Hammie said:
Depriving people of any rights because they don't speak the language of the majority is wrong.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

There's no "except if they don't speak English" in there.

Are you daft? Deprivation is intentional. A store owner is depriving a customer of service because he can't understand what the guy is saying, as opposed to everyone else, and therefore cannot conduct appropriate business with him? This is why people think all furries are stupid.

Not allowing non-english speakers "the same privileges that are standard to those that speak the language of the majority"(your words, not mine) means they are not provided an equal right to the pursuit of happiness.

Hammie said:
Not allowing non-english speakers "the same privileges that are standard to those that speak the language of the majority"(your words, not mine) means they are not provided an equal right to the pursuit of happiness.

I don't know where you live, but here, if a merchant can't do proper business with a consumer because the consumer doesn't speak the language that the people in that region speak, the shopkeeper isn't at fault. If you want to pursue happiness, pursue it in a way that you can understand.

Please tell me you're trolling.

Where I live if a shopkeeper and customer don't speak the same language, they do their best to make themselves understood, typically manage a transaction through pointing and holding up a number of fingers etc. and then both go home happy because the shop got money and the customer got what they were shopping for.

Hammie said:
Where I live if a shopkeeper and customer don't speak the same language, they do their best to make themselves understood, typically manage a transaction through pointing and holding up a number of fingers etc. and then both go home happy because the shop got money and the customer got what they were shopping for.

A simple stand can be done like that, but for anywhere else where you have to actually elaborate upon what you want, that wouldn't be viable.

http://www.jibbigo.com/website/

Hammie said:
http://www.jibbigo.com/website/

That's what I said at the start of this whole thing.

Raiden Gekkou said:
If you come to America and decide to do business in an American store, don't be surprised if you're refused service because you can't speak english. Learn the language before you go to the country, or hire a full time translator.

Not quite the same as hiring a translator :P

That's an iPhone. As much as those cost, you're hiring it.

Digital translation is never, ever as accurate as actually speaking the language; it's foolish to even imply it is.

Indeed, it will however get you through 99.99999% of all personal business transactions with someone who speaks a different language.
That makes it sufficient.

Raiden_Gekkou said:
That's an iPhone. As much as those cost, you're hiring it.

Also available for the android, total cost assuming the standard 2 year contract = about $85.

So, yeah, not the same as hiring a translator.

Hammie said:
Indeed, it will however get you through 99.99999% of all personal business transactions with someone who speaks a different language.
That makes it sufficient.

Except translation software is not that accurate by any stretch of the imagination. Do you have anything more to fall back on or are you just pulling numbers out of your ass? Let's see some sources.

How complex do you think it needs to be for day to day activities?

Hammie said:
How complex do you think it needs to be for day to day activities?

The question isn't complexity, it's accuracy. Translation software today still completely mangles meaning. We are tens of years away from 'perfect' translation software, so saying that it's the perfect be-all-end-all for language barriers is not just foolish, it's outright stupid. If it was the case, then why aren't they used by every non-English speaker? Oh, right, they're prohibitively expensive (for the good ones) and aren't even all that accurate.

I'm fairly sure they're accurate enough for:
"I'd like a cheesburger, no onion"
"Do you have this in a size 10?"
"Twenty dollars on pump 5"
etc.

Hammie said:
I'm fairly sure they're accurate enough for:
"I'd like a cheesburger, no onion"
"Do you have this in a size 10?"
"Twenty dollars on pump 5"
etc.

Translated.
"I like cheeseburger, no umbrella"
"Do yoou have ten sizes?"
"sucky sucky 5 dorrar"

Last one i made up but still XD

I dare you to find me any language where onion and umbrella are the same word.

Hammie said:
I dare you to find me any language where onion and umbrella are the same word.

who says they have to be

No, sorry, they're not.

Let's have some fun translating that with some translation software, shall we?

English: "I'd like a cheesburger, no onion."
Japanese: "チーズバーガーがたいないタマネギ。"
English: "たいない onion cheese."

Wow, that didn't make much sense. Let's try another.

English: Do you have this in a size 10?
Japanese: これは 10 でサイズありますか
English: This is the size in 10?

Admittedly still technically understandable, but still a problem! Let's try the last one, shall we?

English: Twenty dollars on pump 5.
Japanese: $ 20 5。ポンプ
English: $ 20 5. Pump

Oh my, that totally destroyed the syntax! Let's try something a bit more complicated and more useful!

English: Excuse me, I am lost. Where is the post office, I want to send a letter.
Japanese: 私は残念、私は失われる。郵便書簡を送りたいどこ私。
English: I'm sorry, I'm lost. Where you want to send a letter-I.

Not only did it lose the entire destination, it lost the subject AND mangled the grammar! Wow, such wonderful things these translation programs are!

To further drive the point home, let's take a classic piece of literature, Hamlet, and translate a piece!

Original:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life

With the 'help' of translation software (English-spanish-english):

To be or not to be, that one is the question; If ' tis more noble in the head to undergo the slings and you shoot with an arrow of the indignante fortune, Or to take the arms against a sea from hardships, and being been against, to finish those. In order to die, to dream; Not over; and by a dream to say we were finished the pain and the thousand natural shocks that meat is the heir - ' tis a consumation devoutly to being wish' d. In order to die, to sleep; In order to sleep, to perhaps dream. Ay, there' s the rubbing, stops in that dream of the death what dreams can come, when we have mixed ourselves of this mortal coil, we must occur stop. There' s the respect that so makes terrible of long life.

I'm so glad these translators are 99.9% correct!

Not correct, effective.
First, that's a double machine translation, so twice the potential for mistakes.
Second, If presented with 3 of those 4 results(not the cheeseburger one) and knowing that they're using translation software so clearly it won't be 100% accurate I could work out what they were asking.

Oh, and for the 4th one, I'd bring them the picture menu that McDonalds has for illiterate people.

Edit: also, try the same for French, German, and Spanish.

My point is still illustrated. Your 'solution' is not a solution.

Hammie said:
picture menu that McDonalds has for illiterate people.

Which country has this?

As someone who speaks a little bit of Japanese, I can vouch that example 1 was translated from E to J passably enough, 2 was pretty good, 3 and 4 were both pretty much completely butchered. All were incorrect to some degree, however, which undoubtedly made the translation back to E that much worse.

Edit: Holy balls, ninja'd three times (4 if you count the edit to Blaz's post).

Edit edit: And the original English sentences were not entirely grammatically correct, either, which is part of why depending on translation software is fundamentally wrongheaded, unless you can not only guarantee that you are grammatically correct, but that person you're interacting with will respond in kind.

Raiden_Gekkou said:
Which country has this?

Uhh, the US, it's required by Corporate McDonalds.

Sadly the majority of the minimum wage slaves at the restaurant don't know that.
I did when I worked there though, and we had them at all 4 different restaurants I worked at.

Raiden_Gekkou said:
Which country has this?

retardia

ikdind said:
As someone who speaks a little bit of Japanese, I can vouch that example 1 was translated from E to J passably enough, 2 was pretty good, 3 and 4 were both pretty much completely butchered. All were incorrect to some degree, however, which undoubtedly made the translation back to E that much worse.

Edit: Holy balls, ninja'd three times (4 if you count the edit to Blaz's post).

5 times, I edited my post as well.

Hammie said:
5 times, I edited my post as well.

I think that means everyone should stop, take a deep breath, count to 10, and only then consider whether this is worth continuing to bicker about.

I'll start first.

ikdind said:
I think that means everyone should stop, take a deep breath, count to 10, and only then consider whether this is worth continuing to bicker about.

I'll start first.

See, this could have ended long ago if Hammie and Raiden Gekkou didn't bicker on like old women about 'OH MUH FREEDOMZ'. I stepped in to end it.

tl;dr: you can't even comprehend how not-mad I am

For those curious:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rG2yBDDhrCc/T-_NKot7-jI/AAAAAAAAFqQ/DabSvkDRhAY/s1600/braille.jpg

Those are (supposed to be) in every McDonalds posted by the front counter and the drive through.

Blaz's Hamlet translation reminds me of another silly use of software.

Autosummarize: The top 100 most downloaded copyright free books summarized using Microsoft Word 2008’s AutoSummarize 10-sentence function and organized alphabetically.

Apparently A Doll's House is all about Nora.

Nora. Nora. Nora. Nora. Nora. Nora. Nora! Nora. Nora. Nora.

Aurali said:
retardia

I was going to say Faggotronia, but they're neighboring contries, and it'd make sense for them both to have it.

Autosummarize:

The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
by Vatsyayana
MEN. WOMEN. MEN. WOMEN.
MEN. WOMEN. MEN. WOMEN.
Learned men.
Young men

Bueno.

I just spent two days in Chicago, and a huge amount of people there speak other languages primarily. I don't think I really met any employees (cashiers, bus drivers, etc.) that spoke it well. And walking down the street, there's almost as many people not speaking English as there are speaking English.

So, like, how did this thread manage to get derailed to social, historical, economical and political issues of the USA within the first few comments?

Anyway, @OP. Around here English is a dominating foreign language. Pretty much everyone <30 can speak/understand it at least slightly. Although I have to admit that a very small percentage speaks it very fluently and have high comprehension skills. Also, most technology related terms are of English origin (linguists are trying to change that but everyone's resisting because the terms they thought up are fucking stupid), so yeah , it's quite a big influence. :P

I find the influence of the English language extremely positive, really. With the widespread use of it all around the world (well , mostly Europe), it's probably the baby steps towards an universal language on Earth, which would be amazing to have.

Also, I wouldn't say English is a hard language to learn (I might be biased on this subject), especially when you see/hear the language absolutely everywhere: TV, movies, food etc. I pretty much learned English just by watching cartoons as a kid. :| I mean fuck , I find my own language way harder than English.

Did you know that if you go through the drive-thru at McDonalds and ask for a Braille menu, they'll give you one?

AbsebaroKoon said:
*facepalms* this thread is... A language on its own.

of*

>:3

AbsebaroKoon said:
On is correct too. *butthurt*

...you're right. We'll never speak of this again. *shame*

probably a good idea to learn how to speak english...

Blaziken said:
Do you not know what an opinion is?

"But it was an opinion" is not a defense for a closed minded, ignorant and arrogant argument.

gotta_go_fast said:
"But it was an opinion" is not a defense for a closed minded, ignorant and arrogant argument.

I wasn't making an argument, kid. If I was making an argument there'd be sources.

Hammie said:
probably a good idea to learn how to speak english...

so fahny joek