Stupid linguistic help for a pissed off Dad

[InkaUtexas 25857]

As kids we get asked to do all sorts of shit. This is a first for me.

Dad decided to buy a scroll. Pretty item. but it is in a language he cannot translate. Yeah, the family knows a few, but Chinese is not one. So he calls me up and says get it translated for me. My first thought was nope, I gotta go fight aphids. But it is dad.

So anyone know any Native Chinese speakers I can link him up with? @Superhero  Long shot, but gotta help him out if I can.

 

[Pato del Muerto 52485]

Which Chinese language?

[Gil Bang 25907]

26 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Which Chinese language?

All the characters are the same bro.  They don't write differently.  GF's Daughter-in-Law is from China.   Her grandmother only speaks the "local" language of her village where she grew up.  she doesn't speak Mandarin.  So, if she leaves her hometown, she if forced to communicate using pen and paper.   
 

She can read anything in China.  

Edited June 19 by Gil Bang

[Pato del Muerto 52485]

2 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

All the characters are the same bro.  They don't write differently.  

How am I supposed to know that?  I don’t read Chinese!

[Gil Bang 25907]

1 minute ago, Pato del Muerto said:

How am I supposed to know that?  I don’t read Chinese!

I carry a little folded paper in my wallet, that I only pull out in massage parlors.  in Chinese characters, it says "please don't forget the balls" 

[Gil Bang 25907]

BTW, Japanese uses the same characters.   A Chinese person can go to Japan and read anything there. 

[Dahobbs 17522]

4 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

BTW, Japanese uses the same characters.   A Chinese person can go to Japan and read anything there. 

Some of the same characters. 

[Superhero 8827]

1 hour ago, InkaUtexas said:

As kids we get asked to do all sorts of shit. This is a first for me.

Dad decided to buy a scroll. Pretty item. but it is in a language he cannot translate. Yeah, the family knows a few, but Chinese is not one. So he calls me up and says get it translated for me. My first thought was nope, I gotta go fight aphids. But it is dad.

So anyone know any Native Chinese speakers I can link him up with? @Superhero  Long shot, but gotta help him out if I can.

 

PM me or post the picture here and I’ll see what I can do.

@gsoda3 and @Sam Lin might be able to help as well. 

[InkaUtexas 25857]

5 minutes ago, Superhero said:

PM me or post the picture here and I’ll see what I can do.

@gsoda3 and @Sam Lin might be able to help as well. 

PM Sent. Gracias.
 

[YGIFS 19449]

I got no answers, just more questions.  

So similar to most aged languages, chinese/mandarin/et. al have a passive vocabulary of over 350,000 'words.'  However with no alphabet, their 'symbols' or 'characters' are limited to only about 50,000 'words', expressed through these written/digital symbols/characters.  With active usage being only about 15% of that.  So they're not really letters, they're not really syllables, and they're not really complete words in the majority of instances.  I get the verbal structure of the language pretty good just because my wife is trained in linguistics and speech (not that I can speak or understand it).  But I just to this day have never received a proper explanation of the difference between their written language.  Nobody on the planet can draw 350,000 different characters by rote using just a series of 4-14 strokes.  So they've narrowed it down to about 50,000 which is still a tall order to maintain a deep fluency.  But how?  How does it work dammit?!?! 

[Da Fino 2772]

1 hour ago, Gil Bang said:

BTW, Japanese uses the same characters.   A Chinese person can go to Japan and read anything there. 

This looks like one of those things that I trust because I like you guys, but ends up getting me in trouble. 

[Slacks 6819]

So is this not something the AI can do in seconds?

[immamac 42834]

39 minutes ago, Slacks said:

So is this not something the AI can do in seconds?

Yeah can you not just actually live translate this with OCR? This tech has existed for nearly a decade. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13507]

Yes, ChatGPT can translate from an image. I can’t speak to its accuracy but the same issue could exist with a person translating as well.

[luke duke 6412]

Get the intern to translate

[immamac 42834]

5 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Yes, ChatGPT can translate from an image. I can’t speak to its accuracy but the same issue could exist with a person translating as well.

Why would you use a GPT. Just use a literal translator they have existed for A VERY LONG TIME. How do you think fucking chrome has had a translate button for the last 12 years? 

[Pato del Muerto 52485]

11 hours ago, Da Fino said:

This looks like one of those things that I trust because I like you guys, but ends up getting me in trouble. 

Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these?

[bolverk 29651]

3 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Yes, ChatGPT can translate from an image. I can’t speak to its accuracy but the same issue could exist with a person translating as well.

Google Lens also works for translating languages embedded in an image. I use it all the time to translate Russian and Ukrainian text in screenshots posted in the Ukraine War thread.

Take, for example, this. I just googled "images of Chinese language" and found this photo. Right-click the image, click "search images with Google" on the menu, select whatever portion of the image you want, and then hit translate.

I can't speak to the quality of the translation, but it works like fucking magic.

[Sam Lin 3550]

14 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

All the characters are the same bro.  They don't write differently.  GF's Daughter-in-Law is from China.   Her grandmother only speaks the "local" language of her village where she grew up.  she doesn't speak Mandarin.  So, if she leaves her hometown, she if forced to communicate using pen and paper.   
 

She can read anything in China.  

This is incorrect, there are two written forms of Chinese: traditional and simplified. As the names might hint, the more complex kanji characters are...simpler in the simplified form. Most new students are being taught simplified. Analogy: similar to the US not teaching cursive, some of the young generation cannot read all the traditional words as a result.

 

14 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

BTW, Japanese uses the same characters.   A Chinese person can go to Japan and read anything there. 

This is only partially correct. Only some of the characters are the same. The meanings also vary in many cases, so while you could read it, you may not get the correct meaning out of it. Analogy: we as English writers can read written French as it mostly uses the Roman alphabet. We can even read some Cyrillic because of alphabet overlap. But we don't get the meaning unless we actually know the language.

 

12 hours ago, YGIFS said:

I got no answers, just more questions.  

So similar to most aged languages, chinese/mandarin/et. al have a passive vocabulary of over 350,000 'words.'  However with no alphabet, their 'symbols' or 'characters' are limited to only about 50,000 'words', expressed through these written/digital symbols/characters.  With active usage being only about 15% of that.  So they're not really letters, they're not really syllables, and they're not really complete words in the majority of instances.  I get the verbal structure of the language pretty good just because my wife is trained in linguistics and speech (not that I can speak or understand it).  But I just to this day have never received a proper explanation of the difference between their written language.  Nobody on the planet can draw 350,000 different characters by rote using just a series of 4-14 strokes.  So they've narrowed it down to about 50,000 which is still a tall order to maintain a deep fluency.  But how?  How does it work dammit?!?! 

This isn't real different than any language. Just like in English there are a ton of words that are infrequently used or are olde Englische. We remove English words from the dictionary every year. Same goes in other languages.

 

12 hours ago, Slacks said:

So is this not something the AI can do in seconds?

 

11 hours ago, immamac said:

Yeah can you not just actually live translate this with OCR? This tech has existed for nearly a decade. 

Likely no, depending on the type of scroll this is. If it is a calligraphy artwork, depending on the artist style, it will barely be recognizable as a specific kanji symbol. Even if it wasn't heavily stylized, there are font and structure differences in words over time (just like we have different spellings of aluminium). There is a LOT of effort going in to OCR of Chinese calligraphy. I haven't seen a really good solution yet.

Look at this photo for example (sorry for picture of a screen, quickest way for me to post at moment). These are all the same kanji word. A kanji scroll is almost always some form of cursive, like the far right. And that cursive is not a standard, unlike English cursive - calligraphy cursive is an art and depends on each writer. There are very famous historical calligraphy artists who are known for a specific way they write one symbol.

[Pato del Muerto 52485]

You’re not even going to tell us what English word or phrase that symbol means?

[gsoda3 3245]

20 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

You’re not even going to tell us what English word or phrase that symbol means?

google translate shoulda told you it means dragon. or maybe it couldn't i dunno.  

for context, here's the simplified way to write dragon.

龙

15 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

As kids we get asked to do all sorts of shit. This is a first for me.

Dad decided to buy a scroll. Pretty item. but it is in a language he cannot translate. Yeah, the family knows a few, but Chinese is not one. So he calls me up and says get it translated for me. My first thought was nope, I gotta go fight aphids. But it is dad.

So anyone know any Native Chinese speakers I can link him up with? @Superhero  Long shot, but gotta help him out if I can.

 

i probably can't help too much but post a pic.  

[Pato del Muerto 52485]

4 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

google translate shoulda told you it means dragon. or maybe it couldn't i dunno.  

for context, here's the simplified way to write dragon.

龙

Thanks. First try with lens and I couldn’t get it off of the English words 

[InkaUtexas 25857]

12 hours ago, immamac said:

Yeah can you not just actually live translate this with OCR? This tech has existed for nearly a decade. 

Not hand written characters Sherlock.

44 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

google translate shoulda told you it means dragon. or maybe it couldn't i dunno.  

for context, here's the simplified way to write dragon.

龙

i probably can't help too much but post a pic.  

PM cool?

[InkaUtexas 25857]

Bunch of people who think Portuguese and Spanish are the same. I should have gone to Nextdoor for help.

FML.....

 

Thanks all, getting the picture and will send to a few. Might be Yamamoto's surrender note.

[immamac 42834]

26 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Not hand written characters Sherlock.

PM cool?

Hand written characters can't be OCR? News to me. Been around since palm pilot days but sure thing Sherlock. 

[Jkwellborn 6686]

Likely no, depending on the type of scroll this is. If it is a calligraphy artwork, depending on the artist style, it will barely be recognizable as a specific kanji symbol. Even if it wasn't heavily stylized, there are font and structure differences in words over time (just like we have different spellings of aluminium). There is a LOT of effort going in to OCR of Chinese calligraphy. I haven't seen a really good solution yet.
Look at this photo for example (sorry for picture of a screen, quickest way for me to post at moment). These are all the same kanji word. A kanji scroll is almost always some form of cursive, like the far right. And that cursive is not a standard, unlike English cursive - calligraphy cursive is an art and depends on each writer. There are very famous historical calligraphy artists who are known for a specific way they write one symbol.

They can’t write in cursive worth a shit either.

You don’t have a Chinese food place locally?

Dad’s not getting a tattoo that he thinks says “peace and love” but it really means “I suck dick all day” is he?

[YGIFS 19449]

I was today years old when my otherwise cultured self learned there was cursive script in their language.  

Looks like I have yet another excuse not to learn Mandarin.  I can't even read my own cursive handwriting anymore.  I doubt I can just take up this ^ script in my late 40's to seem "global."  

I have to block print, slowly, if I want any shot in hell at anyone being able to read what I wrote.  Although for some reason, my Spanish looks pretty good in cursive.  I'm obviously insane.  

[InkaUtexas 25857]

35 minutes ago, immamac said:

Hand written characters can't be OCR? News to me. Been around since palm pilot days but sure thing Sherlock. 

Not always and not accurate. Been down that road in a few places. You ever try to OCR Dari?

 

[Dahobbs 17522]

1 hour ago, InkaUtexas said:

Bunch of people who think Portuguese and Spanish are the same. I should have gone to Nextdoor for help.

FML.....

 

Thanks all, getting the picture and will send to a few. Might be Yamamoto's surrender note.

At least for Portuguese and Spanish, if you can read one, you can mostly read the other (especially with a bit of explanation of the most common differences). Now, understanding someone speaking from Brazil or, God forbid, someone from Portugal would be an entirely different matter. Chinese and Japanese are much farther apart. 

[gsoda3 3245]

1 hour ago, Jkwellborn said:

They can’t write in cursive worth a shit either.

You don’t have a Chinese food place locally?

Dad’s not getting a tattoo that he thinks says “peace and love” but it really means “I suck dick all day” is he?

if it's written in poetic or one of the other formal forms your typical chinese reader won't be able to make sense of the meaning even though they can read the individual characters.  it's somewhat like a typical american picking up a legal document for the first time and trying to understand what's going on. 

2 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

PM cool?

that works

[InkaUtexas 25857]

18 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

At least for Portuguese and Spanish, if you can read one, you can mostly read the other (especially with a bit of explanation of the most common differences). Now, understanding someone speaking from Brazil or, God forbid, someone from Portugal would be an entirely different matter. Chinese and Japanese are much farther apart. 

Fine. So explain the difference between Brincar in the two languages.

I made an ass of myself one day messing them up.

And can I toss in Mozambique for shits and giggles?

[Sam Lin 3550]

5 hours ago, immamac said:

Hand written characters can't be OCR? News to me. Been around since palm pilot days but sure thing Sherlock. 

Palm wasn't doing OCR. It was reading touch keystrokes and correlating the desired letter. This is much easier to do because you have direction, pressure, sequence, and relative positions for each touch that you can individually teach, and actually works very well as an input method for Mandarin on smartphones (finger draw the kanji on the touchpad). Mandarin kanji is always written in a specific keystroke sequence; just teaching the sequence of stroke positions can tell you the word, or at least rule out 90% of the possibilities.

[Armybrat 40820]

7 hours ago, Sam Lin said:

This is incorrect, there are two written forms of Chinese: traditional and simplified. As the names might hint, the more complex kanji characters are...simpler in the simplified form. Most new students are being taught simplified. Analogy: similar to the US not teaching cursive, some of the young generation cannot read all the traditional words as a result.

 

This is only partially correct. Only some of the characters are the same. The meanings also vary in many cases, so while you could read it, you may not get the correct meaning out of it. Analogy: we as English writers can read written French as it mostly uses the Roman alphabet. We can even read some Cyrillic because of alphabet overlap. But we don't get the meaning unless we actually know the language.

 

This isn't real different than any language. Just like in English there are a ton of words that are infrequently used or are olde Englische. We remove English words from the dictionary every year. Same goes in other languages.

 

 

Likely no, depending on the type of scroll this is. If it is a calligraphy artwork, depending on the artist style, it will barely be recognizable as a specific kanji symbol. Even if it wasn't heavily stylized, there are font and structure differences in words over time (just like we have different spellings of aluminium). There is a LOT of effort going in to OCR of Chinese calligraphy. I haven't seen a really good solution yet.

Look at this photo for example (sorry for picture of a screen, quickest way for me to post at moment). These are all the same kanji word. A kanji scroll is almost always some form of cursive, like the far right. And that cursive is not a standard, unlike English cursive - calligraphy cursive is an art and depends on each writer. There are very famous historical calligraphy artists who are known for a specific way they write one symbol.

That’s Greek to me.

[HeHateMe 883]

他妈的你妈妈

[Slacks 6819]

On 6/19/2024 at 10:45 AM, Sam Lin said:

This is incorrect, there are two written forms of Chinese: traditional and simplified. As the names might hint, the more complex kanji characters are...simpler in the simplified form. Most new students are being taught simplified. Analogy: similar to the US not teaching cursive, some of the young generation cannot read all the traditional words as a result.

 

This is only partially correct. Only some of the characters are the same. The meanings also vary in many cases, so while you could read it, you may not get the correct meaning out of it. Analogy: we as English writers can read written French as it mostly uses the Roman alphabet. We can even read some Cyrillic because of alphabet overlap. But we don't get the meaning unless we actually know the language.

 

This isn't real different than any language. Just like in English there are a ton of words that are infrequently used or are olde Englische. We remove English words from the dictionary every year. Same goes in other languages.

 

 

Likely no, depending on the type of scroll this is. If it is a calligraphy artwork, depending on the artist style, it will barely be recognizable as a specific kanji symbol. Even if it wasn't heavily stylized, there are font and structure differences in words over time (just like we have different spellings of aluminium). There is a LOT of effort going in to OCR of Chinese calligraphy. I haven't seen a really good solution yet.

Look at this photo for example (sorry for picture of a screen, quickest way for me to post at moment). These are all the same kanji word. A kanji scroll is almost always some form of cursive, like the far right. And that cursive is not a standard, unlike English cursive - calligraphy cursive is an art and depends on each writer. There are very famous historical calligraphy artists who are known for a specific way they write one symbol.

 

On 6/19/2024 at 10:53 AM, Pato del Muerto said:

You’re not even going to tell us what English word or phrase that symbol means?

 

On 6/19/2024 at 11:14 AM, gsoda3 said:

google translate shoulda told you it means dragon. or maybe it couldn't i dunno.  

for context, here's the simplified way to write dragon.

龙

i probably can't help too much but post a pic.  

Google lens did find a match and tell me it's Dragon 

[RDCanecutter 26378]

Back to the scroll, when reading it, did anybody's face melt?

[RPM 26315]

It translates to "Soul brother too beaucoup."

[hookemATL 11701]

9 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

Back to the scroll, when reading it, did anybody's face melt?

Exactly. Secret Chinese scrolls? This is prime “unleash curse and have demons possess yo shit” territory. 
 

[Jkwellborn 6686]

It translates to "Soul brother too beaucoup."

What we have here is a fine specimen of Alabama black snake. And it ain’t too damn boo coo.

[Jkwellborn 6686]

Double tap

[Slacks 6819]

On 6/24/2024 at 3:11 AM, RPM said:

It translates to "Soul brother too beaucoup."

[atomheartbevo 89621]

On 6/18/2024 at 10:11 PM, Da Fino said:

This looks like one of those things that I trust because I like you guys, but ends up getting me in trouble. 

A wrong hole in Chinese is also a wrong hole in Japanese.

[RPM 26315]

On 6/29/2024 at 3:35 PM, atomheartbevo said:

A wong hole in Chinese is also a wong hole in Japanese.

I'll show myself out.