# talents of a linguistic person



## zerduja

I wanted to ask other people s opinions in this:  since a computer has already defeated the world champion at chess,and since there is nothing equal to human translator; would that not make a linguistic person more talented than a great chess player?


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## 1234plet

Hmm... Good question? Maybe? 
I don't know actually. It's like human vs the computer... And I don't know if the computer is smarter than the human, because we did build the computer, but the computer did also win that chess championship?


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## Cereth

A computer is programmed by a human, I think the human who programmed that computer was smarter than the chess player.

period.


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## 1234plet

Cereth said:


> A computer is programmed by a human, I think the human who programmed that computer was smarter than the chess player.
> 
> period.


 
Yes! That's precisely what I mean!


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## Etcetera

Chess are very logical. Translating demands a lot of creative work. When you're translating something, you don't just re-write a few sentences in another language - you create a new text. An impossible task for the computer!


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## Frank06

Hi,


zerduja said:


> I wanted to ask other people s opinions in this:  since a computer has already defeated the world champion at chess,and since there is nothing equal to human translator; would that not make a linguistic person more talented than a great chess player?


A translator isn't (necessarily) a linguist. Apart from that, I find it a weird kind of logic and a weird comparison (chess v. translating).

BTW, a car is faster than an athlete, but my neighbour is better at solving sudukus than the car. Is my neighbour more talented than the athlete?

Groetjes,

Frank


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## pedro0001

Computers can't think, they compute. Computers are not smart, because they cannot think.

In what respect to your question, my answer is no. There are differnet types of intelligence and talents.


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## 1234plet

Frank06 said:


> BTW, a car is faster than an athlet, but my neighbour is better at solving sudukus than the car. Is my neighbour more talented than the athlet?


 
Again, can't be compared. And actually, chess and translation can't really either, because it's two different subjects. Sudokus and athletics can't be compared...


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## maxiogee

The process of chess is mathematical, the process of translating is not. They cannot be compared.

There is only one way to report that Black moved his Bishop to King4, the ways of describing the looks on White's face when this happened are legion.


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## Frank06

Hi,


1234plet said:


> Again, can't be compared. And actually, chess and translation can't really either, because it's two different subjects. Sudokus and athletics can't be compared...



That was exactly my point .
I remember an old translating program (late 80s?) that translated 'a day like yesterday' into French as 'un jour aimer hier'. Most online translating thingies still seem to be stuck in that phase. It gives great poetry if you translate one single sentence back and forth a few times, but bad translations. 

Groetjes,

Frank


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## 1234plet

Frank06 said:


> I remember an old translating program (late 80s?) that translated 'a day like yesterday' into French as 'un jour aimer hier'.


 

Haha, *bad *translation, really bad. But funny though.


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## Drama

> A translator isn't (necessarily) a linguist. Apart from that, I find it a weird kind of logic and a weird comparison (chess v. translating).


 
Just couldn`t have  put it better! it`s oranges and juices you are trying to compare.


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## Julito_Maraña

I like the analogy and so do many philosophers psycholinguists, mathematicians and cognitive scientists: 

http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_1_97.html

But I'm glad you all think it's silly. It shows that we have a smart crowd here. If you think about it, it's very poor analogy.


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## cuchuflete

zerduja said:


> I wanted to ask other people s opinions in this:  since a computer has already defeated the world champion at chess,and since there is nothing equal to human translator; would that not make a linguistic person more talented than a great chess player?



The computer generated chess moves resulted from an application program with a reasonably defined mission.  One or more talented programmers were able to define the scope and logic of chess.   

Language has a much broader scope, and its rules, such as they are, are flexible, whereas those in chess are tightly defined.  If and when programmers can define the scope and the rules of languages--hard to do, as these are moving targets--they may be able to express those in more effective code.

The respective talents of chess players and translators can be debated, but the insertion of a computer into the discussion really points to the challenges of programming, much more than to translating and chess playing.


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## Tsoman

Wanna see me compose a shakespearean poem? I'll type a simple story:

On friday I drove to my town to visit my family. My dad was there and together we went to the pub. We had a beer and a nice conversation. The next day, we went on a trip to a neighboring town to go for a hike. It was my brother's birthday so we also had a special dinner. On sunday, we ate breakfast together and I fixed my grandmothers computer. Later that day, I had to leave.

www.freetranslation.com

English > Spanish > English > German > English .... and viola Shakespear

I treated Friday to my city to visit my family.  My father was there and together we were al rod.  We had a beer and a comfortable conversation.  Al following day, go past we a trip to an adjacent city to go for an excursion on foot.  My birthday of the brother was so that we had also a special supper.  Sunday, we have breakfast together and I have my computer of the grandmothers set.  I had to leave following that day.


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## übermönch

A human has quite a lot of algorithms he continiously combines running through his mind- it's just a matter of time to teach all of them to a computer. It's not that impossible, but considerably harder than chess. Some commercial translators get  close enough to do my French homework for me.


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## curly

I'd like to point out the the computer that beat Gary Kasparov, Deep blue, or deep thought(though that might just be douglas Adams) was beaten several time by Kasparov both before and after the the match that the computer won.

(by  the way here's a fun experiment if you have a super computer lying around your house, teach it the rules of chess, and then start playing a game of checkers)


Ronnie o'sullivan is a fantastic snooker player, but i could beat quite soundly at halo 2, Tiger Woods can beat me at golf with one arm tied behind his back, but i'm willing to bet that i could out bowl him in a cricket match.

There are many diiferent types of intelligence, the only way to Look at it is that computers are programmably perfect(more or less), while humans are adaptable.


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## UltimateDiscDork

The game of Chess has been around for how long? and how many times has it changed? and yet look at how our languages have changed according to the developing cultures they are a part of.  Adaptation has always been one of man's greatest abilities.  

That is also a great point of defining what exactly talent means.  Even the definition of intelligence has changed recently.  Look up "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman.  Try comparing someone who can compute complex chemical equations with someone who can solve a murder mystery.  Also, try comparing the kid who gets the top grade in his class with the kid who can get to lvl 2,000 of the most popular video game.  The greatest conversations I have are about who the greatest musician of all time is.  Everyone has a different one with that challenge.

Our special abilities as unique individuals are what I call our "talents".  Take the idiot-savant from "Sling Blade" who can diagnose and repair a lawn mower engine in no time.  A valuable asset to the lawn-mowing society he was a part of, yet his social skills are obviously to the point where he is/was barely functioning.  Would you call this guy talented?  Would you call him intelligent?

I think most of us would say no, but there is obviously room for argument.


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## Hakro

maxiogee said:


> The process of chess is mathematical, the process of translating is not. They cannot be compared.
> 
> There is only one way to report that Black moved his Bishop to King4, the ways of describing the looks on White's face when this happened are legion.


You said it all. There's nothing to add, nothing to leave out.


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## french4beth

No computer that is currently available can hope to meet the complexity of the human brain.  I just attended a lecture given by a neurologist - the human brain is endlessly fascinating and incredibly complex.


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## maxiogee

french4beth said:


> I just attended a lecture given by a neurologist - the human brain is endlessly fascinating and incredibly complex.



Hah, so is my Macintosh!  And it can speak and spell, though admittedly that is American so we'll have to say it's imperfect as yet..


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## french4beth

maxiogee said:


> Hah, so is my Macintosh!  And it can speak and spell, though admittedly that is American so we'll have to say it's imperfect as yet..


From an _imperfect_ American: But _who _programmed your Mac? Generally, human babies arrive with all hardware/software intact!


yeah Tony, but can your Macintosh cause you to burp & fart at the same time?  Men are from Mars, women are from Venus...


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## maxiogee

french4beth said:


> From an _imperfect_ American: But _who _programmed your Mac? Generally, human babies arrive with all hardware/software intact!



The begetters of both my mac and the baby next door passed on their coding to their progeny! That's how inheritance works. My Mac just had more parents and fewer ancestors  It is only 4th generation and operating system 10.


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## Julito_Maraña

übermönch said:


> It's not that impossible, but considerably harder than chess.



A computer would not know what to do with a sentence like that. Part of it is that from a strictly logical point of view what you wrote is gibberish. *Possible *can either be on or off. It can't be "somewhat on", or "very on", or "not that on." And computers work on the principle of _on _and _off_. That's what the zeros and ones in binary code stand for. 

But none of us think it is gibberish. You have to be a real jerk to read that sentence and think the person who wrote it is not quite right in the head. I read the context and say: this person is bilingual and is probably not a native English speaker so I need to be more flexible with how I judge his English. Maybe there are degrees of impossiblility in German or maybe that's gramatical German. Or maybe you are just taking the kind of liberties we take in Santo Domingo when we say something is "imposibilisisisismo." That's like saying somebody is 'very pregnant.' but we allow 'imposibilisimo' and disallow 'very pregnant.' 

And the language changes, so even if we enter all the data, it has to be updated constantly. It also varies geographically and according to social class. I don't like to say it's impossible but it was supposed to happen, along with flying cars, a long time ago.

I'm a computer programmer and my experience has been that computers are quite stupid. People are smart and say : "I know what he means; I would never say it that way and neither would anybody I know but I know what he means." And I could have read that kind of sentence for the very first time and understood it. A computer needs input. We have Universal Grammar.


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## zerduja

Very well stated.  The actual reason I began this thread is because of comments of Phil Hellmuth(8 time world champ poker) to fellow members of "icc chess" which were "mastering foreign languages is far more difficult than mastering chess" interesting enough Phil does have chess ratings far above expert level.


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## Sallyb36

Julito_Maraña said:


> A computer would not know what to do with a sentence like that. Part of it is that from a strictly logical point of view what you wrote is gibberish. *Possible *can either be on or off. It can't be "somewhat on", or "very on", or "not that on." And computers work on the principle of _on _and _off_. That's what the zeros and ones in binary code stand for.
> 
> But none of us think it is gibberish. You have to be a real jerk to read that sentence and think the person who wrote it is not quite right in the head. I read the context and say: this person is bilingual and is probably not a native English speaker so I need to be more flexible with how I judge his English. Maybe there are degrees of impossiblility in German or maybe that's gramatical German. Or maybe you are just taking the kind of liberties we take in Santo Domingo when we say something is "imposibilisisisismo." That's like saying somebody is *'very pregnant*.' but we allow 'imposibilisimo' and disallow 'very pregnant.'
> 
> And the language changes, so even if we enter all the data, it has to be updated constantly. It also varies geographically and according to social class. I don't like to say it's impossible but it was supposed to happen, along with flying cars, a long time ago.
> 
> I'm a computer programmer and my experience has been that computers are quite stupid. People are smart and say : "I know what he means; I would never say it that way and neither would anybody I know but I know what he means." And I could have read that kind of sentence for the very first time and understood it. A computer needs input. We have Universal Grammar.




A little off the ponint but had to point out that we do say very pregnant if someone is nearing the end of their pregnancy, very or heavily pregnant.


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## Julito_Maraña

Sallyb36 said:


> A little off the ponint but had to point out that we do say very pregnant if someone is nearing the end of their pregnancy, very or heavily pregnant.



I think that's very much on point. Perhaps you allow "very pregnant" because you are British. There are things that the UK computers would allow that US computers would not allow. "She's in hospital" comes to mind. Also "Brazil are a great team." The US computers shouldn't produce that output and the UK computers have to.

The first time I heard "he hadn't bothered to give it to us back" I could make sense of it. Can a computer be programmed to do that? Maybe. I know that it can't come close today. Not even people can make out different meanings. This is the first time I've heard of "very pregnant" and to be honest had you not explained it I would be lost. I went back and forth under a subway in London three times before I realized that the sign was an English sign: *subways *in England don't have trains.


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## maxiogee

Julito_Maraña said:


> I went back and forth under a subway in London three times before I realized that the sign was an English sign: *subways *in England don't have trains.



I hate to quibble with someone I don't know well, but you didn't go "under" a British subway - you went through it  Unless you were doing a bit of independent tunnelling, of course.


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## Julito_Maraña

> I hate to quibble with someone I don't know well, but you didn't go "under" a British subway - you went through it  Unless you were doing a bit of independent tunnelling, of course.



That's exactly what a computer would have said!


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