’ which aims to translate a cat’s meow into human languages; well now it’s the turn of dolphins.

Swedish language tech company Gavagai AB along with KTH Royal Institute of Technology are working together with the aim of being able to understand the language of dolphins. Gavagai AB has already developed language analysis software that has grasped 40 human languages. They plan to have an understanding of the way dolphins communicate by monitoring bottlenose dolphin using Gavagai’s language analysis software.

Jussi Karlgren the Gavagai co-founder and KTH adjunct professor had this to say when speaking to Bloomberg “We hope to be able to understand dolphins with the help of artificial intelligence technology,” as well as commenting on the complexity of dolphin communications “We know that dolphins have a complex communication system, but we don’t know what they are talking about yet.”

The project will run for four years and they hope to have an understanding on the dolphin communication by 2021. This could be the first real breakthrough in being able to understand animals and have them understand us. Who knows we could have something like dolphin to Romanian translation services or rabbit to German translation services sooner than we think!

Why you must not overlook language translation services to boost international sales

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Doing business internationally in present times is something that can be easily done providing you have the medium to reach your target market, have the channels to distribute your products or the means to deliver your services. With the likes of social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter continuing to be top branding and advertising platforms which are not only free but can each put you in front of 700 million active monthly users on Instagram and around 317 million active users on twitter respectfully.

Gone are the days when big top brands with hefty budgets had almost the entire market share in a multitude of industries which could have been attributed to lack of choice from the consumer. With things having shifted drastically over the years and there is no sign of this slowing down. Take for instance the local bakery or vintage clothes store in your local area whereas before they would have been limited to their local area and relied on word of mouth to advertise their products however today at the click of a button, with a good social media and internet marketing strategy they are able to place themselves amongst the big names in the industry and give themselves a fighting chance to gain market share.

In addition with shipping companies like DHL, UPS and FedEx shipping to nearly every corner of the world you can guarantee not only to get in front of people who are searching for your products but to also be able to deliver you products to them in a speedy way.

With more and more people choosing to skip the hustle and bustle of having to go to a store to shop and as technology continues to shape the way in which people shop online, many companies are taking advantage of this opportunity by upgrading their e-commerce platforms and taking advantage of language translation services.

With many free tools such as Google translate which is able to convey your website content into another language at the click of a button this will surely lead to more sales? Well that is something that in theory works but marketing managers need to be careful about using automated translation tools when it comes to reaching an audience who does not speak your language.

It is therefore imperative to use a professional translation agency. Although the likes of Google translate will translate your content word for word the lack of human touch can misinterpret your message altogether and not only prevent you from gaining new customers but could easily result in you losing existing customers who may no longer trust your brand. Adding translation services to your marketing budget will yield results especially if your product or service is in demand on an international scale.

Many reports have showed that people prefer to shop in their native language and studies by Common Sense Advisory found that more local language content on a website lead to a greater likelihood of purchase.  

If you require translation or localisation services you can contact Exchange Lingo today to discuss your needs.

Image by: Robert Scoble on Flickr

Are emoji translations more than a gimmick?

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In a previous post we have already touched to the emergence of emoji’s or emoticons and how they are now being used every day to communicate with one another instead of using actually words. And now in fact there are now emoji to text translation software’s available to download on your phones right now. You could be forgiven by thinking this is all just a gimmick and nothing really more than a novelty that would eventually lose its appeal. But for some people these alternative translation services mean much more to them.

In a story originally reported by VICE’s Motherboard; they tell a story of how a stroke survivors use of emoji to text translation software is having a positive impact for people who have communication problems, helping them to break the barriers.

In 2005, Judy Crane was at the peak of her powers in medical sales when she was diagnosed with aortic dissection at the age of 47. As a result of a complication from the surgery of her aortic valve, she had a stroke she which left with paralysis and aphasia. Aphasia affects the part of the brain responsible for communication. Crane had problems reading, writing, speaking and processing information; this inevitably left her unable to continue her job.

Crane, who runs the Young Aphasia Communications Club, said to Motherboard that all she wanted to do was to get her message across and tell her story and that not being able to convey her message was frustrating as well as isolating and anything that could aide this would be ‘wonderful’.

There are an estimated two million people in the United States alone who suffer from aphasia, according to the National Aphasia Association (NAA) but not enough technology to support them. However Crane did use Dragon’s speech recognition software as well as things such as speech to text and predictive texting via her phone. This is where Samsung’s emoji to text translator ‘Wemogee’ can help improve matters.  Wemogee is an app which is used to communicate through emoji’s, the sender will send their message using an emoji from the library of 140 phrases and the receiver will then get the fast translation of the message written in text. For example a smile and thumbs up emoji sent will be received as “How are you?”

When asked her thoughts on this app for people with aphasia she noted that although she did not really pay attention to emoji’s as such but friends in her Young Aphasia Communications Club will find it useful as sometimes those with this disorder will shy away from communication when it becomes too hard and this app just might be the way to keep them communicating which is vital for individuals with aphasia.

Crane can write, send emails and hold conversations now twelve years after her stroke and she advocates that assistive technology could be better in helping however they can.

Of course this technology is in the early stages so it is understandable there are glitches in the app but it just goes to show the potential in this software and that emoji translations are not as ridiculous as you once thought and who knows maybe one day companies would be offering multi-lingual emoji translations, emoji to Romanian translation services anyone?

Why many African languages may become extinct

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When it comes to discussing Africa and its role in the world there are many topics which are up for debate and despite being the second most populous continent with around 1.2 billion occupants and over 2000 languages spoken, it seems as though African languages are never at the forefront when it comes to global discussions on this topic. In spite of being hailed as the origin of human kind it is sometimes perplexing as to how such a culturally diverse, natural resource rich continent is often overlooked.

We previously talked about which languages in Britain would pay the most and found that on average the best paid jobs were those which required candidates to speak a second language with the top language being Mandarin. Evidence of this was highlighted based on a search of how many job opportunities were available online via jobsites. There are many reasons for this some of which can be attributed to China’s economic growth one being its shift to becoming a global force to be reckoned with over the last few decades. With China’s GDP ranked second on a global scale behind the US it is no wonder why many people are deciding to learn Chinese more specifically Mandarin which is China’s most widely spoken language which has also fuelled the need for Mandarin translation services for businesses looking to trade effectively with China.

Now back to the point about African languages one of the major reasons why African languages are not at the forefront of discussions could be put down to the fact that many African countries still use their colonial languages as their first language and these languages are also used as the official language by their governments and education. This is evident in countries like Nigeria arguable one of Africa’s richest nations and one of the most traded with western nation’s especially exporting oil which is one of its major resources. Nigeria adapted its colonial British language of English as its official language. Countries like Angola which was colonised by the Portuguese also adapted the language as the official language of the nation. This being the case many local languages although spoken by large numbers of the population, many of them cannot read or write in their native tongue despite being able to do so in their colonial languages.

This has become even more of a concern as more and more people travel across the world and settle down in different parts of the world where their local language becomes less and less relevant as they often communicate with their children in the native tongue of the country they are living in. You will find this is the case with many first and second generation immigrants in the UK who will communicate with their children in English instead of their mother tongue and thus eliminating the development of their native language. This is not only the case with migrants there are many native Africans within the African continent who cannot understand or speak their own mother tongue but are highly fluent in English. With that being said is there any hope to save African languages for generations to come?

What are your thoughts?

Image by: Paul Birnie

The awkward translations of the French election

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As the nation of France has been continuingly gripped by the race for the French presidency, the fate of their countries political affairs and futures are at stake. With the first round of voting, which was held on 23rd April 2017 indicating no majority winner the two most voted for candidates, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will face off in a run-off election this week on Sunday 7th May 2017 to decide who will become the next French president. Now the slogans of each political party is usual something that sends a clear strong message across to the public that embodies the whole ethos of the party in a short phrase so least to say they are pretty important, but how much meaning do they lose once translation services are used to make it legible in another language?

In an article originally reported by international new network FRANCE24 they take a look at how each of the potential French president’s slogans and party names translate from French to English. They started with the most awkward English translation, that of the far-leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.  Mélenchon’s campaign was named “La France Insoumise” which makes complete sense in French but in English has been awkwardly translated to “Unsubmissive France” by FRANCE24 journalist Florence Villeminot, although the author of the article Christine Buckley noted that another of their journalist suggested the phrase to be translated to “Indomitable France” whilst others like Politico have used “France Untamed”, The New York Times went with “France Unbowed” and “Rebellious France.” This just goes to show that there are many different ways that words can be translated and even the best French translation services can be in disagreement of a translation.

The rest of the campaigns translation into English were more or less straight forward with the conservative François Fillon slogan being “Le courage de la verité” which translates to “The Courage of Truth” and Buckley commented on the fact that ironically the truth part was not so accurate as he had been plagued with scandals so the slogan was swiftly changed to “Une volonté pour la France” or “Willpower for France”. To which political activists then changed to “Un vol pour la France” which actually means “Theft for France,” due to the scandal involving Fillon. Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon’s slogan read “Faire battre le Cœur de la France” which translated well into English, “Make France’s Heart Beat Again.

Of the two remaining candidates left running for the presidency, far right’s Marine Le Pen’s campaign slogan is simply “Au Nom du Peuple !” which means “In the Name of the People!” in English. Her opposition on the other hand centrist Emmanuel Macron’s “En Marche” campaign was meant to translate to “Onward!”, but like most translations this was up for debate with some English language-based media outlets using the terms “Forward” or “On Our Way”. Saying this political translations are not unlike marketing or retail translation services as many political parties just like businesses will have a slogan to sum up what they are about or represent and these phrases can easily be misconstrued  when being translated into other languages and essentially lose their impact or their meaning altogether.

Let us know your thoughts.