As part of a character background I'm working on, I was thinking of having one of his family members be a government translator...but with the existance of Linguasofts, do they still exist? I seem to remember in more than one place talking about Linguasofts not being 100% accurate or complete, so I would think that a truly bi-lingual translator would still be a valuable asset.

Opinions?

Linguasofts lack the nuance of a (meta)human translator. Matador mentions this in Fields of Fire, where he advises mercs to learn the language from a local speaker, not from a linguasoft.

So then they'd still be practical, especially in government applications?

Was thinking of having the character's mother be a UCAS-born half blooded Ute, working for the Department of State as a Ute translator.

At higher levels where the wording of an agreement is subject to the strictest scrutiny, yes. At working level, not necessarily practical. Useful perhaps.

Hmm...maybe not so much as a diplomatic use as an intelligence? Department of Defense, or Homeland Security, instead of State?

Plus the companies that build the linguasofts would need translators.
Which is funny, because as linguasofts become more popular, the number of people who are bilingual will go down naturally - making it harder to find competant translators.

There are several intelligence uses for bi/multi-lingual people.

1) Communication intercepts - The intercepts are often made by people who are trained and know how to insert or work certain codewords into their conversations. So even if you are a native speaker, you might not be able to spot the codewords and even if you do, you might not know what they mean.

2) Training - Language schools who train people to speak other languages. They often have to train people to speak the language in the shortest possible time and teach them not only the proper use of the language but the "street" versions of it.

Often in intel, the person with the knowledge of the language is the guy on the ground making contact, not purely as a translator. The only time I suppose that a translator simply for translation is necessary is when a high level communication is intercepted and they need to milk as much info from the nuances as possible and at that ;evel, you'd want a professor of the language and I doubt you'd be able to find a linguasoft of that rating.

The best example I can think of for this comes from real life:

Take a Japanese kid who has learned classroom english, and drop them in a pub in Dublin. This is going to be an effect simalar to that of trying to use a linguisoft in a slang-heavy area (i.e. the sorts of low class places shadowrunners wind up).

A linguasoft would probably be a good translator but not an interpreter.

Say a frantic guy comes running up to you on the street, shouting something. Most of what he says may be exclamations and stammering, and a linguasoft might "hear" something wrong because it doesn't allow for the context, or it might begin to lag. An interpreter would be able to pull the important parts of the speech out and pass them on in a timely matter.

Also consider the differences in grammar. A linguasoft may have to hear an entire sentence before sorting it into say the subject-verb-object structure of English, so you don't really get your info in real-time this'd make conversations with linguasofts irritating.

Fields of fire also suggests that learning an area's language shows a lot of respect; when you are able to have a real conversation, people are a lot more likely to talk to you.

Alledgedly, the exact term he used is popular slang for, ah, lacking sexual prowess. I never got a good enough handle on the language to confirm that, so there's always the possibility the professor was a perv instead.

I like hiring translators local, manly because of dialects, one language is spoken many different ways even in a rather small geographical area. Plus translators in these places are also usually good guides to the city or region you want to do work in. And they can vouche for you to the local bosses till you get known in the area and can operate on your own.

I've always treated linguasofts as sort of a better version of babelfish. I'm sure we've all played the "what can I get from this sentence" game with the various online translation software.

After just a few passes through different languages, you almost always end up with complete gibberish, even on simple sentences.

For example, "Which way did the red sports car go?" translated to and then from french ended up as "Which manner the sports car of red did it disappear?"

As a shadowrunner, you might actually need to ask which way the red sportscar went, so this may pose a problem.

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The way I run it, chipped languages won't replace actual language skills. It will work, in the same way that a pocket english-french dictionary will work. You can get your point across, but that's about it. You can communicate, but not converse.

I think the quality of the linguasoft would determine most of the problems in this thread. A high-quality program would allow you to survive in a pub in Dublin.

Though the bit about waiting for the whole sentence before translating was a good one; and the same with weaning out the unimportant words...

An example of the subtleties of language: I was volunteer-tutoring a lady from Mexico who wanted to prepare questions for the teacher of her seven-year-old. One of the questions she wrote out by herself was "Does he make many friends at school? I ask because he tells me he plays with himself a lot."
I had to delicately explain why her sentence, although technically correct, held a completely different meaning. She was very grateful that we edited the question before it went to the teacher.

There's also the issue of body-language. Is a linguasoft gonna know stuff like 'don't show them the soles of your feet?' Hey, maybe a really good one would!

Wouhou! French teacher here

"I am cold" would be translated as "J'ai froid". The French version actually means in English "I have cold". So the French version uses a different verb... Same goes with age. In English, you "are" a certain age; in French, you "have" a certain age...

As for lack of sexual performance, you can actually say "une femme froide" but a better expression would be "femme frigide" which has the same meaning as "frigid woman" I think...

And speaking of translators, let's just hope we will always need teachers too

BTW, do you think you could actually learn a skill faster using skillsofts? especially linguasoft...

Peace!

Crossfire

I'm pretty sure that some cultures would see it as a sign of affection.

I think that would depend very much on whether or not you've bought the guy a drink first.

Personally, I would say no. The difference being the French-English dictionary helps you to do something. The Linguasoft does something for you. You're as unlikely to pick French up from a Linguasoft as you are to pick it up from your interpreter. You'll probably learn a couple words, particularly if there's something memorable about them, but it won't take you anywhere close to fluency. You'd need to stop using it for that, at least part of the time you're using the language.

This thread reminded me...

I've been wanting to make an adept/bioware face, with the Linguistics power from SotA 2064 and Mnemonic Enhancer 3.

Could speak almost any language fluently after hearing it for a few hours.